The Yes Men
The Yes Men are a net art and activist group that runs communications guerrilla and became known for a forgery of the WTO website . Members of the group pose as representatives of international corporations or institutions and caricature their goals with exaggerated demands at conferences ( over-identification ). You yourself refer to this as “identity correction”.
The two leading members of the group are known by a number of pseudonyms , most recently as "Andy Bichlbaum" and "Mike Bonanno". Their real names are Jacques Servin and Igor Vamos. Servin is a science fiction writer and Vamos is an assistant professor at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy , New York.
During their first campaign in the 1990s, they swapped the electronics on Barbie and GI-Joe language dolls and put them back in stores. They then published a statement on behalf of the "Barbie Liberation Organization".
The group says it is funded by Herb Alpert . Still, fundraising is a difficulty; In order to raise donations, the Yes Men have made their film available for free download, combined with the request to donate money.
WTO
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In 1999, the Yes Men secured the domain gatt.org ( General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade ) and put a fake World Trade Organization (WTO) site online. Despite the completely exaggerated alleged demands of the WTO on the site, they repeatedly received e-mails and invitations from real organizations to the address of their fake WTO site. They then use this for appearances at various conferences.
Salzburg
In May 2000, WTO Chairman-General Mike Moore was invited to a conference on international trade law through the Yes Men site . On behalf of Moore, the Yes Men declined the invitation and instead sent a certain " Dr. Andreas Bichlbauer ".
"Dr. Bichlbauer ”gave a lecture on free trade and the fact that obstacles that hindered it had to be removed. Among other things, the free market of a democracy should make it possible to trade with votes on websites such as “voteauction.com”. However, the Yes Men did not receive any critical reactions from the conference attendees to this suggestion - even as “Dr. Bichlbauer “ praised Hitler's economic policy, there were no reactions. After the talk, a member of the Yes Men interviewed the conference participants about what “Dr. Bichlbauer ”, but nobody wanted to have noticed anything unusual about the lecture either.
CNBC
In 2001 the Yes Men were invited to a television conference on CNBC - they were supposed to present the position of the WTO live in a video conference with critics of globalization (including Barry Coates as a representative of the " World Development Movement "). The representative of the Yes Men appeared here under the alias " Granwyth Hulatberi ". Hulatberi kept not return and announced that Coates' children if they would benefit from privatized education, understand how the free market works and that they'll thinkers such as Charles Darwin and Milton Friedman instead Robespierre and Abbie Hoffman would prefer. Free trade is always the right way to go; there should also be a trade for human rights violations in the form of “ Justice Vouchers ”. The rich would automatically be right because they had power and the poor weren't. Barry Coates was obviously on the verge of losing his composure several times.
A few days after the broadcast, the Yes Men received a letter of thanks from the broadcaster.
Tampere
In 2001 the Yes Men were invited to the conference “ Towards the Globalization of Textile Trade ” in Tampere ( Finland ). Since the previous lectures and appearances had hardly caused any critical reactions from the conference guests, the group decided to go a little more drastic.
Some quotes from the lecture:
- “ Some of the defenders of the (American) Civil War say that the war, for all its flaws, at least led to the ban on involuntarily imported labor. Well, of course, such a business model is a terrible thing. I am an abolitionist myself . But in fact there is no doubt that market forces have over time replaced slavery with a "cleaner" source of labor. If the involuntary importation of labor had not been banned, what do you think a slave would cost today? "
- “ Let's just leave the slave in his homeland, let's say Gabon . In Gabon you can provide him with food for two weeks for $ 10 , not just for one day. $ 250 is enough for a year of accommodation, not just a month, $ 50 is enough for a lifelong supply of clothing! Health care is also much cheaper. In addition, young people can be employed without any heavy requirements. "
- “ The greatest advantage of the“ outsourced workers ”system, however, is that the slave does not have to be unfree! This is mainly due to the elimination of the one-time transport costs that no longer have to be recovered. The potential losses in an escape are limited to the rudimentary training of the slave. Because the slave can be free, he or she suddenly becomes a worker and no longer a slave! Another important point for slave morale - workers! - it is that they can remain in their traditional habitat and do not have to be relocated where they would suffer from homesickness and racism. "
The discussion about slavery and the free market economy served the Yes Men to hold a plea for the total surveillance of workers by managers. The WTO is of the opinion that the efficiency of production can be increased by controlling the worker during work and also in his leisure time.
