culture jamming and the yes men

I don't think I really understood the idea behind culture jamming until we watched The Yes Men video in class and then I decided to do some of my own research on the Web about it. The whole concept of identity correction among huge, worldwide organizations just blows my mind. I am always quick to think of the logistics of things, and how in the world it's possible for them to pull of stunts like this without getting arrested. Apparently someone had the same question as me, because on the Yes Men website there is a FAQ section and one of the questions was about if they thought what they were doing was illegal and if so, why haven't they been arrested? Here is a part of the answer that I found most interesting:

"On the other hand, what we do might not be illegal. Lawyers don't seem to know; the ones we've asked can't point to such-and-such a law that means we're in trouble. But then the law is pretty irrelevant, as far as corporations are concerned—if they want you silenced, they just throw a totally bogus lawsuit at you, that invariably gets thrown out, and in the meantime ties you up in red tape. That's called a SLAPP suit, and it's the main way corporations silence community activists whose causes aren't sexy enough for the mainstream media to follow."

Everything about the Yes Men seems to fascinate me because I just can't grasp how they are able to keep fooling people and doing crazy presentations and what not without getting in serious trouble. I don't know if it's part of the whole freedom of speech thing we have going here, but you would think someone would draw the line and limit them from pretty much doing whatever they wanted.

I love the attitudes of the Yes Men too. They aren't malicious or pushy in their ideals. When they don't get the reaction they want from a crowd they don't try and force it out of them. I guess they just want to get the information out their so they can better inform the people of the sometimes harsh realities of what some corporations and organizations are doing on a regular basis.

Because the video sparked my interest to look on their website I also found some shocking information about what happened in Bhopal in 1984. As they go on to say on the website, a vast majority of Americans had no idea what had happened with Union Carbide and the Dow...I being one of them. It's people like the Yes Men that are able to make others aware of whats really going on around them, and that's a great service they are providing to those who either take the time to research what they are doing or happen upon their activities by chance.

As I'm sure you gathered from this entry, I have found a fascination for The Yes Men and what they are trying to do. I'm pretty sure that I will keep researching other culture jamming activists who are out there trying to make the people aware of what's going on around them. It still shocks me that people could get away with stuff like this, but I guess in today's day and age, anything's possible!