The Yes Men, Spoofing Corporations and the WTO

While very few people really know the true identities of culture jammer group "The Yes Men", for the sake of this discussion only, their two most prominent representatives are known as Andy Bichlbaum (AKA Jacques Servin) and Mike Bonnano (AKA Igor Vamos). And the targets of these hoaxers are huge, with strong emphasis on The World Trade Organization and any corporate entity linked to it.

As the group's name would indicate, members dress in acceptable dark suit business attire, blending in like chameleons with Washington wonks, or corporate drone types that might be seen on Wall Street, Madison Avenue, or downtown Houston.

The ploys behind their most successful media hoaxes have mostly involved creating fake corporate consulting websites that garner invitations to real world speaking engagements at conferences, symposiums, and television broadcasts in front of legitimate media, government, and corporate entities. Once at a speaking engagement, a fake "Yes Men" spokesperson might issue anything from fake news and proclamations to outrageous and implausible statements demeaning consumers and workers. Throughout their spoofing career, The Yes Men have passed themselves off as spokespersons from the likes of McDonalds, Dow Chemical, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and of course the WTO.

HUD

In 2006, "Yes Man" Bichlbaum/Servin posing as "Rene Oswin, assistant undersecretary at HUD" sat on a panel at the Gulf Coast Reconstruction and Hurricane Summit in front of an audience of Louisiana government officials and 1,000 contractors. The panel also included Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco and New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin.

When it was "Oswin's" turn to speak, he "announced" that the big oil companies would be contributing part of their windfall profits to the repair and rebuild of New Orleans' levees that were devastated by Katrina. He also "announced" that HUD would be reversing its (real) plans to demolish 5,000 units of undamaged and livable public housing in New Orleans.

When the hoax was uncovered, some critics leveled charges of "cruelty to Katrina victims" at The Yes Men, who contended that their spoof served to spotlight the need for affordable livable post-Katrina housing and the desperate need for repairs to New Orleans' devastated infrastructure.

The WTO Spoof

In 1999, during the tumultuous WTO Conference in Seattle and years before their New Orleans stunt, the Yes Men set up a spoof website for the World Trade Organization, garnering real world speaking engagements for WTO fake spokesperson "Hank Hardy Unruh." When speaking at these various conferences, "Unruh" made a variety of outlandish Orwellian post-fascist comments to a variety of international corporate entities without any noticeable audience reaction. Some of these appearances were caught on tape.

"The Yes Man" movie

In 2003, "The Yes Men", a comedy documentary, debuted. It followed the pranks and exploits of group members.

Bill Moyers meets The Yes Men

In 2007, Bichlbaum/Servin and Bonnano/Vamos appeared on the popular PBS series "Bill Moyers Journal" as partners in Triglyceride, a fake hedge fund consulting firm intending to combine "the aspects of all the hedge funds on Wall Street in order to bring under a single canopy of ownership every media outlet in America."

Of course, it was later revealed in the broadcast that savvy news commentator Moyers wasn't punk'd at all. He introduced The Yes Men as "The Yes Men." And there they were; a part of mainstream media.

SOURCES:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Yes_Men

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/08/28/hud.hoax/index.html

"Yes Men Punk", Jacque Lynn Schiller, Indiewire, URL: (http://www.indiewire.com/people/people_040930yesmen.html

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07202007/transcript1.html

"Mirror software", David McGuire, Newsbytes News Wire, URL: (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0NEW/is_2001_Nov_20/ai_80230755)