The Yes Men

"They are a prank group. They prank corporations in such a way that the corporations are forced to address the prank. A good example is a year ago they issued an authentic sounding press release announcing that General Electric would be giving back their billions of dollars in tax refunds to the government because General Electric is hugely profitable so didn’t need this huge tax refund. The media thought it was real – the Associated Press reported, “General Electric to return tax refund,” which forced GE to say, “Hey, that great thing you heard we were going to do, we’re definitely not doing it.” Another good example was the Yes Men announced that Dow Chemical would be paying the victims of the Bhopal chemical spill. Dow then had to come forward and say, “No, we’re not paying the victims who had their lives destroyed.” Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . The Yes Men do the best guerrilla satire. Andy [the alter ego of Jacques Servin] pretended he was a Dow Chemical representative. The idea of satire is taking the reverse point of view of what you actually believe. Like when the Republicans vetoed child healthcare, I said: “I agree because children are fucking annoying and we don’t need more of them around.” When Andy addresses the world as a Dow Chemical employee on TV, he’s living out a satirical role – I think it’s brilliant. The book follows some of their pranks – I believe more than just that one. They were invited to speak at the World Trade Organisation so they went and announced they had a new business model for basically enslaving human beings. The businessmen they presented to were not horrified – some of them actually wanted the Yes Men to come and speak at their events. Yes, there are lots of ways to get material out now. That takes away the gatekeepers. I can do my podcast and nobody tells me what to do, what to say, how to say it. If I choose not to have advertisers, I have nobody paying me to have a certain point of view. The gatekeepers are gone. If you want to watch my stuff, you can just come to leecamp . net and see it. There’s no need to kowtow to big corporations and corporate media channels. The unfortunate side is that it’s difficult for most podcasters to make a living. I may never be allowed to do my comedy on one of the late-night television shows, or at least I haven’t so far, because the topics I’m talking about are not safe territory. They want humour that’s easy to digest – they don’t want to offend anyone. If I was living in the seventies or eighties, TV would be my only way to reach people, other than live performance. Nowadays I can do what I do and still reach people around the country and around the world. And I can still make a meagre living. There’s a huge difference between O’Keefe and the Yes Men. O’Keefe took the videos of him going into ACORN [Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now] offices, as an example, and edited them in a misleading way. In one an ACORN employee humoured O’Keefe while he was posing as a pimp, but immediately after called the cops and tried to get him arrested. They have phone records showing he called the cops. O’Keefe leaves out that part of the story. What he does isn’t satire, it’s serial misrepresentation of organisations he disagrees with. That’s a huge difference. The Yes Men use true facts. I frequently get people who say, “You shouldn’t say some of those things because they may upset people” — suggesting that if I really want to be successful I should only talk about things that everybody agrees on. I’d rather say the truth in my opinion and hope to have an effect on the people that are listening than be loved by everyone in the country. Watering down my comedy for mass consumption doesn’t interest me. Moment of Clarity is a compilation of my three-minute video rants. People around the world can view the web series – I get emails from Japan and England and Australia from people who feel the same way about corporate pillaging. Now I’m reaching readers through the book. I started the web videos in February of last year and I talked about a lot of things that Occupy eventually brought to the national spotlight. In June of last year, David Degraw, who helped create Occupy through his writings, asked me to make a video promoting a move-your-money-from-the-big-banks occupation. They tried again in September and that was the beginning of Occupy. I was lucky to be involved in the early stages. When Occupy really started in September I was able to bring my blend of comedy and activism to Wall Street and DC and Chicago and Montreal and all across North America. It’s been really fun. While the crowd might already agree with me, they’re occupying a square so they’re really in need of entertainment. So I got to help keep people jazzed up and ready to fight. That you can be pepper-sprayed for sitting still."