Are you a monkey?
Chalk drawings have appeared all over campus asking this question, prompting more than 1,200 hits on RUAMonkey.com.
The Web site features a video of about 20 people wearing monkey masks and dancing to Michael Jackson's "Thriller" on the steps leading into Smith Plaza.
The mysterious artwork and bare-bones Web site are part of an effort by Calvary Chapel and Renovate Campus Ministries to publicize a creationism-themed event in mid-February.
Renovate members wished not to disclose the name and date of the event.
"I think people are really skeptical on our view of how we were made," said Candice Cunningham, a freshman and member of Renovate. "So coming right out and saying it . kind of turns people off, so I think advertising this way engages people more."
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However, some students find the stunt misleading, regardless of their opinion on the origins of man.
"I think it's misleading because you watch the video and there's no other information on the page - just the video itself," sophomore Alex Jordan said. "So when I went to the Web site, all I saw was a video of people dancing around in monkey masks, and I left the page after a minute because I thought it was useless."
Matt Carlson, producer of the "Are You a Monkey?" video, said his intention was not to trick anyone into becoming a fan but to raise awareness.
"It's not to mislead anybody. It basically is to just draw awareness, and then once everyone is aware, then we let everything be known," he said.
Carlson said he was inspired by a similar stunt performed by entrepreneur Marc Ecko in which a retired 747 airplane was painted to look like Air Force One before being covered in graffiti artwork.
"For a whole week, they didn't tell anybody, and the president thought it was real," Carlson said. "Everybody thought it was a real deal. It was just a really cool thing. That was basically my whole intent behind it."
Jordan said he supports creationism but that this method of spreading the message is ineffective.
"Personally, I just didn't get the connection," he said. "Somebody that might be interested in the movie they're trying to promote would be turned off, like I was, to a video that seems to have no relationship to anything."
Carlson said that the theme of the campus-wide artwork was timed to coincide with national Darwin Week.
"Basically, Darwin Day is coming up, and Darwin's whole idea is that we came from monkeys, so that's where it all came from," he said.
Carlson said people have had varying interpretations of the project.
"People had different ideas, like some people thought that it was some sort of Obama thing, which it totally isn't," he said. "That was odd."
Cunningham said he doesn't think the video and chalk artwork are in bad taste.
"If they feel tricked, that's not what we're trying to do," she said. "We're just trying to publicize it more."
Jordan said he wished the video had been more direct.
"I think it would have been better if they provided more information on the Web site as to what this movement was," he said. "I mean, 'are you a monkey?' I guess that's pretty clever, but the Web site was unclear."
