One of the things TEDxAmsterdam strives for is creating and supporting our community, especially those enthusiastic for the five Ideas Worth Doing. As we’re always looking for inspirational learnings we went to The Yes Men’s show during the Fringe Festival in the Stadsschouwburg Amsterdam. Not a coincidence, Reverend Billy was here performing for Fringe already back in July. Is entertainment the key to change the world around you one big step at a time?
The 90-10 principle
When you get the opportunity to be on stage, I believe one should think of the goals you want to reach. It could be just selling a message, inspire people or get the audience to actively take steps afterwards. I wonder if The Yes Men could have been more passive by making their show into a 2 hour Q&A session, answering most of the questions by playing videos of their, admittedly both successful and hilarious, previous actions. If you think they’re motivated by the sheer endlessness of social injustice opportunities to pick from, The Yes Men think of their actions as 90% fun and only 10% outrage about what’s going on.
The 10-90 effect
To me, the evening actually was quite the opposite: only 10 percent was fun and 90 percent of the audience seemed outrageous about, well, the world. Mike and Andy were not amazed, shocked or startled by microphone grabbers raising awareness for their own left-wing protest against capitalism (squatting the Beursplein stock trade building on September, 17th). Nor did they seem to care about the woman shouting they should not ask 250 euros for their Yes Lab workshops – standing strong even after being corrected from the balcony that it only took 50 bucks (as she replied fiercely: “yeah, after government subsidies!”). They kinda had it coming, right? Inviting hundreds of activists clinging to the promise of “fixing the world” and letting them ask all and any questions was waiting for a car crash to happen. The upside of this experience is that I finally know what theaters felt like 100 years ago with very active participation of the audience becoming part of the show without many boundaries.
Personal revelations
Things got interesting when questions on practical issues were raised: “I tried to do something similar posing as someone else during a video interview, but got all nervous. When you faked that press conference about transforming democracy into buying votes, didn’t you shit your pants?”, someone asked. The short answer comes down to “yes”. The first seven or eight times were like trial and error for Mike and Andy, too. Soon they learned there was no need to be afraid of beatings and savages: actually, all people attending (press) conferences are very polite and can take some insults. Still having trouble finding a suitable business model, both Men are still working as professors in daytime to pay their bills.
Sharing learnings
Yes Men on stage (by Polle Willemsen for 27images.com)
Realizing “we don’t have any special talents – anybody can do this” the guys created something called the Yes Lab, a series of workshops to share their knowledge, guide new change initiatives and empower other activists. Performing on a stage might not be the strongest asset, but judging the tweets about this 3-day creative collaboration, the Lab is something worth attending if you want to get first-hand assistance developing media attention for your cause by professional change bringers. Otherwise, I’d suggest watching The Yes Men’s pranks and even the full version movies on YouTube – for the fun of it.
Further reading:
http://www.yeslab.org/
http://theyesmen.org/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OazUh0Ym8rc
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379593/
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