Fan Lists Himself As a Band's Family Member On Wikipedia To Sneak Backstage (theguardian.com) 91
AmiMoJo writes: A music fan in Melbourne managed to sneak his way backstage at a gig this week by editing a band's Wikipedia page on his phone. David Spargo was attending a show by Australian duo Peking Duk when he had a "lightbulb-above-the-head kind of moment." After editing Peking Duk's Wikipedia entry to list him under "family," he approached a security guard with his ID, saying he was the step-brother of band member Reuben Styles and producing his phone as proof. "I stood out there for five minutes and I started to think this isn't going to work," Spargo told The Guardian. "Then Reuben pops his head out and is like, 'hey bro, come on in.'"
So it DIDN'T work (Score:5, Insightful)
So then, it didn't work. After five minutes of laughing they decided to meet the guy who thought it actually would. Then for some reason the Guardian ran a story about it (slow news day?) and for some even more inexplicable reason it ended up on Slashdot.
Re: So it DIDN'T work (Score:4, Funny)
Inexplicable? You haven't been on Slashdot for a while then.
Re:So it DIDN'T work (Score:5, Insightful)
Its about having big balls -- the bold reap rewards.
We've got a lot of big talkers around here. This guy actually walked the walk instead of just pretending to be bold from the safety of his mom's basement. The band admired the guy's chutzpah and rewarded him for it. That's the lesson here.
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So the Trump-Hitler school of politicking then?
Re:So it DIDN'T work (Score:5, Insightful)
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> So the Trump-Hitler school of politicking then?
Yeah, sneaking backstage at a concert is just like the holocaust.
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I got backstage to meet my favourite band (Anacrusis) back in the 90s. I had just attended a course at one of IBM's many offices, and was still wearing my IBM ID badge. I folded my ticket in half, slipped it in the badge, and nodded confidently to the bouncer as I walked past him. Then I walked into the first room and asked where the band were. They told me, but then I got cocky and told them how I'd got in. Turns out these were all bouncers. They said "give me one good reason why I don't kick your as
Re:So it DIDN'T work (Score:4, Insightful)
They told me, but then I got cocky and told them how I'd got in.
Lesson don't drop your pretext before you have met the objective.
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Generally this is true, but every rule has an exception. Iggy Pop is one. I'm sure he's actually a robot sent back from the future.
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The Rolling Drains? Dead Zeppelin? The Beached Boys? And let's not forget the thousandth "Who" (gives a F#@k) reunion .. I mean .. that singer still has a range of 0.15 octaves... Man.. Thank god for You Tube 60s retro videos
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Re:So it DIDN'T work (Score:5, Funny)
Its about having big balls -- the bold reap rewards.
We've got a lot of big talkers around here. This guy actually walked the walk instead of just pretending to be bold from the safety of his mom's basement. The band admired the guy's chutzpah and rewarded him for it. That's the lesson here.
Heh. I got myself off of a particular telemarketing firm's call list a while back; they were actually a local company pushing "the go green campaign" and I was able to glean enough information out of the caller to figure out the name of the real company. I used that information to find the name of the owner on Linked In and I then used his name to find his contact information, based on some stuff he'd handed out at a trade show or something. I called him at dinner time on his personal phone and we had a little chat about his company calling despite my repeated insistence that they stop; never heard from them after that ever again.
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Its about having big balls -- the bold reap rewards.
We've got a lot of big talkers around here. This guy actually walked the walk instead of just pretending to be bold from the safety of his mom's basement. The band admired the guy's chutzpah and rewarded him for it. That's the lesson here.
Ah, this might be a minor point here, but if you're looking to showcase the rewards of actually leaving Mom's basement, you're probably talking to the wrong forum.
Wait, no, that's not quite right. You are talking to the wrong forum.
Re:So it DIDN'T work (Score:4, Funny)
It worked in the sense he got to meet the band!
I agree though, clearly the pretext itself failed. Obviously Reuben Styles decided he wanted to meet someone audacious enough to edit wikipedia and pretend to be his step-brother. So I say good for both of them.
Step-brother / brother was a questionable choice. I don't think I have ever met anyone who can't name the siblings and step siblings, paternity claims and such aside.
On the hand had he claimed to be a second cousin or something. That might fly with some people. I have known a lot of far flung families that are not very close where someone might not be able to name the children of their cousins, especially easy to image if their parent came from a large family or if their aunts or uncles had a large family.
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I don't think I have ever met anyone who can't name the siblings and step siblings, paternity claims and such aside.
My mom remarried when I was a teenager. My "new dad" was older and had several children from his previous two marriages. To this day, I don't really know how many step-siblings I actually have, much less what their names are.
Re:So it DIDN'T work (Score:5, Interesting)
Bordering on off-topic but tangentially related, I followed the link to the article and, I confess, I read it. I am sorry. I didn't really mean to but there was nothing posted and I'm not a first post kind of guy normally. Anyhow, it led me (by curiosity) to an "interesting" article on transhumanism. It turns out, it's not what I was expecting and I learned something. I mean something other than they're batshit insane.
http://www.theverge.com/a/tran... [theverge.com]
That, I think, would have made a better article than this. We could actually have an interesting discussion concerning that. It's a long, but not bad, read. I know, 'tis off-topic (and I'll post as me so you can happily mod me as such as I certainly deserve it) but it is kind of interesting. If I weren't so lazy, I'd submit it. Maybe someone else is interested in it? I'm not so good at that summary thing.
