Anyone know what this is that's hangning from phone lines in LA?

August 17, 2011 12:04 PM

I live in Los Angeles and have been noticing something strange hanging from some telephone lines throughout the city. I have been asking everyone I know if they know what it is, and have searched the Internet for an answer, but I still can't figure out what it is, or why it's hanging everywhere. It looks like a robber holding a money bag. Here's a picture I took with my phone. Anyone know?
posted by RUPure to Society & Culture (13 answers total)

Looks like something similar to this.
posted by empath at 12:19 PM on August 17, 2011

It's a shame it wasn't from the power lines instead -- a little robber holding a money bag would seem appropriate in CA. It could possibly still hold that meaning though this is the guess of someone on the East Coast.
posted by safetyfork at 12:21 PM on August 17, 2011

Speaker of robbers holding money bags, could this be related to the Verizon strike?
posted by alms at 12:27 PM on August 17, 2011

Response by poster: Safetyfork, you're probably right. I don't really know the difference between phone lines and power lines, I kind of thought they were all the same. So, it might mean that.
posted by RUPure at 12:31 PM on August 17, 2011

Could it possibly be the shoes tied together thing?

http://urbanlegends.about.com/cs/factoids/a/sneakers.htm
posted by Gerard Sorme at 12:34 PM on August 17, 2011

RUPure, I wasn't confident enough to identify them either way. It's possible that those could be power lines.

Per Empath's link the artist Above has a contact page. He was California based at one point in time and might be close to the source.

On preview: ah!
posted by safetyfork at 12:39 PM on August 17, 2011

I haven't seen this one, but for a while there were little ducks hanging from wires too. Definitely a street artist.
posted by PostIronyIsNotaMyth at 2:32 PM on August 17, 2011

I think the robber strongly resembles Boris Badenov.
posted by carmicha at 4:10 PM on August 17, 2011 [1 favorite]

I've seen other hangings around town. For a long time it was Berd's birds, but over the past year or so I've been seeing this Tom Selleck arrow on my commute. It's like the ones in empath's link—I think I've seen the Cher one as well. Near the Selleck arrows I've also seen this poster of Adrian Brody, done in a similar style (albeit a poster, not a hanging sign), which the link claims was a guerrilla marketing campaign funded by Brody himself. Makes me wonder about the 'above' arrows. They're probably an option on some marketing package celebrity managers can purchase at your local promo retailer in Hwood or something. Blech.
posted by carsonb at 6:24 PM on August 17, 2011

There's another one exactly like this at National and Sawtelle.

I thought it was a promotion for some movie I wasn't hip enough to know about.

Oh wait, OMG, NO WAY! That's my intersection in the youtube video that rainydayfilms linked!!!! Wow!
posted by bluesky78987 at 8:39 PM on August 17, 2011

Yeah, there's also one hung up at the N Bundy exit off of the 10 West. I assumed it was either a viral marketing thing or an art thing. It's awesome to find out what it's about, since I also had no idea how to look it up effectively.
posted by so_gracefully at 10:28 PM on August 17, 2011

Response by poster: Thanks so much rainydayfilms for solving this mystery!
posted by RUPure at 12:16 PM on August 18, 2011

Rose and Lincoln gots it
posted by silsurf at 3:44 PM on August 19, 2011