Hoaxes as Social Activism

In 1729 Jonathan Swift anonymously published a short work titled A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland From Being a Burden to their Parents or the Country, and For Making Them Beneficial to the Public. The essay proposed a radical solution to the problem of the numerous starving beggars and homeless children in Ireland — feed the unwanted babies of the poor to the rich. Swift didn't actually intend to promote class-based cannibalism. His point was to use satire in order to dramatize how the rich exploit and dehumanize the poor. But many readers failed to recognize this. More…

In 1935, veterans of World War One lobbied Congress to pay them their war bonuses ten years early in order to ease the economic hardship they were experiencing during the Great Depression. Congress readily acquiesced and passed the Harrison Bonus Bill to do so. This pre-payment was a source of inspiration for Lewis Gorin, a senior at Princeton University. It seemed logical to him that if present-day veterans could get their war bonuses early, why shouldn't future veterans also receive their money up-front — before they had fought in a war. Thus was born the Veterans of Future Wars movement. More…

During the taping of the Donahue talk show, on January 21, 1985, seven members of the audience fainted. The producers of the show theorized that the hot temperature inside the studio caused the people to collapse, but a few days later it was revealed that "professional hoaxer" Alan Abel had paid them to pretend to faint. He said that the stunt was a protest against the deteriorating quality of daytime talk shows and claimed that a group called FAINT (Fight Against Idiotic Neurotic TV) had spearheaded the protest. "We want to raise the consciousness of the public by going unconscious," he said. More…

A press release distributed to the media in Columbus, Ohio announced the formation of a new charity for the homeless. But instead of giving food or shelter, this charity planned to provide guns and ammunition. It called itself the "Arm the Homeless Coalition." News of this charity soon spread nationwide and generated enormous controversy. But when an Ohio reporter tried to track down the director of the Coalition, his investigation led him instead to a group of university students who admitted the entire thing was a hoax, designed, they said, "to draw attention to the issues of guns and violence, homelessness and media manipulation in our society." More…

On the 20th anniversary of the chemical disaster in Bhopal, the BBC broadcast an interview with Jude Finisterra, whom they believed to be a representative of Dow Chemical, the company that had inherited responsibility for the disaster via a corporate acquisition. During the interview, Finisterra shocked everyone when he declared that Dow had decided to accept full responsibility for the incident, and was going to pay $12 billion in compensation to the victims. In response to the news, Dow's stock value promptly dropped. Only later was it discovered that Finisterra was actually anti-corporate prankster Andy Bichlbaum of the Yes Men group. More…

A Dutch real estate company announced plans to develop a utopian "protected" community specifically for gay people on the north side of Tilburg. It would be named "Gay Village." The company said it had come up with the idea after seeing research showing that 22% of gay men didn't feel safe in their own neighborhood. The concept immediately generated controversy, with many denouncing it as a "gay ghetto". But a day later, the gay rights organization Roze Maandag (Pink Monday) admitted it was the mastermind behind the plan, which was all a hoax designed to highlight the problem of homophobia and "create awareness." [guardian]