Did I mention they're batshit crazy? They've even got in-fighting and a presidential candidate but it would appear that not many people like him. He has a family and they tolerate him. It's a whole bowl of insanity but it's all very much tech related. It's all about tech, it seems. That and living forever. Oh, and batshit crazy seems to be mandatory. I'd ride around on the bus with him but that's because I'm easily amused. Hell, I'd even donate to his cause to ride around with him if I had time.
Anyhow, if you're bored and want something really tech related then there's an interesting article. I'd never looked into it but I always thought transhumanism was what those furry and vampire people were into. It turns out they're just people who want to augment their body with tech and, mostly, live forever.
I guess I'm not sorry for the OT post (if I was sorry, I'd not do it) but yeah, it's a far more interesting subject than someone editing Wikipedia and getting into a back-stage after-party using mostly social engineering and the people who were there actually opting to tolerate it. I expected it to be a not-so-attentive security guard opting to let them through without checking but it turns out that they did and that the band members let them get away with it. It's not really as exciting as it might have been and will teach me to not read the article. In all fairness, I was bored while awaiting some uploads to finish. FTP is still ungodly slow.
Re:So it DIDN'T work (Score:5, Funny)
Don't believe me? OK, Just give me five minutes and then check Wikipedia.
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It doesn't seem clear in the article? Did the guard believe him or did he and the bank members just think it was funny enough to let him in?
I really hope most of the world realized that anyone can edit Wikipedia at any time.
US President (Score:5, Funny)
Yea, I tried that and they didn't let me into the White House or call me Mr President.
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I call shenanigans, I'm almost certain that there would be no internet access to post that at Guantanamo Bay.
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They have real cops there and not the rent a cops you see at events / malls.
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It doesn't work that way.
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Should have brought a disassembled clock with you :)
Ah, memories (Score:5, Interesting)
Many years ago, a guy got backstage at a Grateful Dead concert by doing a "Pizza for Jerry Garcia" bit. (It helped that he had a couple pizzas.)
Apocryphally, someone tried a similar gag with Richard Nixon when he was running for President, and the Secret Service was not amused.
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>> a guy got backstage at a Grateful Dead concert by doing a "Pizza for Jerry Garcia" bit. (It helped that he had a couple pizzas.)
It also helped that stoners are known to get the munchies. Nixon, not so much.
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That trick also works with blowjobs and heroin.
Yeah, go the guard at a backstage door and say "pizza for a blowjob" and see how far you get.
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Many years ago I was working as a motorbike messenger (Italy), and I discovered that you could enter almost every office or building if you had some envelope or parcel, and a likely-sounding name or department to deliver it to.
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Apocryphally, someone tried a similar gag with Richard Nixon when he was running for President, and the Secret Service was not amused.
The pizza's had anchovies
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The pizza's had apostrophes
FTFY
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Apocryphally, someone tried a similar gag with Richard Nixon when he was running for President, and the Secret Service was not amused.
Things were looking good at first, but it turns out that there wasn't really a "Woodward and Bernstein's Pizza Palace" in that city.
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I will remove this post from Slashdot by means of closing my browsing tab. You're free to repost a new copy of it with a hacked timestamp when I return.
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It is only as Tlön begins to imagine us that we become aware of our own existence.
WikiPedia (Score:2)
Mr. Robot (Score:3)
This was a stunt they pulled in the show "Mr. Robot" (highly recommended, BTW), except it wasn't to meet a band. They were trying to sneak into a secure corporate facility, and the main character, Elliot, just shows up asking for a tour. Of course he's told they only do that by appointment, so he just says "You should look me up." After the old dufus tour guide checks his tablet and finds a detailed Wikipedia post about the young technical genius entrepreneur worth billions of dollars, he runs after him and offers him the tour.
Of course that kind of stunt doesn't work when you have actual competent security, but every place has vulnerabilities.
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The comedian Whitney Cummings shared a story on some late night show once about arriving at the airport late and without ID or something. The guy at the ticket counter was stonewalling until she convinced him to google her to prove who she was. He very shortly escorted her through security and got her on her plane apologizing the whole way for not recognizing her, professing to be a huge fan. While on her flight she realized he had miss spelled her name on the boarding pass, and had apparently mistaken her
In other news (Score:3)
other methods: ENG camera, "press" pass (Score:2)
I was talking with someone that when you have a large ENG shoulder camera (no, not some old thing from 1980s, but a new one like Panasonic with P2 cards), they will think you are with media. This person was saying he works at a TV station and one time he wanted to attend a concert but also get a good spot. So he borrowed a dead camera and also grabbed a mic. Him and his girlfriend approach the concert, guard was welcome to let them in. In fact the guard wanted to be interviewed so he can be on the news. So
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Yeah, taken from an old three stooges episode. And it worked for the first two, unfortunately, the third had a id labelled PULL.