A field guide to engineering cultural moments, manufacturing virality, and building things that force the world to pay attention. Based on real operations that actually worked.
The internet has a supply-side problem. There are millions of people trying to get attention and almost all of them are doing the same thing: posting content, running ads, begging for follows. It's boring. It doesn't work.
The people who actually break through — MSCHF, Banksy, Cards Against Humanity, The Yes Men — share a common playbook that has nothing to do with "content strategy." They build systems that generate their own media coverage. They create artifacts so interesting that journalists have no choice but to write about them.
This isn't about going viral on TikTok. It's about understanding the machinery of attention — how newsrooms work, what makes an editor greenlight a story, why certain things spread and others don't — and then engineering situations that exploit those mechanics.
"The best marketing doesn't look like marketing. It looks like news." — Ryan Holiday
1. The artifact must be real. Not a pitch, not a concept, not a tweet thread. A real thing that exists in the world. Banksy's shredder was real. MSCHF's Big Red Boots were real shoes you could buy. Daniel Beckler's mailbox was physically outside MSCHF's office. Reality is the medium.
2. The artifact must contain its own story. You shouldn't need to explain why it's interesting. The thing itself — its existence, its audacity, its context — IS the story. If you need a press release, you've failed.
3. The artifact must be impossible to ignore. Not edgy-for-the-sake-of-it. Impossible to ignore because it sits precisely at the intersection of "wait, is this real?" and "okay, this is actually clever." It triggers an involuntary reaction: screenshot, share, argue about it.
Every operation below succeeded for specific, reproducible reasons. Not luck. Mechanics.
Beckler wanted to work at MSCHF. Instead of applying, he built a fully functional website archiving Jeffrey Epstein's leaked emails — an actual research tool that happened to demonstrate exactly the kind of unhinged-but-technically-impressive work MSCHF values. Then he installed a physical mailbox outside MSCHF's Brooklyn headquarters with his resume inside.
This pattern — build the work you'd do FOR them, then deliver it in a way they can't ignore — works for any target that values creative audacity. The mailbox is a forcing function: it creates a story (someone put a mailbox outside our office) that travels internally and guarantees discussion.
MSCHF isn't a brand. It's a virality factory disguised as an art collective. Every "drop" is engineered around a single question: "What's the screenshot?" If a project can't be captured in a single screenshot that makes someone go "wait, what?" — it doesn't ship.
Big Red Boot (2023) — Cartoonishly oversized red boots. Worked because: (1) instantly recognizable and meme-able, (2) celebrities wore them immediately creating organic content loops, (3) it sat perfectly between "this is stupid" and "I kind of want these?" — the exact tension that drives sharing.
Blur (2020) — Browser extension that blurred every website until you donated to a cause. Worked because: (1) it weaponized the user's own browsing against them, (2) it was annoying in a way that made a point, (3) journalists could experience it themselves (critical — media people love things they can try).
Spot's Rampage (2020) — Browser game where you control a Boston Dynamics robot dog destroying a house. Worked because: (1) tapped into genuine anxiety about robot dogs and military tech, (2) was viscerally fun to play, (3) launched right as Boston Dynamics discourse was peaking.
Jesus Shoes / Satan Shoes — Nike Air Max 97s filled with holy water / human blood. Worked because: (1) blasphemy + luxury = guaranteed culture war, (2) Nike sued (free advertising), (3) both sides of the outrage equation shared it.
In 2018, Jered Threatin (a real person) booked a full European tour for his band across multiple countries. He had professional music videos, a website claiming millions of streams, fake festival appearances, and a "management team." Venues booked him based on these fabricated credentials. When he showed up, literally nobody came. Empty rooms. The tour was documented by bewildered venue staff and went mega-viral.
Always have an exit ramp. The best stunts have a reveal that reframes everything. Without it, you're just a liar. With it, you're a commentator.
