The Yes Men are a culture jamming activist duo and network of supporters created by Jacques Servin and Igor Vamos. Through actions of tactical media, the Yes Men primarily aim to raise awareness about what they consider problematic social and political issues. To date, the duo has produced three films: The Yes Men (2003), The Yes Men Fix the World (2009) and The Yes Men Are Revolting (2014). In these films, they impersonate entities that they dislike, a practice that they call “identity correction”.
The Yes Men operate under the mission statement that lies can expose truth. They create and maintain fake websites similar to ones they intend to spoof, which have led to numerous interview, conference, and TV talk show invitations. They espouse the belief that corporations and governmental organizations often act in dehumanizing ways toward the public. Elaborate props are sometimes part of the ruse (e.g. Survivaball), as shown in their 2003 DVD release The Yes Men.
Famously, in December 2004, Jacques Servin appeared on BBC World as a spokesman for Dow Chemical, in order to formally accept responsibility for the Bhopal disaster, 20 years to the day after nearly 4,000 people died due to a chemical leak at a Dow subsidiary’s facility in India. Servin’s spokesman persona announced that Dow would liquidate Union Carbide and use the resulting $12 billion windfall to compensate the victims’ families, pay for the survivors’ medical care and repair the lingering environmental damage. Two hours later, Dow Chemical issued a press release denying Servin’s statement, triggering a selloff on the European stock markets that cost the stock $2 billion in valuation in under 25 minutes.
External Links:
- For the website: http://theyesmen.org/