Billionaires for Bush or Gore

(back)

Note: This article was written and published here in 2001.
Since then Billionaires for Bush (or Gore) has morphed into
Billionaires for Bush.

Truth is a Virus:
Meme Warfare and the Billionaires for Bush (or Gore)

(c) Andrew Boyd 2001

"Truth is a Virus." When I first saw this phrase, defiantly spray-painted on the walls of a suburban high-school, it thrilled me. So what if it was only a fantasy image in a Hollywood movie (Pump up the Volume, the Christian Slater film about a pirate radio station)? It was infectious. As a political activist, it made immediate, intuitive sense; it became my mantra. I want to infect the body politic. I want to unleash a viral epidemic of truth. Eventually this desire, taking shape in fits and starts, became my calling, guiding my strange "career" in culture jamming and guerrilla media provocations. I soon came to see, however, that lies are also viruses. Lies and myth and kitsch and advertising jingles and corporate logos and mood rings and the idea that free trade is free--all of these are viruses. I came to think of the matrix of hearts and minds and media as a vast theater of viral warfare. In his book Media Virus!, Douglas Rushkoff describes it like this:

"Media viruses spread through the datasphere the same way biological ones spread through the body or a community. But instead of traveling along an organic circulatory system, a media virus travels through the networks of the mediascape. The 'protein shell' of a media virus might be an event, invention, technology, system of thought, musical riff, visual image, scientific theory, sex scandal, clothing style, or even a pop hero-as long as it can catch our attention. Any one of these media virus shells will search out the receptive nooks and crannies in popular culture and stick on anywhere it is noticed. Once attached, the virus injects its more hidden agendas into the datastream in the form of ideological code-not genes but a conceptual equivalent we now call 'memes.' Like real genetic material, these memes infiltrate the way we do business, educate ourselves, interact with one another-even the way we perceive 'reality.'"

Rushkoff's exploration of "memes" fascinated me. But rather than viruses of clothing styles and pop heroes, I was interested in viruses of political ideas and action. For several years, as "Minister of Culture" for the social justice group United for a Fair Economy, I experimented with various media viruses, taking on issues of taxation, sweatshops, wage inequality, and corporate welfare. In the Spring of 2000 we developed a very virulent strain: Billionaires for Bush (or Gore).

The Billionaires campaign was devised to educate the public about the twin evils of campaign finance corruption and economic inequality. With the pay gap between CEOs and workers at 475 to 1, both Democrats and Republicans renting themselves out to big money donors, and 97% of incumbents running for re-election being returned to Congress, these problems had reached crisis proportions by the 2000 presidential election. Our idea was to create a humorous, ironic media campaign that would spread like a virus via grassroots activists and the mainstream media.

In early May, I pulled together a team of talented volunteer designers, media producers, and veteran street theater activists. With support from UFE, we began to put the pieces of the campaign in place. We created a stylish logo by splicing together a donkey and elephant, and a "candidate" by digitally morphing photos of presidential candidates George W. Bush and Al Gore into a single eerie image. Riffing off of slogans like "Free the Forbes 400" "Corporations are people too" "We're paying for America's free elections so you don't have to" and "We don't care who you vote for, we've already bought them" we created bumper stickers, buttons, a series of posters, and a kick-ass website that eventually won more than a few awards (www.billionairesforbushorgore.com). We also created a set of more content-rich materials, including a political platform, a full campaign speech, a candidate product comparison chart, as well as a campaign-contribution-return-on-your-investment-analysis. We even made mock radio ads, pressed them onto CD and sent 100 out to stations across the country. The satire was compact, funny and politically on target. The look was slick and the message was unified across a whole range of media. It was quite a package. And we launched it all with a "Million Billionaire March" at the Republican and Democratic national conventions. The satire was compact, funny and politically on target. The look was slick and the message was unified across a whole range of media.

We designed the campaign to be participatory: a simple concept that was easy to execute yet allowed for rich elaboration. Through the website, activists could download all the materials they needed to do actions in their own communities. By June, wildcat chapters were springing up. In Denver a Billionaires squad barged into the Green Party convention and tried to buy off Ralph Nader, much to the delight of delegates and the media.

