The Yes Men.

• Author: DiNovella, Elizabeth
• Position: THE PROGRESSIVE INTERVIEW - Mike Bonanno and Andy Bichlbaum - Interview

Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno are the guys behind the corporate pranksters known as the Yes Men. The anti-free market activists pose as representatives of big companies they don't like and gleefully misrepresent them at conferences, online, and on TV.

In one of their biggest hoaxes, they posed as representatives from Dow Chemical on the BBC on the twentieth anniversary of the Bhopal accident. Some 300 million viewers watched as they apologized for Bhopal and pledged to adequately compensate the victims. Dow had to come forth and admit it wasn't about to do any such thing. "Instead of trying to hoodwink the public, we're trying to hoodwink corporations to reveal information to the public," says Bonanno.

The Yes Men have pulled pranks at the World Trade Organization, posed as the federal government in New Orleans post-Katrina, and pretended to be the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. They take absurd ideas and pass them off as real ones. Says Bonanno, "A lot of times the best ideas are really just turning around the idea that a corporation already had, and pushing it further than they intended."

They have produced two films, The Yes Men (2003) and The Yes Men Fix the World (2009), which showcase their finest work.

In 2008, they created a faux New York Times paper that announced the end of the Iraq War and handed out thousands of free copies in Manhattan. They also went after Chevron last year.

The two are now busy creating the Yes Lab, workshops that advise activist groups on how to run similiar campaigns. In April, one group, US Uncut, a grassroots movement pressuring corporate tax cheats to pay their fair share, posted a fake GE press release announcing it would return its $3.2 billion tax refund. Several media outlets, including USA Today, tan the story as true. "By doing these more creative projects we're able to open up space in the newspapers that otherwise weren't giving any column inches to voices that we hoped to represent," says Bonanno.

I caught up with the Yes Men a few months ago when they were in Madison, Wisconsin, speaking at the university. During the Q&A portion of the event, a nine-year-old asked them what he could do to change the world. "We did ask for hard questions," they said. "Look around and keep noticing how stupid adults are, and when they're lying."

Q: How do you pick your targets?

The Yes Men: They often pick us. The Chevron action was a collaboration with the Rainforest Action Network and Amazon Watch. A friend of...