The Yes Men

The Yes Men are a culture jamming activist duo and network of supporters created by Jacques Servin and Igor Vamos. Through actions of tactical media, The Yes Men primarily aim to raise awareness about what they consider problematic social issues. To date, the duo has produced two films: The Yes Men (2003) and The Yes Men Fix the World (2009). In these films, they impersonate entities that they dislike, a practice that they call "identity correction". The Yes Men operate under the mission statement of telling the truth and exposing lies. They create and maintain fake websites similar to ones they intend to spoof, which have led to numerous interview, conference, and TV talk show invitations. They espouse the belief that corporations and governmental organizations often act in dehumanizing ways toward the public. Elaborate props are sometimes part of the ruse (e.g. Survivaball), as shown in their 2003 DVD release The Yes Men . The Yes Men have collaborated with other groups of similar interest, including Improv Everywhere and Steve Lambert.

Background

According to Bichlbaum, the Yes Men concept initially sprang from their creation of a fake website spoofing the World Trade Organization. To the surprise of Bichlbaum and Bonanno, many believed the site to be authentic, and the two were consequently contacted to speak at a conference in Austria. Since this time, the Yes Men have continued performing large-scale hoaxes, in what they describe as a collaborative effort with journalists to help the media tell stories which they believe are important.

The Yes Men often deploy a satirical approach: they pose as a powerful entity (typically a corporate or government representative or executive) and make ridiculous and shocking comments that caricature the ideological position of the organisation or person. Furthermore, they acknowledge the idea that many corporate or government entities manipulate their ideology using spin; in response, the Yes Men use this power of spin to their own advantage, and use media outlets to disseminate their personal interpretation of the situation. A sense of humor and shock value is usually employed to make these issues more palatable to the general public and to call greater media attention to stories of interest. Some of these outrageous ideas include the possibility to sell one's vote or that the poor should consume recycled human waste. On most occasions, little to no shock or outrage is publicly evoked in response to their prank.

On occasion, the Yes Men's phony spokesperson will make announcements that represent fictitious scenarios for the anti-globalization movement or opponents of corporate crime. The result often heed false news reports which cover the demise of the World Trade Organization, or Dow Chemical paying compensation to the victims of the Bhopal disaster, which the Yes Men intend to provide publicity for problems concerning these organizations. One of the effects of apologizing and promising support on behalf of an organization is that the organization is then later forced to re-acknowledge the event in question and retract all of the proposed good will. This served to further publicize the negative event of the organization and sets-up the organization to look bad for taking back any support The Yes Men offered under the name of their organization.

The Yes Men have posed as spokespeople for the WTO, McDonalds, Dow Chemical, and the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. The two leading members of the Yes Men are known by a number of aliases, most recently, and in film, Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno. Their real names are Jacques Servin and Igor Vamos, respectively. Servin is an author of experimental fiction, and was known for being the man who inserted images of men kissing in the computer game SimCopter . Vamos is an associate professor of media arts at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, New York. They are assisted by numerous people across the globe. There are other full time members, such as Whitney Black and Rocco Ferrer, that take a more behind the scenes approach.

Their experiences were documented in the film The Yes Men , distributed by United Artists, the film documentary info wars , and the book The Yes Men: The True Story of the End of the World Trade Organization (ISBN 0-9729529-9-3). Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno also directed a 2009 film entitled The Yes Men Fix the World , which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. In 2009 they launched their online video channel on Babelgum.

Projects

George W. Bush

One of the Yes Men's first pranks was the satirical website www.gwbush.com, established for the 2000 US presidential election to draw attention to alleged hypocrisies on Bush's actual website. When asked about the site in a press conference on May 21, 1999, Bush responded that the website had gone too far in criticizing him.

In 2004, the Yes Men went on tour posing as the group "Yes, Bush Can!" and encouraged supporters to sign a "Patriot Pledge" agreeing to keep nuclear waste in their backyard and send their children off to war. They appeared at the 2004 Republican National Convention and drove across the country at first in an RV with a George W. Bush body wrap, and then in a painted van.

Ice Age Petition

The Yes Men posed as working as part of the Bush-Cheney campaign. They carried around a petition asking for signatures to support global warming because America's competing countries will suffer while America only bears minor side-effects.

Dow Chemical

Andy Bichlbaum, a member of the Yes Men, appears on BBC World to take full responsibility for the Bhopal disaster.

On December 3, 2004, the twentieth anniversary of the Bhopal disaster, Andy Bichlbaum appeared on BBC World as "Jude Finisterra", a Dow Chemical spokesman. Dow is the owner of Union Carbide, the company responsible for the chemical disaster which killed thousands and left over 120,000 requiring lifelong care.

On their fake Dow Chemical website, the Yes Men said that Dow Chemical Company had no intention whatsoever of repairing the damage. The real company received considerable backlash, and both the real Dow and the phony Dow denied the statements, but Dow took no real action.

The Yes Men decided to pressure Dow further, so as "Finisterra," Bichlbaum went on the news to claim that Dow planned to liquidate Union Carbide and use the resulting $12 billion to pay for medical care, clean up the site, and fund research into the hazards of other Dow products. After two hours of wide coverage, Dow issued a press release denying the statement, ensuring even greater coverage of the phony news of a cleanup. By the time the original story was discredited, Dow's stock had declined in value by $2 billion.

After the original interview was revealed as a hoax, Bichlbaum appeared in a follow-up interview on the United Kingdom's Channel 4 news. During the interview he was asked if he had considered the emotions and reaction of the people of Bhopal when producing the hoax. According to the interviewer, "there were many people in tears" upon having learned of the hoax. Bichlbaum said that, in comparison, what distress he had caused the people was minimal to that for which Dow was responsible. The Yes Men claim on their website that they have been told by contacts in Bhopal that once they had got over their disappointment that it wasn't real, they were pleased about the stunt and thought it had helped to raise awareness of their plight.

At the International Payments Conference on April 28, 2005, 'Dow representative' "Erastus Hamm" unveiled Acceptable Risk, the Acceptable Risk Calculator, and the Acceptable Risk mascot — a life-sized golden skeleton named Gilda — to an audience of about 70 banking professionals.

WTO

One of the Yes Men's most famous pranks is placing a "corrected" WTO website at http://www.gatt.org/ (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade). The fake site began to receive real emails from confused visitors, including invitations to address various elite groups on behalf of the WTO, to which they responded as if they were the actual WTO.

Appearing in newly purchased suits, the Yes Men gave speeches encouraging corporations to buy votes directly from citizens. They argued that the US Civil War was a waste of money because Third World countries now willingly supply equivalent slaves. They also urged people to listen to the WTO instead of the facts. They then unveiled a gold spandex body suit that they claimed would allow productivity to increase, as managers would not have to oversee workers in person but could keep track of them via images on an attached screen as well as implanted sensors.

New Orleans and HUD

The Yes Men appeared on August 28, 2006 at a "Housing Summit" in New Orleans, taking the stage along with New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco. Before an audience composed mostly of real estate developers, one of the Yes Men gave a speech in which he claimed to be Rene Oswin, a fictitious "assistant under-secretary" at the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). In his speech he claimed that HUD would reopen public housing facilities that had been closed since Hurricane Katrina struck in August 2005. He said that HUD had changed its mind about tearing down the undamaged housing units, and would not tear down the housing projects, as they had planned to do in order to replace them with mixed-income development.

HUD has called this prank, which