Satire and humor have limits

Though there are many uses for humor in activism, at every level, campaigns are way more important than jokes—or any individual action.

A single humorous action can help spread ideas far and wide—like when apartheid-era zombies communicated that nothing substantial has changed in Cape Town, or McDonald's offered free Happy Meals to victims of NYPD racial profiling, or (especially) when revolutionaries made regimes look like idiots with one wacky image or a series of jokes.

But "Stop and Frisk" was overturned by a sustained, coherent campaign, not just humor. Milosevic and Mubarak were toppled by mass action in which humor played a small role. And to really overcome the new apartheid of Cape Town, it's going to take more than some zombies running around.

As for the times when when fascism threatens your country... forget it. (We learned that the hard way—again and again and again. Live and learn—or not!)

Instances in which we learned this lesson

Our 32-page Post was prepared by a coalition of activists and delivered in time to be distributed by 2000 volunteers the day before the city…
Louise, Mike, and Andy decide to attend the Heritage Foundation’s annual Resource Bank meeting at the Renaissance hotel in Chicago, April 29-30, 2004…
Using our first (2004) movie's publicity budget, as well as a rather large philanthropical grant, we bought a used radio truck and outfitted it as a…
... and if we don't win the two Georgia Senate seats, 2024 could be even bloodier.
We thought we were making satire—then Trump actually did it.
In August of 2017, we were given a speaking spot by Politicon, a conference at which we'd previously brought Ed Snowden back to US soil, to enormous…
Back in 2011, a small brainstorm around the NYPD's racial profiling ("Stop and Frisk") led to an idea that everyone laughed and cringed at…
Two hundred apartheid-party zombies descend on the Cape Town City Hall to celebrate their return to power. Whaaaaaa?