As a result, Mike Andy ripped off his business suit. Underneath there is a shimmering golden leotard, in which an oversized phallus is integrated. At the top of the phallus there is an input field through which the manager communicates directly with the worker. In practice, it looks like microchips are implanted in the worker's body that send electromagnetic signals into the manager's butt.
Again, the Yes Men received only applause for the lecture and no one seemed to have had any problem with the content of the lecture.
Plattsburgh
In 2002 the Yes Men were invited by Richard Robbins to the State University of New York in Plattsburgh to give a lecture to students. The lecture was under the introductory question: "Why is starvation a problem?" The Yes Men openly stated that the WTO policy, similar to the policy of England before the Great Famine in Ireland , leads to famine. But their solutions followed the logic of the free market. They proposed a system to recycle the food they eat. The life span of a hamburger could be extended tenfold. One graph made it clear that the system would, in fact, boil down to the Third World eating the recycled feces generated in the First World.
At this lecture the Yes Men received a negative reaction for the first time, but the students were already negative towards the WTO from the start and the Yes Men were booed before the lecture.
Sydney
At a conference of the Certified Practicing Accountants Association of Australia in Sydney , the alleged WTO employee Kinnithrung Sprat announced that in the light of all its failures, the WTO had decided to dissolve and re-establish itself as an organization that is no longer for large corporations, but for the poor and the weak want to work.
The Yes Men received a consistently positive response to this lecture, some conference participants approached "Mr. Sprat" after the lecture and gave him tips on how they think the new organization can ensure that it really works for the poor.
They also received hundreds of enthusiastic emails in response to a press release by the Yes Men (on behalf of the WTO).
Election campaign
In 2004 the Yes Men went as “ Yes, Bush Can! ”( Yes, Bush can! ) On tour and encouraged supporters to sign a“ Patriotic Pledge ”by declaring their willingness to store nuclear waste in their garden and send their children to war. They also appeared at the Republican Congress .
Dow Chemical
Bhopal
On December 3, 2004, the 20th anniversary of the Bhopal disaster , Yes Man Andy Bichlbaum appeared on BBC World as Dow Chemical spokesperson "Jude Finisterra". Dow Chemical owns Union Carbide , the person responsible for the calamity that left thousands dead, and those who survived often suffered serious damage. On that anniversary, the BBC announced that the company Dow Chemical, the new owner of Union Carbide for a few years, would commit to its duty and pay out $ 12 billion to the families of the more than 3,000 dead and 120,000 injured in Bhopal will:
“I am very happy to announce today that Dow is taking full responsibility for the Bhopal disaster for the first time. [...] We have decided to liquidate Union Carbide, this world nightmare that is causing the Dow a headache. "
Shortly thereafter, the BBC denied their report - and the "Jude Finisterra", who had a say in the BBC live interview, turned out to be Yes Man. In the meantime, however, the value of Dow Chemical on the stock exchange had fallen by about two billion dollars.
Acceptable Risk Calculator
As alleged Dow representatives, the Yes Men also presented an Acceptable Risk Calculator in 2005 , a computer program allegedly developed by the Dow Group in order to find locations for companies where the population is prepared to bear a high risk of accidents they received applause from 70 bankers invited to their conference. The bankers even posed for photos with the (alleged) Dow mascot Gilda, the Golden Skeleton .
