Lessons

Always, always punch up. Never, ever punch down.

Never, ever, ever punch down.

Jokes are funny when they mock the powerful. They are not funny when they mock the powerless.

That's why right-wing humor is just not funny at all. In fact, it's why humor is intrinsically left. But the funniest stuff on the left, while it may mock horrid right-wing beliefs, reserves its greatest scorn for the purveyors of those beliefs, rather than the consumers.

Jokes are not funny when they have victims. Some of the tricks played by PR would be funny if they didn't have victims. But they do. They have victims. And so they're not funny.

This may be the most important of all our lessons, ever. It might be the only one that's 100% guaranteed to be useful.

 

Instances in which we learned this lesson

How we helped industry estimate how much death was acceptable
If corporations can do whatever they want without interference from government (i.e. people), then what is "Acceptable Risk"?
How we tried to save democracy through trickery, the first time
Where you got here from
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…
How we invented a conservative talking point, fooling Newsmax twice in a row
Through some Yes Men sleight of hand, we ended up as Newsmax's contact for the American Enterprise Institute. And when they wanted to talk about the…
How we tried to jump-start impeachment
Coming soon!
How rodeo clowns brought down capitalism
This one's pretty self-explanatory. Watch the video and you'll get it... or read the press release for more details. What might not be quite as…
The story behind the story of Shell's epic failure—the fake one
Full gory story coming soon! Meanwhile, see this excerpt from our third movie. Also, check out the story of ArcticReady.com, that came out of our…
How we helped the US Chamber become its own worst enemy
Shortly after launching a battalion of Survivaballs to draw attention to the climate crisis in advance of the COP15 (that we had some fun at as well…
How we accidentally destroyed the "International Web Police"
One of the most embarrassing episodes from our archive, but also one of the weirdest....
See more "lessons learned"