Challenges

Liberate stupid footage

Find a piece of embarrassing footage that's not supposed to be public - for example, raw footage from a Video News Release. Edit and publicize it in such a way that the full stupidity of the footage comes out.

Create a ridiculous spectacle

Create a humongous, ridiculous spectacle celebrating your least favorite corporate entity (or entities). Document extensively.

Truth in advertising

From Adbusters to Banksy to the BLF, there are lots of ways to drastically improve the images entities like to give of themselves. Try your own!

Correct an identity online

Set up a website with a url similar to that of your target, emulating their style and content, but more truthful and honest about their dealings. For extra points, choose a target that is actively hurting your local community, and promote awareness of the issue beyond your community by involving the URL in a local impersonation event that's likely to get wider coverage.

Hijack a conference virtually

Find a Twitter "backchannel" for a really bad conference and start posting. Prize for the best, most entertaining, most revealing exchange. (Here's how to find and post to a backchannel.)

Crash a fancy event

Sometimes they just leave the microphone on. If you look the part, you can probably grab the mic. At a Heritage society luncheon, the Yes Men simply took the stage, tapped on the wine glass for attention, and made a speech drafting Edwin Meese for president (instead of the republican candidate George W. Bush).

Create a "special edition" newspaper

Printing a fake newspaper isn't as hard as it sounds. At this point, it's already been done several times, and it seems to get press every time. Here's how it's done.

Engage in jobjacking

Buy an Exxonmobil shirt on the internet, and stand at the local filling station. When people stop for gas,talk to them! For example, "The money from your gas today is going towards helping us defeat the indigenous people of Alaska and exterminate the violent polar bear of the Far North. Thank you!"

Or, for example, become a Wal-Mart greeter. Introduce shoppers to some really weird products....

Set up a booth for Career Day

Many universities and even high schools have special fairs where corporations and the military set up tables to recruit new students. This is a great time to make some propaganda, don your best corporate or military drag, and get your own table. If you offer students the graphic opportunity to exploit the earth and kill people, perhaps they will not be quite as excited about their future job.

Perform a sting

Pose as someone else and embarrass a very high-profile target, perhaps by getting them to say something they normally wouldn't.

Have a conversation

Go to a conference (here's how) and network as if you were "one of them. Then, have an entertaining, revealing conversation and videotape it. (You might, out of politeness, decide to obscure the face of the person you're talking to: it's the overall thing, not the particular person, that's really your target here.)

Do a training at a trade show

British Comedian and noted Activist Mark Thomas posed as a public relations specialist at an arms fair, offering to help improve the image of governments and companies who abused human rights. As various high-ranking officials visited the stand, Thomas videotaped their discussions. He devised a hilarious mock workshop on "winning the war of words" in which he convinced an Indonesian general to admit to the use of torture - an admission he would not normally have made....

Take a product to a trade show

Trade show floors can be a good launching pad for a sinister idea that you don't want to see happen. Take the case The Sniper ID Rifle. A bunch of Danish troublemakers, using the trade name Empire North, dreamed up a fictional gun that shoots GPS chips into protesters so the police can later round them up. They brought it to a Chinese arms fair and got lots of international press attention about liberty and privacy. Of course, there was one little problem: they also found customers.

Go to an event you don't like

Go to an event you don't like, and support it exuberantly and imaginatively. Because it's possible to condemn something through excessive enthusiasm - you figure out how.