THE YES MEN AND ACTIVISM IN THE INFORMATION ... - Index of

and therefore may make their actions harder to justify in the public mind. Their frame is the
corporate world of accounting symposia, not museum exhibitions. The Yes Men, however, have
operated so exclusively within the corporate and financial realm that their actions have been
rendered impotent by the organizations the group has attacked. Vamos and Servin as the Yes
Men have not produced the obvious parodies and critiques as they did with the works of
RTMark. They instead chose more subtle means of criticism by pretending to be their targets,
and have opted for a feature film from MGM as their mode of promotion. By employing the
same overtly corporate modes of distribution that they attack, the Yes Men’s choice of a major
motion picture as publicity seems closer to a quest for personal celebrity than RTMark’s
homemade video. Because the Yes Men are so deeply involved in the capitalist process (they star
in a film whose purpose is to earn a profit), Vamos and Servin’s roles as activists become
somewhat blurred by questions about their motives for creating such a purely commercial
endeavor. So because of their chosen context – RTMark within the art world and the Yes Men
within a corporate framework – the Yes Men’s works have not been met by as receptive an
audience as RTMark’s have.
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