MSCHF (mischief), is one of few brands that sum up what they do in the company name, but they describe themselves as “an art collective that engages art, fashion, tech, and capitalism”
While best known for their collaboration with MrBeast for the “Finger on the App” game, or their Big Red Boots which took over the internet not too long ago, or even their controversial “Satan Shoe,” a collaboration with rapper Lil Nas X, “intended to comment on the absurdity of the collaboration culture practiced by some brands,” MSCHF has been pushing the limits of what they can do for a while now.
MSCHF does things in “drops,” which happen very frequently, usually every couple of weeks, and everything they sell goes out of stock within a minute. The “drops
” they do are very limited, sometimes having a stock of less than 1,000 or rarely, just 25. MSCHF has collaborated with a lot of celebrities and huge brands, but sometimes, huge brands aren’t even aware MSCHF is using their likeness or brand, and they are not afraid to get sued.
Piracy is featured in a lot of MSCHF’s work. This can be seen on their “MasterWiki” drop from August 10th, 2020. They took MasterClass courses, usually requiring a premium of $180 to view the material, and turned it into DIY WikiHow articles for the public to read, instead of watching the source video. Lastly, the “All the Streams” drop, where you could watch premium television from Netflix, Hulu, Showtime, Disney+, Amazon’s Prime Video and HBO, all for free on their site. Unfortunately, this site now plays an FBI anti-piracy warning as they were forced to seize playing these shows and movies less than 20 hours in according to them.
Do not ignore MSCHF’s good intentions. On September 28, 2020, they released their “Medical Bill Art,” where three lucky people had their medical bills turned into, you guessed it, art, and were sold for the bill total in order to pay it off. For the 2022 tax season, they released Tax Heaven 3000, an anime simulator game available on Itch.io and Steam, that did your taxes completely for free, only supporting tax returns for that season. The game was shortly taken down on Steam as it asked for the user’s Social Security number, which goes against Steam’s terms of service agreement.
They also give many life hacks; both illegal and legal, such as invoicing busy companies for large amounts of money as they’ll likely be swamped with paperwork and won’t bother to verify the invoice (fraud); getting major discounts online shopping by utilizing Facebook, by going through all of the website’s ads they run and checking for the best discount.
Some of their drops are really fun, including the Walt’s Kitchen drop, featuring instructions on how to cook Disney animals; the Chair Simulator game, a free game on the Steam marketplace where you sit down, earn coins, upgrade your chair, and repeat; the MSCHFboard MSAT, where 512 students paid $52 to take a test, and the fastest to complete the test won the total pot of $26,624. Cheating was allowed and everyone did cheat; and ultimately, their May 2020 drop, “The Office (Slack),” where weekdays from 9-5, an episode of The Office (US) is recreated.
They also dabble into fashion. As mentioned earlier, they created the Big Red Boot, which gained notoriety after WWE professional wrestler Seth Rollins wore them on an episode of Monday Night Raw where he curb stomps The Miz. They also released the Gobstompers, a pair of shoes described as “A skate shoe designed with the intention of being destroyed. Every part of the gobstomper is made of 4 layers of colored material, from the tongue to the upper of the sole, which reveal themselves as the shoe wears down.” A notable mention goes to the AC.1, a $450 shoe that appears as an ankle brace.
So why should you care about MSCHF? From creating lessons on copyright, creating fashion statements, and…
You can never be prepared for what’s next; as they say, they never do the same thing twice.