Creative Activism in the Post Factual Age: A Talk by The Yes Men

For over two decades, The Yes Men have staged multifarious hoaxes and actions that have revealed the mechanisms of corporate and governmental power. They have impersonated corporate executives and created fake versions of news sources, like the New York Times, that present public statements and stories contrary to official ones, among other activities. Their stunts hijack print, the Web, and television to enact what they call “identity correction,” a tactic that exposes the latent exploitative operations of companies and governments. For example, in 2004, Andy Bichlbaum, one of the Yes Men, impersonated a Dow Chemical representative in an appearance on the BBC. During the performance, Bichlbaum issued an apology for the 1984 Bhopal nuclear plant disaster (a toxic chemical gas leak in a Union Carbide plant that led to thousands of deaths and severe health hazards) and promised immediate reparations that resulted in a $2 billion dollar drop in Dow’s share price and forced the company into a PR crisis.

Since Trump’s election in 2016, The Yes Men have been questioning their previous methods that use news and other media platforms for activist campaigns. They ask: What is the point of getting media attention in an economy of social media that drives news according to users’ taste and search history? Does satire work when truth itself is so absurd? What forms of activism are impactful in a moment of rising fascism and supremacy? Mike Bonanno, one of the members of The Yes Men, will unpack these and many other questions in the talk “Creative Activism in the Post Factual Age.”