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Mr. Good Deeds goes to town

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Danny Wallace, a twentysomething Brit and merry prankster, placed an ad in a London newspaper in 2002 with the words “Join Me” and cryptic instructions to send passport photos to his address -- just to see what would happen. That first advertisement yielded a solitary response, but it was enough to trigger a power trip for Wallace: “Suddenly, I was a leader of men.”

A few months later, after a few more enigmatic ads and fliers, the BBC comedy producer and freelance journalist launched www.join-me.co.uk, and people have responded con gusto. More than 6,000 “Joinees” worldwide have sent Wallace their passport photos -- some in jest, but others, he says, because of a “fundamental human need to belong.”

Wallace had a bona fide cult (or “collective,” his preferred term) on his hands -- one he didn’t quite know what to do with. “I was very uncomfortable with the word ‘cult,’ ” he says. “Join Me has very little space travel, little or no chanting, and mass suicide is frowned upon.” So he made the cult a good one, directing members of his “Karma Army” to perform random acts of kindness on Fridays.

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Joinees use the website to relay their “Good Friday” adventures, i.e., buying strangers pints at a pub, or handing out envelopes with money. (Currently, the good-deed counter boasts more than 100,000.) The site also details last year’s “Karmageddon” in London: Think Forrest Gump organizing a flash mob.

On a U.S. tour to recruit American Joinees and promote a book, Wallace says he’ll also keep his day job at the BBC. “There’s no real money,” he says, “in cult leadership.”

-- Christine N. Ziemba

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