By the time we arrived in Philadelphia for the Republican convention in late July, we were already a minor sensation. Advance articles in Time magazine and major dailies, radio coverage, and internet buzz had put us on the map. Our website was getting 100,000 hits a day (20,000 unique page views). Everybody was asking for our buttons and stickers and posters. Nearly a hundred Billionaires in full dress joined us in the streets, chanting, singing, burning money, smoking cigars. We also staged a "Vigil for Corporate Welfare" and auctioned off merchandising rights to the Liberty Bell (would it become the Taco Bell Liberty Bell or the Ma Bell Liberty Bell...?) The media were all over us. FOX, MSNBC, CBS, CNN, BBC, radio, print, corporate, independent -- it was a feeding-frenzy. An informal poll of photo-journalists voted us "favorite protest." We were certainly one of the more focused and cohesive. The Democratic convention in Los Angeles was more of the same. Folks there formed a very strong chapter, which included a marching band and a choir. My Billionaire character, Phil T. Rich, became a hit on the radio interview circuit and web site traffic shot up to 200,000 hits per day.

As the campaign picked up, a hub-node structure arose. UFE became the organizational hub of an ad hoc network of Do-It-Yourself movement grouplets. In the weeks after the conventions, we'd get email and calls every day from people across the country, raving about the project and eager to start local Billionaires chapters. "Cheney is flying into town next week." A young student in Ashland, OR told me in a typical call. "I've gotten a bunch of folks together and we're going to meet him at the airport. The local thrift store has already donated ten tuxedos." This student had first seen the Billionaires on a late-night mainstream news program. He then went to the "Be a Billionaire" section of our website, downloaded the slogans, posters, and sample press releases. The group chose satirical names for themselves, called to give us a heads-up, and went into action. While other participants first heard about the campaign through activist email networks or via word of mouth, penetration of corporate mass media was key to the Billionaires' success.

It took ingenious "viral design" to get our message through the corporate media's editorial filters and out into the datasphere at large. We built our virus by embedding a threatening idea inside a non-threatening form. The "protein shell" of our virus: "Billionaires for Bush (or Gore)." Our meme, or hidden ideological code: Big Money owns both candidates/parties; both candidates/parties are roughly the same. Elegantly encapsulating the core ideas of the campaign into a funny five-word concept made for a sleek and potent virus. This concision also served as an "inoculation" against distortion. Even the most fragmented and de-contextualized mention in the media tended to carry our name, and thus our message. If they also got our tag line, "Because Inequality is not Growing Fast Enough," then the message deepened. If they picked up modular parts of our shtick, then it deepened further. When they invited us on the air for lengthy radio interviews, we could eventually drop character and proceed with a straight up critique. The campaign had layers of code--concentric rings of more and more elaborate messaging. Each component was modular, compact, and self-contained. It could survive in a hostile, unpredictable media environment and like a fractal, still represent the campaign as a whole.

The Billionaires used irony's double edge-it's capacity to simultaneously pose both a straight literal meaning and a subversive implied meaning-to neatly flip between the virus' outer shell and its inner code. In this way we could reach our two disparate audiences-corporate media and grass-roots activists-at the same time. Activists immediately picked up on the various layers of irony. While the mainstream media could be seduced to "play along" with the literal, tongue-in-cheek meaning, letting the public decode the implied and subversive meanings for themselves.

Some of the most powerful media viruses-virtual reality, smart drugs, compassionate conservatism-are actually oxymorons. Activist viruses are no exception. Groups working to rein in excessive government subsidies, hand-outs, and tax-breaks to corporations hit on the phrase "corporate welfare." By meshing two seemingly incompatible notions into a new concept, such a phrase demands thought: "Huh, corporations get welfare?" It creates its own unique conceptual slot in the minds of people who hear it. The phrase demands conscious attention, providing an opportunity for the virus to attach itself and inject its meme-code into the public mind. The Billionaires virus made a similar demand: "Huh, billionaires are protesting? Huh, Bush or Gore?"