Holiday Hole (2016) — Asked people to donate money to dig a pointless hole in the ground. No reward. No purpose. Just a livestreamed hole getting deeper as money came in. Raised over $100K. Worked because: it was an honest version of what every donation drive actually is. The cynicism was the product.
Cards Against Humanity Saves America (2017) — Bought a plot of land on the US-Mexico border and hired a law firm to make it as legally difficult as possible for the government to build a wall through it. 150,000+ people paid $15 each. Worked because: (1) it was a real legal action, not a tweet, (2) it let people participate in political trolling for the price of a cocktail, (3) the media coverage wrote itself.
99% Sale (2013) — Raised prices by $5 on Black Friday. Sales went up. Worked because: it was a legible commentary on consumerism that people could participate in BY consuming. The contradiction was the point.
Every CAH stunt follows the same structure: take a system everyone participates in mindlessly (commerce, donations, Black Friday) and make the participation itself the commentary. You're not preaching at people — you're giving them a way to be in on the joke. The purchase is the punchline.
Dow Chemical / Bhopal (2004) — Appeared on BBC World News as a Dow Chemical spokesperson, announcing that Dow would finally accept responsibility for the Bhopal disaster and pay $12B in reparations. Dow's stock dropped $2B in 23 minutes. The retraction generated even more coverage than the announcement.
WTO Impersonation — Created a fake WTO website, got invited to actual conferences as WTO representatives, gave increasingly absurd presentations (including proposing a "free market in votes" where citizens of poor countries could sell their votes to rich ones). Nobody questioned them.
New York Times Edition (2008) — Printed and distributed 80,000 copies of a fake New York Times with the headline "IRAQ WAR ENDS" and stories about universal healthcare and free higher education. Distributed on the streets of NYC. People couldn't tell it was fake for hours.
Institutional authority is a costume you can wear. The Yes Men understood that credibility is just aesthetics. A suit, a logo, a confident tone. Institutions don't have faces — they have fonts and letterheads. If you match the format, you inherit the authority.
The reveal is the art. The moment people realize the Dow spokesperson was fake, they have to confront the real question: why HASN'T Dow taken responsibility? The fake is more honest than the real.
Shredded Painting (2018) — "Girl With Balloon" self-destructed via a shredder hidden in the frame immediately after selling at Sotheby's for £1.04M. The shredded version later sold for £18.5M. Worked because: (1) he had to plan it YEARS in advance (the shredder was built into the frame before it was ever sold), (2) it was a commentary on art commodification that itself became more commodified, (3) the irony was multi-layered and impossible to exhaust.
Dismaland (2015) — A full dystopian theme park in Weston-super-Mare. "Bemusement park." Worked because: (1) it was a REAL PLACE you could visit, (2) the production value was insane (150+ artists, custom rides), (3) it was genuinely unsettling, not just edgy.
Pet shop (2008) — "The Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill" in NYC. Animatronic chicken nuggets dipping themselves in sauce, fish sticks swimming in a tank, a hot dog turning in a bun. Worked because it was a real storefront. Walk-ins happened naturally. Discovery was organic.
Anonymity is a multiplier. Every piece of Banksy discourse includes "who IS Banksy?" — the mystery is additional content that comes for free. When your identity is unknown, every project inherits the intrigue of all previous projects. Anonymous operations accumulate narrative power.
Stop thinking about "going viral." Start thinking about engineering situations where media coverage is the natural output.
A cultural pressure point is a topic where tension exists but nobody has given it a physical form. In early 2026, these include:
How to find them: Read replies, not posts. The tension is in the comments. What are people angry about in ways that feel unresolved? What debates keep resurfacing without resolution? Those are your raw materials.
Journalists need to publish multiple stories per day. They are desperate for things that are:
The seed strategy: Post on 2-3 relevant subreddits and niche Twitter/X accounts simultaneously. If it gets organic traction (50+ upvotes, meaningful quote tweets), email 3-5 relevant beat reporters with a one-line description and a link. Don't write a press release. Write "thought you'd find this interesting" and let the artifact speak.
