Not many people know the story of how the Unitarian Universalist Hysterical Society (UUHS) got started--we were playing a prank on a UU housing co-op in Boston. We were applying as the ghosts of various dead Unitarians and Universalists from history. Our applications were filled with hilarious UU insider jokes (we applied as Ralph Waldo Emmerson and listed "Thoreau" under "pets", for example).
Delighted as we were with our own hilarity, we didn't want to clog up their application spreadsheet with fakes--that would make it hard to do their actual room mate selection. So we decided to have every fake applicant list the same email address, so they could all be filtered out with a couple of clicks.
We created "UUHystericalSociety@gmail.com". It was a play on the Unitarian Universalist HISTORICAL Society, who have changed their name since then, so nobody gets our joke.
When the prank concluded, I didn't want it to end. For me, shared laughter is an important part of community. People find the same things funny when they share common culture, story and values. Particularly that last one--values. I am struck by how, even today, the UUHS Facebook group carries values very similar to that initial prank. That laughter and shenanigans are wonderful... And should be carried out with a touch of mindfulness and a generous amount of kindness.
Sitting, sad, in front of my computer screen in the throes of "prank withdrawal" I created the Facebook group on a whim. I put eleven other people in it, and the rest is history. I generally refer to it as "a practical joke gone right".
Liz James, prankster and founder of the UUHS
Adendum, after someone in the Facebook group wanted more examples of UU insider jokes…
They're pretty insider UU references, because we were a bunch of seminarians... We listed Michael Servetus and under "food allergies" we put "barbecue". Oh, and we also applied as Matt Meyer, who was (and is) not dead, but actually lived at the co-op at the time, and included many fun things poking at him (in a good-natured way).
The other thing was that several of the team members submitted applications for various women Unitarians and Universalists that I hadn't heard of, including all kinds of details about their lives and work. At the time, I was like "these aren't that funny" and the two people who insisted on putting them in said "they aren't that funny, because people don't know the stories of the women and THEY NEED TO KNOW THE STORIES OF THE WOMEN". Now, with the wisdom of hindsight, I totally agree. So, the prank also lifted up that value as well.