Halliburton
On May 9, 2006, the Yes Men appeared as Halliburton representatives at the Catastrophic Loss Conference, a meeting held in Florida dedicated to the impact of global warming . The Yes Men presented a “SurvivaBall” here. This should protect managers from storms, global warming, tidal waves, etc. The SurvivaBall looks like an oversized plastic ball with 6 arms, two headphone openings and an opening for the face of the manager to be rescued. The audience was visibly impressed by the idea of the SurvivaBall. There was even an inquiry as to what extent the SurvivaBall would also protect against terrorism . A fake Halliburton homepage was also put online.
Exxon Mobil
In the summer of 2007, the Yes Men, representing ExxonMobil, presented a product called vivoleum at the GO-Expo gas and oil trade fair . To make vivoleum , the deadly side effects of the oil industry would be used to produce oil from corpses. During their presentation, they handed out vivoleum candles .
Quote from the Yes Men at the presentation: “More fossil energy increases the likelihood of disasters, but that means more raw material for vivoleum. Oil will continue to flow for us who are left. "
The Yes Men were exposed and led away during their appearance at the GO-Expo.
New York Times
On 12 November 2008, the Yes Men distributed a fake edition of the New York Times , dated July 4 , 2009. In this issue, she painted a picture of a better world in which the war in Iraq is over, George W. Bush for treason accused and Condoleezza Rice publicly apologized for lying about the Iraq war. According to the company, over 1.2 million issues were printed and distributed. There is a website for the project, the edition is also available for free download.
US Chamber of Commerce and Climate Change
On October 19, 2009, Yes Men Andy Bichlbaum announced at a satirical press conference that the Chamber of Commerce would allegedly give up its negative stance on the US climate legislation discussed in the US Congress. The US Chamber of Commerce filed a complaint a week later.
See also
literature
- Martin Doll: Resistance in the guise of hyper-conformism. The fake strategies of ›The Yes Men‹ . In: Andreas Becker u. a. (Ed.): Mimicry. Dangerous luxury between nature and culture . Schliengen 2008, ISBN 3-931264-74-2 , p. 245-258 .
Web links
- Official website of The Yes Men
- Die Hochstapler , brandeins, issue 10/2014
- Thomas Willmann: The truth is a threat - Interview with the Yes Men on Telepolis on March 9, 2004
- Interview with the Yes Men on Jetzt.de 13th February 2009
- Statistics presented by the Yes Men in Sydney
- The Yes Men Fix The World P2P Edition as legal torrent download and as legal Youtube stream with subtitles
- Fake News in Media Art: Fake News as a Media Art Practice Vs. Fake News in Politics (in: Postdigital Science and Education, Springer)
Documentaries about the Yes Men
- The Yes Men in the Internet Movie Database (2003)
- Info wars in the Internet Movie Database (English) (2004)
- The Yes Men rule the world in the Internet Movie Database (2009)
- The Yes Men - Now it's getting personal in the Internet Movie Database (English) (2014)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Christian Klaß: With Bittorrent against the system. In: Golem.de. July 25, 2010. Retrieved August 14, 2012 .
- ^ The "WTO" website of the Yes Men. Retrieved on August 14, 2012 (English).
- ↑ Acceptable Risk ™ Launch, April 28. (No longer available online.) The Dow Company, April 28, 2005, archived from the original on June 29, 2012 ; accessed on August 14, 2012 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ vivoleum is dead. In: De-Branding. July 2, 2007, accessed August 14, 2012 .
- ↑ Parody in millions: Fake "New York Times" announces the end of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In: SPIEGEL ONLINE. November 13, 2008, accessed August 14, 2012 .
- ↑ Fake NYT edition. (PDF; 8.22MB) Retrieved on August 14, 2012 (English).
- ^ Andy Bichlbaum: Chamber exposed. In: Yes Lab. October 19, 2009, accessed August 14, 2012 .
- ^ US Chamber Files Civil Complaint to Protect Trademark and Intellectual Property from Unlawful Use. In: US Chamber of Commerce. October 26, 2009, accessed August 14, 2012 .
