The Yes Men

I missed the lecture and lab last week, so I hope what I say in this post is going to be relevant.

In my opinion, what The Yes Men did is pretty cool. Their professionally-made prank website - targeting Chevron recent campaign "We Agree"- can really trick people; but if you click on their main page link "The Yes Men" at the bottom, you will be led to their main website describing their objectives and reasons playing prank on particular corporations.

Let talk about what I thought BEFORE I checked out their objectives (I wrote down my thoughts, so the level of bias will be the minimum). What did I think when I first saw the two "We Agree" websites? Personally I like the messages in the prank website - they are simple, straight to the point, and I believe, representing most of the people's thoughts.

On The Yes Men's website, they claimed that "Impersonating big-time criminals in order to publicly humiliate them. Our targets are leaders and big corporations who put profits ahead of everything else." I agree that corporations and politicians should be attacked by some intellectuals in order to raise society awareness, allow freedom of speech, allow improvement and development, and so on. No one is perfect, and someone (in this case The Yes Men) has to remind them (in this case Chevron) to improve and do something for the consumers and people's sake.

While what stroke my mind was - why weren't The Yes Men sued by corporations which they put prank on? Perhaps lawsuits were made but the Chevron seems not taking this issue seriously (at least in my opinion). I was trying to look for some press releases or public statements made by Chevron regarding the issue, but I failed. Doesn't Chevron mind when they were being fooled? Or could anyone find me a statement released by Chevron addressing this issue?

The Yes Men know what they are doing. Their FAQ page on their website is very sufficient in information and they are confident with their stand. If they are sued due to copyright and prank issue, I would love to know what both sides could say.