Hundreds of spectators witnessed a bizarre sight Saturday, when a slick new tech startup called RefuGreenErgy held a three-hour launch event in central Brussels, complete with four "RefuGreens" happily pedaling battery-filling bikes. "Company representatives" circulated among tourists and others, describing how the company would convert the power of bicycling refugees into electrical energy—giving the refugees 24-hour periods of amnesty and 1.60 euros per day, and Belgians "green electricity" and a "guilt-free way to help others."
Hijinks
Most of the hijinks below were undertaken by the Yes Men together with partner organizations. For some of them we did most of the work, but for some we just gave some advice. If you're inspired to try something like one of these on your own, check out our cookbook and get cracking!
One week after Democrats in Congress announced their new "populist" agenda, the Yes Men posed as DNC representatives and called their bluff by promoting progressive policies that are popular across the political spectrum, and have already been winning on the local level even in Trump-voting districts.
140,000 people came to see some of the biggest musical acts, speakers, and events at Roskilde Festival 2016, not far from Copenhagen, Denmark.
Now a major motion picture, launched February 28, 2018! At the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, National Rifle Association spokesperson Hensley Cocker proudly unveiled Share the Safety, a “buy one, give one” program to get guns into the hands of unarmed Black men.
During the United Nations General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on the world drug problem—whose dates strangely centered on April 20, or 4/20—the LA Times quoted the UN's new plan to decriminalize drugs and make them a health care rather than criminal justice issue.
Outside their headquarters in New York City, a Pfizer spokesperson gave a shocking announcement on April 1, 2016. “Pfizer will be cutting the price of over 100 medicines.” Cheers rang out from the nearly 100 activists gathered in expectation of this announcement, including members of ACT UP NY, Vocal NY, Housing Works, Health GAP, an affinity group Nobody’s Fool, and others. Little did they know this was part of an elaborate hoax to call out the greed and murderous indifference of the pharmaceutical industry, and illustrate just how easily they could do the right thing.
In the European Parliament in Brussels, a "defense and security consultant" presented an "industrial solution to terrorism" which—unlike all other military and security solutions—is guaranteed to actually work.
On All Hallow's Eve, some spooky ghosts took over downtown Frederick, MD to spread a truly terrifying story of the U.S. military's chemical and biological weapons testing in nearby Ft. Detrick.
When Edward Snowden made his first in-person public appearance on U.S. soil since receiving a Presidential pardon, a bi-partisan crowd went wild. Sadly it wasn't true. Read all about it or watch the video.
In drought-ravaged California, producing one pound of beef requires 1,799 gallons of water. Moby and some friends found a way meat-loving Californians can find a way to sustainably enjoy their locally-raised cattle products: stop showering.
When the pensions of the London Fire Brigade are threatened by new reforms, the Yes Men and local activists virally disseminate a hoax video of a dog being accidentally blown into a raging inferno at a demo by firefighters. Outrage at the animal cruelty turns into to outrage at the biggest threat to the livelihoods of London's bravest.
Before the UN Climate Talks in Lima, the New York Times told us: “At stake now is the difference between a newly unpleasant world and an uninhabitable one.” But in Lima, the world's governments chose the latter, offering the world not solutions but rather a roadmap to global burning.
Are we really just going to sit by and watch until most species on earth—including our own—go extinct? Or are we going to turn up the heat on our tone-deaf leaders in every way that we can, until they finally realize they have to stand up to the fossil fuel companies, and stop the carbon madness?
Impostors posing as ExxonMobil and National Petroleum Council (NPC) representatives delivered an outrageous keynote speech to 300 oilmen at GO-EXPO, Canada's largest oil conference, held at Stampede Park in Calgary, Alberta, today.
In 2007, we set up a fake TV studio and convinced a powerful French politician he was on right-wing American talk show. Among other things, deputy Patrick Balkany said: "There are no poor people in France.
The Survivaball made its first appearance in 2006, when "Halliburton representatives" attended a conference on catastrophic climate change and demonstrated the functionality of the large inflatable suits ("a gated commun
SurvivaBalls save managers from abrupt climate change
An advanced new technology will keep corporate managers safe even when climate change makes life as we know it impossible. (Speech, photos.)
In 1999, while working at the anti-corporate website RTMark.com, Mike and Andy receive an email from a fellow named Zack Exley, who has had the foresight to register the domain GWBush.com and wants help making a website for it.
Andy and Mike arrive unannounced at the London office of Twelve Stars Communications wearing ridiculous costumes based on the Twelve Stars comic strip Captain Euro.
Unable to make it to Seattle for the November 1999 anti-WTO protests, Andy and Mike make a website, www.gatt.org, to make fun of the WTO.
Environmental and indigenous rights activists team up with the Yes Men to impersonate the U.S. Department of Energy, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the Department of Defense, and announce the nation's new energy plan.
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