Skip to main content

Breaking Down Barriers, with Humor

The following is the story of a few people who took a group of strangers and led them into friendly interaction, through humor.

The subway system in New York City is likely the busiest in the world; and yet, despite the variety and amount of people that get on and off the train every day, many people avoid making contact with one another. They simply want to ride to and from where they’re going, and be done with it. On February 2nd, 2002, a group of people decided they were going to break this routine by staging two surprise birthday parties on one of the trains (the number six train).

Entering the train at Brooklyn Bridge, they came with two long Happy Birthday signs, twenty birthday balloons, twenty-four party hats, thirty-five cupcakes, and sixteen noisemakers, along with a pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey game. Three of the friends were in charge of setting up the party, while seven others were supposed to act like strangers who didn’t know anyone else on the train (entering the train at different stops). When people started asking what the three friends were doing, they replied that they were throwing a surprise birthday party for their friend and asked for help with blowing up balloons. Both the pretend strangers and real strangers then began helping set up for the party.

Finally, the party-throwers got the attention of everyone in the car and told them they were throwing a surprise party for their friend Jesse and they needed everyone’s help. The friends started passing out party hats and noisemakers and, with the passengers in silence, Jesse entered the car to a loud “Surprise!” from people who neither knew him nor each other. Seconds later, they sang happy birthday, people clapped and blew their noisemakers, and started eating cupcakes together. A few of the pretend agents even started playing pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey. Jesse then ended with a thank-you speech. The second surprise party was even more festive, in that the friends got everyone in the car to crouch down before the birthday boy entered (the second birthday boy was named “Agent Richardson”).

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Nice Guy Fallacy

I read part of a poem recently by one of my favorite poets. It reads: I envy not in any moods The captive void of noble rage The linnet born within the cage That never knew the summer woods. I envy not the beast that takes His license in the field of time Unfetter'd by the sense of crime To whom a conscience never wakes. Nor what may call itself as bles't The heart that never plighted troth But stagnates in the weeds of sloth Nor any want-begotten rest. I hold it true, whate'er befall I feel it, when I sorrow most 'Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all. At base, Tennyson contrasted a life of risk, and consequent pain, with one of security. He sides conclusively with the life of risk, and says he fails to envy those who have faced no hardship. I agree with him; and, for good or ill, his words are just as relevant today as they were in the nineteenth century. Like then, there are those today who choose to live their lives with as little risk as...

Persuasion

At different points in history, governments have devoted men, women, and resources to try to persuade others to their side. One significant example of this occurred in Germany under Adolf Hitler. Hitler knew how important it was to make sure the German people were on his side as leader of the country. One way he did this was by controlling what people heard. Specifically, near the beginning of World War II, Hitler made it a crime for anyone in Germany to listen to foreign radio broadcasts. These were called the “extraordinary radio measures.” He did this to ensure that Germans weren’t being persuaded by enemy countries to question their loyalty to Hitler. He knew that a German listening to a radio broadcast from Britain might persuade that German to believe that Great Britain was the good guy and Hitler the bad guy. This was so important, in fact, that two people in Germany were actually executed because they had either listened to or planned to listen to a foreign radio broadcast (one...

Experiment

My social studies students and I are studying Islam right now. The other day, we were reading about one of the Five Pillars, zakat (charity in Islam that means "that which purifies"). Muslims believe that giving away money helps to purify it and also "safeguards [them] against miserliness" (1). I asked the class if this was true, that giving money away makes us less greedy. They generally agreed that it does. I wanted to test whether or not they really believed this, so I handed a volunteer a $10 bill. I told the class that I would ask for the bill back the next day. I said that they should pass the bill around among their classmates, and that as a result, there would be no way for me to know who had the bill. For that reason, whoever wanted to keep the money could keep it. Even if I did learn who kept it, I told them, I would not punish that person. I wanted them to be motivated by their own honesty. The next day, I asked for the bill, and a student handed it to me...