The Yes Men

Today I came back late from a visit from Edinburgh from my work. I noticed a few days earlier the VPRO would air the documentary about the Yes Men. Luckily I made it home in time to watch a big piece of it. I never heard of them and I think these guys are briljant!

In 1996, Andy Bichlbaum made a splash by programming kissing, swimsuit-clad men into 80,000 copies of an action video game. When the two met, a collaboration was born. In 1999, they created a Web site parodying that of the World Trade Organization (WTO).Though the WTO denounced the spoof site, and though its creators felt the satire was self-evident, legitimate speaking invitations began arriving by e-mail. Undaunted, the Yes Men donned thrift-store suits and went where they’d been asked, posing as WTO spokemen and making outrageously callous statements. Their audiences were unfazed, prompting the Yes Men to raise the stakes again and again.

The documentary is about this journey of them. But more importantly the Yes Men are spreading the important message about why our existence should be based on humanity in stead of an amoral system focusing on making the powerful corporations more powerful, the richer more rich and the poor, even porer.

You can read all about them on http://theyesmen.org