Project Chanology and an ‘anonymous’ Scientology protest
Folks continue to be whipped up over the Church of Scientology, Tom Cruise and the topic of psychiatry. Enough so, in fact, that a group that refers to itself as Anonymous staged a protest on Sunday at the Scientology center in the county.
Don’t have any details other than what I’ve seen on a couple of blogs. The accounts I’ve seen say about 50 people showed up at the protest. I’m not that interested in the details. It was the phenomenon that grabbed me. These sites cite a movement known as “Project Chanology,” which is supposedly aimed at bringing down the Church of Scientology.
Fascinating.
One account is on the Tigasland blog here. It includes photos. Find another brief account (complete with some readers’ comments) on Gateway Skepticism, which describes itself as “the blog of The St. Louis Skeptical Society, which was founded on October 11, 2007 by a handful of physics graduate students in order to promote skepticism, science, and critical thinking.”
A Google search on “Project Chanology” brings up plenty of material, including this YouTube video from the St. Louis protest. And a search of Snopes.com turns up nothing.
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Kurt is the director of social media for the Post-Dispatch, where he has worked since August 2002. He's been a journalist since 1982, covering municipal government, courts, education and two hurricanes as a reporter before becoming an editor. 
Thanks for the link. There weren’t any reporters there at the time, so I resorted to a little bit of citizen journalism, heh.
I’m actually impressed at the phenomenon itself, as well. (I wouldn’t have attended the Delmar protest if I hadn’t seen the estimated headcount the night before.)
I occasionally lurk the Anonymous community and until last week I simply wrote the “Project Chanology” idea off as an internet joke — an idea with no tangible backing. I could not have been more wrong.
That organizers estimates that up to 8000 persons were involved internationally is simply astounding. (Google “project chanology” and the first item is the official wiki.) Until this weekend, I didn’t even realize the Anonymous community had much of a following at all in the St. Louis region.
In my eyes, perhaps more than half of the group was in it “for the lulz” (just for laughs or entertainment) and the rest were serious Scientology critics with a lot of good information. (The former group mostly comprise the photos and videos of random internet-related humor at the protest.) However, I think the nature of the community helped seamlessly bring everyone under the same banner. The event was a generally positive and informational experience.
The next international protest date is apparently scheduled for March 15, though I haven’t really read the Anonymous boards regarding support of this date.