The Yes Men Prank the U.S. Chamber of Commerce

By
Shea Gunther
Writer
  • University of New Hampshire
  • Rochester Institute of Technology
  • University of Southern Maine
Shea Gunther is a writer, entrepreneur, and podcaster living in Portland, Maine. He covers topics such as renewable energy, climate change, and nature.
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Shea Gunther
Updated February 28, 2020
These aren't really oil lobbyists, but they did fool Congress. (Photo: Visible Hand [CC BY 2.0]/Flickr)

This is pure comic gold.

The Yes Men are activist geniuses. They can wrap a message around a prank like no one else can.

Today they pulled one over on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. They posed as the chamber and threw a press conference announcing their 180 flip on climate change and their intention to stop fighting the Boxer-Kerry climate change legislation working its way through the Senate.

In the middle of the presser, an actual chamber spokesman, tipped off by a confused reporter showing up at the real chamber offices for the announced press conference, burst into the room yelling and denouncing the Yes Men as impostors. There was a moment of reported hilarious insanity as the fake and real spokesmen got into a yelling match, each accusing the other of being phony. The real spokesman was able to stop the press conference but not before Reuters sent out a wire item reporting the policy about-face. Here's CNBC breaking the news:

There's a link to a video of the event up at Huffington Post, but I haven't been able to get it to work. It's a Quicktime file; leave a comment here if you're able to get it to play. It'll hit YouTube soon enough, so I'll update this post when that happens.

Here's the video of the conference:

Check out the Yes Mens Survivaball.

The Yes Men Fix The World, a feature length movie, hit the screens last week; you can visit their website to watch the trailer and to find a theater near you.