In 1729 Jonathan Swift anonymously published a short work titled A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland From Being a Burden to their Parents or the Country, and For Making Them Beneficial to the Public. The essay began innocuously by discussing the problem of numerous starving beggars and homeless children in Ireland. But then it proposed a radical solution: Ireland's large, impoverished population could be turned to its advantage by feeding the unwanted babies of the poor to the rich. Swift noted, "A young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee, or a ragout."

Swift did not actually intend to promote class-based cannibalism. His point was to use satire in order to dramatize how the rich exploit and dehumanize the poor. However, many readers failed to recognize this.

Swift's short work is one of the most celebrated examples of satire in the English language. It has subsequently lent its name to a genre of satirical hoaxing that uses the same method. The satirist pretends to advocate an idea that people find shocking or disgusting. But the true goal of the satire (at least, according to the satirist) is to raise awareness of a social problem.

In 1935 veterans of World War One lobbied Congress to pay them their war bonuses ten years early in order to ease the economic hardship they were experiencing during the Great Depression. Congress readily acquiesced and passed the Harrison Bonus Bill in January 1936.

This pre-payment was a source of inspiration for Lewis Gorin, a senior at Princeton University. It seemed logical to him that if present-day veterans could get their war bonuses early, why shouldn't future veterans also receive their money up-front — before they had fought in a war. After all, given the global political situation, it seemed inevitable to Gorin that all the young men in the country would soon have to go off to fight. Why shouldn't these future veterans be given their money now, while they could still enjoy it, instead of having to wait until after the conflict, when they might be dead? More→

John Howard Griffin was a white native Texan novelist and journalist with a strange idea that he couldn't get out of his head. What if a white man became a black man for six weeks and traveled through Deep South states such as Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi? More→

On January 21, 1985, the daily broadcast of the Donahue show was devoted to a typically unusual subject — gay senior citizens. But few people would later remember the topic of that day's show, because as the live broadcast progressed seven members of the audience proceeded to faint. Concerned by the bizarre outbreak of swooning, Donahue cancelled the rest of the show and sent everyone home.

The producers theorized that the hot temperature inside the studio might have caused the people to collapse, but a few days later Deborah Harmon, one of the fainters, admitted she had been paid to do so by the well-known prankster Alan Abel. He had also paid the six other audience members who had fainted.

Abel later explained that the stunt was designed as a protest against the deteriorating quality of daytime talk shows. He claimed that a group called FAINT (Fight Against Idiotic Neurotic TV) had spearheaded the protest. "We want to raise the consciousness of the public by going unconscious," he said.

The stunt attracted more censure than any of Abel's other pranks because critics charged that it could have inspired panic at a time when there was public concern over the possible spread of Legionnaire's disease.

A press release distributed to the media in Columbus, Ohio announced the formation of a new charity that would benefit the homeless by providing them with guns and ammunition. It was called the "Arm the Homeless Coalition." News of this charity was soon picked up by the national media and generated enormous controversy. But when an Ohio reporter tried to track down the Director of the Arm the Homeless Coalition, his investigation led him instead to a group of Ohio State University students who admitted the entire thing was a joke. More→

On December 3, 2004 the BBC broadcast an interview with Jude Finisterra, who claimed to be a representative of Dow Chemical. The date was the 20th anniversary of the chemical disaster in Bhopal, and the BBC had sought out a representative from Dow to speak about the tragedy since Dow had inherited responsibility for the disaster via a corporate acquisition. During the interview, Mr. Finisterra shocked the BBC's audience when he said that not only had Dow decided to accept full responsibility for the incident, but that it was going to pay $12 billion in compensation to the victims. In response to the news, Dow's stock value promptly dropped. More→