Mystery phone line invites Vancouverites to reveal their secret thoughts
Making friends in Vancouver can be difficult, so what can you do if you have something that you need to get off your chest but have no one to share it with?
An art project that has popped up around the city may be the solution that you’ve been searching for, and all you have to do is pick up your phone.
Posters advertising a mystery phone line — 778-825-0778 — have popped up around Vancouver over the past few months, with cryptic messages and a phone number listed on them.
The posters are part of a project by an anonymous local artist and writer who told Daily Hive that the goal was to put smiles on people’s faces.
LB
“I wanted to make something that would puzzle people, something that was hopefully so obviously poetic or strange or silly that people would be like, ‘That’s got to be a joke, or that’s got to be art,” said LB, which is a pseudonym.
“I recently travelled to France and enjoyed the street art there, and when I came back, I felt like there was a paucity of it here. But I’m not a visual artist; I’m more of a writer, so I quickly decided that I was going to do something word or linguistic based.”
LB has put up dozens of posters with eye-catching messages like:
- Pretend that we are confidants and call me and leave me a personal voicemail about your day yesterday, ok?
- Text or call for free regrets sweeter than the moon and fathomless as the night.
- Please call and tell me about a thing that gave you pleasure or cheered you up or surprised or flummoxed you.
LB
“I wanted the posters to verge on sounding like it could be some kind of crack pot offer from a stranger,” LB explained. “And then I came upon the idea of spoofing telephone pole ads. The homemade, handmade advertisements offer services or ask for requests.
“I think a lot of people may see the posters and assume that it’s some kind of nefarious thing or that it’s a scam. There are a lot of people suspicious of anything that is a little uncategorizable. But those who reach out and call are reassured that it is what it professes to be: an excuse for an interaction between strangers and hopefully kind of heartwarming and silly and fun.”
LB
Posters have been spotted on telephone poles and community boards all over Vancouver. LB shared that he looks for high-traffic areas but mixes it up by placing some of the thought-provoking posters in residential neighbourhoods.
His efforts have paid off, with nearly 100 voicemails and over 500 text messages in response to his call-out.
People who call the number on the poster are prompted to either leave a voice message or press a number to hear one left by a previous caller.
“Please be warned that these recordings, while lightly curated, are not censored,” the voicemail warns.
LB
“There’s several messages that I found moving, and I think you can probably guess which ones,” said LB. “Some of them are quite sad. There’s tragedy and trauma alluded to in some of them, and some are really personal and vulnerable.
“I hope that some of the messages are beautiful for people to ponder and maybe they interact with it. These are reassuring interactions from strangers, fun silliness from strangers. We get a glimpse into people’s private lives, their creativity and vulnerability. I think those who have interacted with the phone line and the posters have been glad they did.”