The most powerful stunts exist in both worlds simultaneously. The physical component creates undeniable reality (you can't fake a mailbox — someone has to go look at it). The digital component creates scale (a million people see the photo of the mailbox).
Formats that work:
TikTok: The algorithm rewards watch time and replays. Things that require a second watch ("wait, what did I just see?") get pushed aggressively. Mystery, reveals, and "is this real?" content outperforms everything else. Posting time barely matters; the algorithm will find its audience. What matters: first 0.5 seconds must be disorienting.
Twitter/X: Quote tweets are the primary distribution mechanism. Build things that people want to add commentary to. The ideal tweet is one where 50% of people interpret it one way and 50% the opposite — debate is the algorithm's fuel. Screenshots from other platforms perform well (Reddit post screenshot → Twitter discourse → article).
Reddit: Subreddit selection is everything. Don't post in r/funny (too noisy). Post in the specific niche subreddit where your thing is ON-topic. A post in r/InternetMysteries with 500 upvotes generates more coverage than a post in r/funny with 5,000. Reddit is where journalists find stories.
Cross-platform cascade: The ideal path is Reddit (discovery) → Twitter/X (discourse) → TikTok (mass distribution) → news (legitimization) → back to all platforms (second wave). Seed on Reddit first.
AI doesn't change WHAT works. It changes what a single person can produce.
These are detailed, executable plans. Not brainstorms — blueprints. Each one exploits a real cultural pressure point with specific tools, timelines, and success criteria.
Launch a convincing AI startup called something like "Veridica" that sells AI-generated compliance reports for other AI companies. The product: an AI that writes the safety documentation that AI companies submit to regulators. It's a real website, with a real waitlist, real ProductHunt launch, and fake (but plausible) seed funding. The satire is in the recursion: an AI that helps AI companies pretend they're safe.
The punchline only lands when someone notices — or when you reveal it. Until then, it passes. The gap between "this could be real" and "wait, this is insane" is where the art lives.
Real VCs or AI journalists share the site unironically before the reveal. Post-reveal: coverage in AI/tech media as commentary on the AI safety theater problem. Best case: spawns a genuine conversation about how easy it is to fake credibility in AI.
Build an automated system that creates an entire fake community — a subreddit, Discord server, Twitter accounts, Substack newsletter, and podcast — around a completely fabricated niche interest. Something like "competitive soil judging" or "recreational bridge inspection." The community has history. Months of posts. In-jokes. Drama. Regular contributors. It looks completely organic.
Then publish a detailed writeup revealing the entire thing was one person + AI, including the technical architecture. The point: a live demonstration that Dead Internet Theory is trivially achievable. Not as a conspiracy theory — as an engineering project with a GitHub repo.
The reveal piece gets picked up by major tech outlets. "One person built a fake community with 500 members and nobody noticed for three months." It becomes a reference point in conversations about platform authenticity, AI content, and Dead Internet Theory. The GitHub repo becomes a widely-cited resource.
Create a "leaked" internal memo from a major tech company that's obviously satire if you read it carefully, but indistinguishable from real corporate communication at a glance. Think: an internal Google doc about "Project Ouroboros" — a plan to use AI to automatically generate the search results that AI already summarizes, creating a closed loop where Google is just talking to itself.
The memo should be boring in exactly the way real memos are boring. Proper formatting. Realistic org chart references. Correct use of internal jargon. Action items. A Gantt chart. The humor is in the content, not the form.
The screenshot circulates for 12-24 hours with genuine "is this real?" debate. Tech journalists DM the anonymous account. The reveal (full doc is clearly satire) generates a second wave of coverage. The memo becomes a meme template for corporate absurdity.
Create a musician who doesn't exist — but whose music is genuinely good. Not AI slop. Actually compelling. The artist has no social media presence, no interviews, no photos. Their music appears on obscure platforms first — Bandcamp, SoundCloud — then gets "discovered" through breadcrumbs planted in music forums, Discord servers, and Reddit.
