“Right now, a lie is better than the truth,” she said.
This is the most profound statement I’ve personally come across in a long time. Let it sink in for a moment. Before I give you some context, think about how sad the quote is without any context at all. I submit to you that this attitude is “un-American.” It spits on our founding fathers and mothers. The words are at once blasphemous, and righteous. Around the world, are we not taught that a lie is a sin, or at the very least a betrayal of the social contract? Yet, this woman is speaking truth to power. Immorality is the new morality. How did we get here?
The quote comes from Annie Chen in a CNN.com article about The Yes Men.
When The Yes Men took on the department of urban housing or HUD in post-Katrina New Orleans, the hoax had a different angle from their WTO stunt. Instead of passing off crazy money making ideas as genuine, and having the majority go along as they did with the WTO impersonations, The Yes Men made up positive lies that would actually cause many corporations in New Orleans to lose money in favor of the poor. Did the business community uprise and clutch their wallets in horror? Watch.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3490160844253437894Wow, again, the majority goes along with the idea given from the pulpit, this time even when it is against their business interests. Identity, at least in the moment, is so powerful as to almost hypnotize.
Unfortunately, the stunt only exposes the corruption, or corrects the identity, as The Yes Men might say. Poor people are still neglected by our government and corporate interests in New Orleans. It seems the people most upset about The Yes Men lies were the duped officials and not the real victims of the real tragedy. The people are upset that you have to lie to tell the truth. This person is upset that her tax dollars bail out more crooks than victims of natural disaster.
What about when the stakes are clearly lower?
Does Dan Lyons need Fake Steve Jobs to tell the truth? After all, he’s a major league journalist now that he’s landed at Newsweek. In a smart post by an old nemesis of mine (CNet open source blogger Matt Assay) we see that Newsweek is behaving very much like a spoiled corporation, both censoring Dan Lyons and promoting his world class satire via Fake Steve Jobs. In this sense, Fake Steve actually has more power than the big time reporter identity-the real identity.
Assay did not like that Dan Lyons as FSJ hid behind anonymity until exposed by the New York Times. I would argue (and given the example above perhaps Assay does too) that the secrecy is the teeth of satire, however. Now that the tech community knows that FSJ is Dan Lyons, readership has declined–the fun is gone. He is now a polarizing figure in PR circles. Much like the Colbert Report, granting access to a corporate spokesperson is risky business with Dan Lyons. When Lyons jumped to Newsweek, this former proud flack thought it was a power move (companies could not ignore Newsweek’s circulation gravitas).
Clearly, as the Assay post proves, I forgot in the moment that access, interviews and most of the props of the main stream media are just as theatrical as The Yes Men, just not as funny.
Finally, I leave you with an observation coming out of Professor Robles’ core seminar in Media, Culture and Communication last night. When I felt annoyed with an author who chose to disengage from a virtual online community rather than fight ambush, Robles asked the class to offer ways to protest via the Internet. We came up with hacking, trolling, flaming, denial of service attacks, flashmobs, Twitter–many of the tools we’ve discussed in Mushon’s class. No one, including myself, said satire or identity correction. Personally, I think this is because satire connotes humor and protesting does not. It is counter-intuitive, just like telling lies to reveal truth. Twisting the boundaries of identity via satire might just be our best bazooka. Now, that’s American.
Possibly Relevant Posts:
- Does knowing the “real world” identity of a “fake” blogger, diminish the power of his or her satire? (2) | gorditamedia
- Tell It Like It Is (1) | gorditamedia
- I Don’t Care Who You Are (6) | gorditamedia
3 Comments
Being a PR woman, how do you see this being applied to your own practice? Do you think M$ could use some satirical practice or is this just a grassroots thing. Can big business use these subversive methodologies?
Let’s not forget the extent to which we as a culture need the Spectacle to drive home points and ideas we would have otherwise overlooked!
The PR profession has a horrible reputation for telling lies and blocking the truth. Many PR pros do not knowingly tell lies, and many of us see journalists as teammates in clear communication, not adversaries.
There is a chance that PR pros and companies could use these satirical tactics, but it would not come from the top down. It would come from rogue individuals within the system because the aforementioned reputation exists for a reason, especially on the corporate side.
It is hard for me to think of big business and subversive in the same sentence. For a corporation to be truly subversive (rather than just funny like Burger King), they would have to take actions that were against the profit making charter to the shareholders. A corporation would have to put something before profit, something before its very legal definition of existence. I could think of private businesses that do this, but not public ones. Anyone have an example? Does anyone see a different way for a public corporation to subvert without denying Wall Street DNA?