
On Anonymity: Poe Toasters and Toynbee Tiles - ascertain
https://logger.believermag.com/post/toynbee
======
EvanAnderson
There were "copycat" Toynbee tilers in the mid-to-late 2000's. I suspect a
reasonable number of the tiles in more remote locations are not the work of
the original tiler.

Case in point: I found a "Toynbee Tile" in San Francisco on Geary west of
Union Square in 2007. I posted it on my blog the day we found it, and there
was discussion in a message board about it the next day:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20080325024107/http://resurrectd...](https://web.archive.org/web/20080325024107/http://resurrectdead.proboards59.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=1192603799)

------
peterwwillis
> There must be some allure to remaining nameless

Or, perhaps, some people just do things because they want to do them, not so
other people notice them. The Poe Toaster is visiting the grave of a dead man
they give omage to. Toynbee is a reserved lunatic with a hobby. Maybe it's the
other way around.

Point is: neither of them gives a crap about what other people think of what
they do. Not everything someone does has to be _for_ the public. Sometimes you
just want to put a rose on a grave, or some weird tiles in the ground.

------
pavel_lishin
> _The Poe Toaster failed to appear the following year. Rather than let the
> ritual die, the city of Baltimore held a competition to select the next
> anonymous toaster. In 2015, the unnamed champion took his predecessor’s
> place._

I wonder what they would have done if the toaster had returned in 2015 to meet
their replacement.

------
BanMeAndWin
> "There must be some allure to remaining nameless. Some might accuse
> anonymous artists of irresponsibility—of orphaning their work and leaving it
> in the hands of _a ruthless public_."

A ruthless public?

Creating something and letting the world run with it on their own terms isn't
done because the creator thinks the faceless mob are savage dimwits. In fact,
in order for anonymous art to work, the creator MUST have faith that the
public will be motivated to act on a good idea, an insightful summary, a
powerful display, or any other call to action that speaks specifically to the
people who are tired of being cast as a "ruthless public"

The elitism about these pieces is so painfully predictable you could use it to
increment cryptocurrency hash difficulty.

