Yes Men - The Art of the Prank

February 20, 2019December 15, 2023

Speaking Truth to Power in DC

Street theater is flourishing in the era of Trump.

DC’s many prankster activists turn anger into street theater
by Ashraf Khalil
AP
February 18, 2019

Mike Green and Adam Eidinger with Radical Matriarchy

WASHINGTON (AP) — In the nation’s capital, it can be hard for protesters to stand out. A group of 50 people — or even 500 — holding signs and shouting hardly merits a second glance in this city of protests.

That’s why Washington activists have to get creative. There’s an ethos of performative prankster-style protest wired into the District of Columbia’s history, dating back decades.

This confrontational street-theater school is flourishing with the Trump administration as its nemesis. Each month brings new acts of political theater — some confrontational, some deliberately absurdist.

“It can take a serious issue into more of a playful place,” said Robin Bell, who regularly projects disparaging messages onto the outside of the Trump International Hotel. “Oftentimes we visualize the absurdity of the situation.”

In January, a group of activists associated with political pranksters The Yes Men passed out dozens of fake Washington Posts, with detailed articles depicting President Donald Trump resigning and fleeing the White House. For about a month last fall, a Robert Mueller investigation-themed ice cream truck roamed Washington, passing out free scoops with names like IndictMint Chip and Rocky Rod Rosenstein.

While some protests are designed to get attention, others hide in plain sight like Easter eggs for the observant. Within sight of the White House, a realistic-looking street sign declares the street Khashoggi Way, after Jamal Khashoggi, the dissident Saudi journalist killed inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. About 10 of these signs have been scattered around Washington.

Read the rest of this article here.

March 8, 2013December 15, 2023

“Actipedia” Crowdsourcing Platform Goes Public

From the Yes Lab and the Center for Artistic Activism:

“Actipedia” Crowdsourcing Platform Goes Public

Database of creative activism case studies will inform and inspire a new generation of activists

The Yes Lab and the Center for Artistic Activism are announcing the launch of Actipedia.org, an open-access, user-generated database of creative activism case studies designed to inspire activists.

Actipedia is built on an open-source platform and is designed for ease of use, with simple formats for viewing, searching and posting examples. The site draws case studies from original submissions, reprinted news articles, and informal snippets of action reports. Although it is only now launching, Actipedia already hosts over 400 case studies and counting, from countries from all over the world.

Contact: Stephen Duncombe, 212-998-7327, srd@artisticactivism.org

March 2, 2012December 15, 2023

No Andy, You’re Not Paranoid. They Really ARE Watching You!

WikiLeaks: “Private Spies” Stratfor Helped Dow Chemical Monitor Bhopal Activists, The Yes Men
by Amy Goodman with Denis Moynihan
Democracy Now
February 28, 2012

Emails leaked by WikiLeaks from the private intelligence firm Stratfor reveal the chemical industrial giant Dow Chemical closely followed the work of activists around the 25th anniversary of the Bhopal chemical disaster, the 1984 gas leak that killed anywhere between 3,500 and 25,000 people. Of particular interest to Dow was the group, The Yes Men, the anti-corporate pranksters who pulled off a famous 2004 hoax that led the world to believe Dow had finally taken responsibility for the Bhopal tragedy. “With us, they were carefully paying attention to every move that we were making publicly, especially anything to do with Dow and Bhopal,” says Andy Bichlbaum of The Yes Men. “What surprised us in those emails, though, was that we would have assumed that Dow would be really concerned with the exact issue of Bhopal and Dow”™s responsibility, stuff that could directly impact their bottom line. But what S[t]ratfor seems to be really a bit obsessed with is whether we or other organizations are going to draw this into a bigger critique of corporate power.”

November 15, 2011December 15, 2023

Hawaiian Guitarist Makana Occupies APEC with “Aloha”

Submitted by the Yes Men from the Yes Lab:

APEC World Leaders Dinner Gets Occupied

Within secure zone, musician sings on behalf of the many

Honolulu – A change in the programmed entertainment at last night’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) gala left a few world leaders slack-jawed, though most seemed not to notice that anything was amiss.

During the gala dinner, renowned Hawaiian guitarist Makana, who performed at the White House in 2009, opened his suit jacket to reveal a home-made “Occupy with Aloha” T-shirt. Then, instead of playing the expected instrumental background music, he spent almost 45 minutes repeatedly singing his protest ballad released earlier that day. The ballad, called “We Are the Many,” includes lines such as “The lobbyists at Washington do gnaw…. And until they are purged, we won’t withdraw,” and ends with the refrain: “We’ll occupy the streets, we’ll occupy the courts, we’ll occupy the offices of you, till you do the bidding of the many, not the few.”

Those who could hear Makana”™s message included Presidents Barack Obama of the United States of America, Hu Jintao of China, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia, Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada, and over a dozen other heads of state.

Watch the video:

Continue reading “Hawaiian Guitarist Makana Occupies APEC with “Aloha””

September 27, 2011December 15, 2023

Alessio Rastani – Fact or Fiction, Reality Bites

BBC”™s “˜Goldman Sachs Rules the World”™ Trader: Hoax or Our Worst Nightmare? [Updated]
New York Magazine
by Joe Coscarelli
September 27, 2011

A trader by the name of Alessio Rastani told a shocked BBC News reporter yesterday, “The governments don’t rule the world, Goldman Sachs rules the world.” He warned, “The savings of millions of people are going to vanish,” and said viewers should “get prepared” because the “economic crisis is like a cancer, if you just wait and wait thinking this will go away, just like a cancer it’s going to grow and it’s going to be too late.” He added, “I have a confession: I go to bed every night and I dream of another recession, I dream of another moment like this.” Such frank (psychopathic?) language earned Rastani attention from news outlets like the Huffington Post, the Guardian, and the Daily Mail, but the chatter on Twitter is crying hoax. (Update: It appears to be legit! See below for more info.)

BBC Business Editor Robert Peston wrote this morning on Twitter, “BBC (& I) may have been hoaxed by YesMen,” referring to the culture jamming group that touts itself as, “impersonating big-time criminals in order to publicly humiliate them. Our targets are leaders and big corporations who put profits ahead of everything else.” Peston and the Internet’s doubters pointed to this Yes Men stunt, which features a fake Dow Chemical spokesman who bears some resemblance to Rastani, the trader.

Peston has since defended the BBC guest: “We spoke to the trader again this morning, & as far as we can tell he is a genuine independent trader, not a member of YesMen.” Continue reading “Alessio Rastani – Fact or Fiction, Reality Bites”