FunWiki: PomonaSignPrank

In November of 2018, some Easties, lamenting the decline of prank culture at Mudd, decided they were going to do something about it and make a BigPrank. LilyFriedberg came up with a great one: "Let's go to Pomona and replace all the signs that say 'Pomona College' with other things: Panera, Ponono, Pomano, etc!" AelyAronoff liked the idea so much he decided to organize it all by himself. He spent the remainder of fall semester scouting around Pomona and making what can only be described as a conspiracy theory map (red string and all!)

// Insert picture of map

Then, beginning over winter break and continuing at the start of the spring semester, he started manufacturing the replacement signs. He painstakingly took every single sign that said "Pomona", measured it, found a matching font, and color-matched it with an actual picture of each sign. This process took hours, but luckily he didn't do his homework, so it worked out. With the help of PiperLangerWeida, JohnLittle, DaniElizondo, and CassieRossi, more than 200 signs were graphic designed, laminated, and cut, all in just 2 days (We laminated them so that if it got rainy or dewy we wouldn't accidentally paper-mache the whole campus). In the weeks leading up to this point, we also painted 7 large banners with a half gallon of orange paint on 250 feet of blue plastic tablecover.

A couple weeks before the prank AelyAronoff started organizing people into groups that would go out and actually do the prank. In total, 63 people signed up, enough that each group would only take about an hour for the prank to be finished.

When the night finally came on March 8th/9th? 2019, the valiant pranksters walked, drove, and strolled to Pomona at 2 AM, covering all the signs and celebrating with a well-deserved late-night trip to Norms.

Unfortunately, a few of the signs had already either fallen off or were removed by various Pomonites the following morning, but rumor has it that a few of the smallest ones remain there to this day.

The section below has individual people's stories about what they did on the night of the prank. The section under that is for pictures.

AelyAronoff: As it says above, I organized the whole prank, from scouting to making signs to organizing squads. When the big night finally came, I went with KatieSimon?, AvalonFeiler, and RachelWander to the central-east part of Pomona's campus: Haldemann Pool and the baseball field. The pool has "Pomona-Pitzer" in big letters on the back wall, so Avalon and I climbed up it and began taping a large banner that said "Stags-Athenas." After 20 minutes of struggling to attach it with blue tape, I was finally putting up the last little piece of tape when Avalon's glasses slipped off her face and fell into the bushes at the back of the pool deck. Fuck. Seeing no alternative (and Avalon seeing nothing more than 2 feet in front of her), I jumped down onto the bushes and got the glasses. The only problem now was the wall is 8 feet high, so I couldn't just climb back out. Instead, I ran out a side door, directly past one of the motion sensors. This set off the alarm in the building, prompting us to run away as quickly as possible and then proceeding to the remainder of our signs. This included another big banner saying "CHICKEN" over the football field and a couple small ones at the observatory. The last one we had to put up was a banner reading "Pepperoni" over Pomona-Pitzer Athletics, thus producing "Pepperoni-Pitzer Athletics." This banner hung on a chain-link fence over the baseball field about 20 feet off the ground. I climbed up the fence and tried tying the banner in place, but I just couldn't get it by myself. Suddenly, DillonCoville appeared out of nowhere, climbed the fence, and helped me put up the banner in about a minute. After that, I proceeded back to East to self-report and go to sleep.

WillGilroy: Went with JuliaQian. Infiltrated Lincoln and Edumnds to decimate all the Pomonononomo signs in sight. All went smoothly, it was a lovely late-night walk. I didn't know Geology memes were such a good subculture until visiting Edmunds. Noice. Saw two people cuddled up on the 3rd floor of Lincoln. A single tear rolled from my eyes. For a second, I doubted if the war was worth it. Were we really on the side of justice? Were we walking these midnight coridoors for love? I'm not sure that any of us will ever have any real answers. Also that massive beanbag on 2nd floor Edumunds is the real reason Panini is a better school than Marvey Hudd, 10/10 best sleep I've had.

// Pictures go here!