Posts Tagged ‘Yes Men’
“If you must lie (and you must), lie honorably”*…
Long-time reaaders will know of your correspondent’s affection and regard for The Yes Men, the culture jamming activist duo Jacques Servin and Igor Vamos (and their network of supporters). They’ve impersonated– lampooned in painfully telling ways– everyone from President George W. Bush and Dow Chemical to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the New York Post (above)… much of it chronicled in three wonderful films made about their work. They’ve also done their best to encourage and enable others. But now, they’re really giving it all away…
Two years ago, we Yes Men received a generous seed grant to “replicate,” i.e. help activist groups use our tricks. We spent the next two years absorbed in careful experiments that built on the twenty years before that.
Now — on the occasion of a retrospective showing of things that we’ve made, and in the hopes of fulfilling the grantor’s wish to see “hundreds” of Yes Men take wing — we’re inviting you to sign up for our Meddleverse…
Learn from the best– @theyesmen share their activist secrets in the Meddleverse.
• The Yes Men
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As we admire audacity, we might recall that on this date in 2006 that last Mobile army surgical hospital (MASH) unit was decommissioned by the United States Army… 23 years after the final episode of the TV series, M*A*S*H, that made those facilities famous (even as it critiqued war in general– and the Vietnam War, which was underway when the series premiered– in particular).
Shell game…
Shell Oil has recently suspended its plans to drill in Alaskan Arctic waters this year— something about oil rigs they can’t control. But that’s just a temporary set-back. The deeper problem is the climate of regulatory suspicion and public hostility they face. What’s a poor oil company to do?
Turn to social media! At ArticReady.com, visitors can help.
Government nearly caused a disaster in Alaska. Now, only individuals can repair the damage…
Some regulators and environmentalists are letting emotions stand in the way of America’s energy destiny, but we refuse to be victimized. By donating to Shell’s #RepairingFreedom campaign, individuals who truly believe in our Arctic mission can help bring the Kulluk back to her former glory…
One way to lend a hand– use the Ad Generator create a public opinion-shaping ad that captures Shell’s plans for the Alaskan fields– something like this contribution from “Keith”…
Readers will have spotted the tongue-induced bulge in cheek… ArcticReady is in fact a collaboration of Greenpeace and our old friends, The Yes Men (and their Yes Lab)… and it’s a gas.
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As we say “still, Baby, still,” we might send illuminatingly satirical birthday greetings to Ringgold Wilmer “Ring” Lardner; he was born on this date in 1885. A columnist, short story writer, and occasional playwright, Lardner was, with his rough contemporary Grantland Rice, one of the two great American sports writers of the first half of the Twentieth Century. But while Rice was known for his elegant and thoughtful prose, Lardner’s gift was for the odd, the funny– and always, the authentic.
Lardner’s work was admired by the likes of Virginia Woolf (“and other very serious, unfunny people,” as Andrew Ferguson wrote); he was a friend of F. Scott Fitzgerald; and an influence on Ernest Hemingway, who called him “Jupiter on tiptoes.”
Anti-social media…
Long-time readers will know of your correspondent’s high regard for the Yes Men. So it’ll be no surprise that he’s also a fan of their on-line cousin, Jon Morter.
Morter, who holds down a day job as a “legitimate” social media consultant, is the anonymous presence behind Condescending Corporate Brand Page, on which he skewers the wrong-headed things that corporations do in their attempts to turn social media into advertising. In England he’s best known as the guy who waged a Facebook campaign to make a (classic, but hardly seasonal) Rage Against the Machine tune from 1992 the #1 Christmas single of 2009–and raised more than $100,000 for charity in the process. (Though the that fact that he won Pret A Manger’s 25th anniversary search for a new breakfast sandwich with a well-timed one-word recipe–“bacon”– runs a close second.)
Read a fascinating interview with “the king of the social media pranksters” at CoCreate…
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As we recheck our privacy settings, we might recall that it was on this date in 1988 that Frank Drebin (first) foiled an attempt to assassinate Queen Elizabeth II– Naked Gun premiered.
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