The mystery IS the marketing. "Who is this artist? Where did this come from? Why can't anyone find them?" Every piece of discovery content is organic because the mystery is genuinely compelling.
Active investigation threads on Reddit and music forums. Organic blog coverage of the "mystery artist." The reveal (whenever it comes) gets covered by music/tech press as a commentary on authenticity, AI music, and the discovery algorithm. The music lives on its own merits beyond the stunt.
Build "RentGPT" — an AI chatbot that generates perfectly formatted, legally-referenced, maximally annoying complaint letters to landlords. Feed it housing code databases, tenant rights by jurisdiction, and a library of successful complaint letters. The user inputs their problem ("my landlord won't fix the heat"), selects their city, and gets a letter that cites the exact relevant statutes, threatens the exact right agencies, and is written in the tone of a lawyer who bills $800/hour.
The product is genuinely useful. The virality comes from the framing: "AI is being used to replace workers, so we used it to replace expensive tenant lawyers." It's a class-warfare inversion of AI anxiety.
Goes viral on housing/tenant subreddits and TikTok. Coverage as "the AI tool landlords hate." Real tenants use it and share results. Gets picked up by local news stations in cities where housing is a hot-button issue. Becomes a reference point in "AI for good" discourse.
Leveraging actual cybersecurity expertise: build a public, automated "transparency dashboard" that continuously monitors and grades major companies' public-facing security posture. DNS misconfigurations. Exposed subdomains. SSL certificate issues. SPF/DKIM failures. Header security. All publicly available information, no hacking involved — just aggressive OSINT assembled into a clean, searchable, regularly-updated leaderboard.
Companies that fail publicly will scramble to fix issues (and you'll document the fix timeline). The implicit message: "If one person with a script can find this, imagine what an actual attacker can see."
Companies quietly fix their issues (documented on the dashboard as "improved after public disclosure"). Security Twitter picks it up. Gets cited in breach post-mortems. Establishes the creator as a legitimate security voice. Infosec journalists cover it. Could lead to consulting opportunities, conference talks, or a job offer — the Daniel Beckler play for security.
The boring-but-critical infrastructure that makes all of the above possible.
exiftool -all= image.jpg. Screenshots should be taken in a VM or at minimum with identifying UI elements hidden.GIT_AUTHOR_NAME, GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL, and GIT_COMMITTER_* per-project. Check git log before pushing anything public.The default output of every LLM is detectable because it's too clean. Real human writing has: inconsistent comma usage, sentence fragments, paragraph breaks in weird places, opinions stated without hedging, specific cultural references, and occasional typos.
# Simplified automation framework
- Orchestration: Python + asyncio (or Go for performance)
- LLM layer: GPT-4 API for generation, Claude for review/editing
- Scheduling: APScheduler with randomized intervals (±30% variance)
- Proxy: Rotating residential (assigned per-account)
- Browser automation: Playwright with stealth plugin (not Selenium — too detectable)
- Account management: SQLite DB tracking per-account state, history, persona
- Monitoring: Simple webhook to Discord/Slack for anomaliesThe line between art and fraud isn't always clear. Here's how to stay on the right side.
Always have a reveal. The legal and ethical difference between a stunt and a scam is transparency. Stunts have an endpoint where you explain what happened and why. Scams don't. Build the reveal into the plan from day one.
The internet rewards two things: genuine value and genuine audacity. Everything in between — the mediocre content, the safe marketing, the growth-hacking playbooks — is noise. It doesn't work because there's too much of it.
The people and projects documented here succeeded because they built real things that were impossible to ignore. Not because they were shocking. Not because they were edgy. Because they were clever in a way that made people feel something — surprise, delight, outrage, curiosity.
The barrier to entry has never been lower. AI lets one person produce what used to require a team. Anonymous infrastructure is trivial. Distribution is free. The only thing you can't automate is taste — knowing which idea is actually good, which moment to exploit, which execution will land.
Build something real. Make it undeniable. Let go.