To be successful, a media virus need not be ironic or oxymoronic. It must, however, be mobile, easily replicable, and well suited to the particular vectors of the media ecosystem that it has to travel. The Billionaires virus was virulent partly because it was a carrier on the mega-virus of the Presidential campaign itself. It was designed to appeal to the media: it was timely, visual, funny, and accessible. It was familiar yet different: a new and provocative way to say what everybody already secretly thought. The virus attached easily to a range of physical and semantic "carriers"-logo, posters, slogans, fake radio ads, street actions, email, buzz, laughter, media story, etc.-and we introduced it into the media stream in a manner calculated to maximize its propagation. Content and humor were tightly meshed. Not only did the humor help carry the content (in the way that laughter makes it easier to bear the truth), but if the media wanted the humor (and they did), they had to take the content too. The materials were catchy and accessible and the action model was easy to DIY. Thus the meme "spread, replicated, and mutated."

What do you have to say?

Last comment was added on Tuesday, November 18, 2008

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Will Onya says:
The current site it billionairesforbush.com. Sadly, no sex, but I think there is a naked guy in the blog photos. billionairesforbush.com/blog/tracker, then down to May 27, 2005.

bellemcky says:
Oooh! I just had a thought, maybe your pale peeps were purposeful, showing white activism at its finest? lemme know. bellemcky@yahoo.com

bellemcky says:
Awesome, cracked my ass up (get it?) Hope you're outreaching to LGBT, POC & other usual non-billionares for your actions (your photos look a bit on the pale side knowhatimean), we need our shot too!

LONG LIVE THE BILLIONAIRES says:
I saw at least 5 Billionaires for Bush last halloween ;-) keep up the good work!!!

ALL 4 BUSH says:
4 more years Bush! Let's flush the John's!!!!!!!

a rationable person says:
lets get Kerry in the whitehouse for the next four years and hopefully good things will happen

Noah Countability says:
The Billionaires are back... Check out www.BillionairesforBush.com (drop the "or Gore" part)... The Billionaires will be out en masse at the March 20th events in NYC.. followed by a NYC Artists Fundraiser After Party. Location: La Belle Epoque. Time: 4pm-8pm. Date: Saturday, March 20th. Cover Charge: $8/$10-$1,000,000 sliding scale ;) ... There will be excellent live entertainment. And don't forget to check out the website for constant updates.

JP Morganstown says:
CarpetBaggers For CarpetBombs loves Bush and all the rest of the gang... keep up the good work

mark lindstrom says:
Any chapters in Seattle that I can hook up with? I would be interested in only naming Bush and not his opponent. Dubbya has to go. kayaklk@GTE.net

end BUSH says:
So what is up for the 2004 election cycle? I think everyone who has anything needs to be out there to get this situation corrected.

Ideoscape says:
You do realize that the billionares for bush or gore website leads to a sex-email site, right?

androgenius says:
i think ur ideas r great and innovative and now we need to reach a real audience,like global revolution, in toyko we are getting major coorporation to sponser peace parties,without the logos.....i by now feel its not by media provocation,it comes it goes,its media, everyone forgets like a commercial,but real alliances deeply thought out with the corporate intities.....i have personally had to question humanity and morality to cor people about sweatshops in asia..we r doing a benefit here end of year with world famous designers making one piece 4 peace,which will b auctioned 2 the highest bidderfor aids relief and water sanitation in afrika.......so i just say maybe if we focus on a deep level with our somewhatmsomehow u-man counterparts we can establish at least a dialogue with what is wrong in our society...we r artists and its tru our patients is wearing, but personally i am not having so much fun right now,seeing what is going on in the world...we need an american revolution,then the rest of the world will feel better in investing their future in this now suedo democracy in their own country.today i read iraq got its first burger king,and hundreds of us military lined up to buy the novelty of home,yum yum.........so maybe we should plan a revolution instead......its a global idea......use unix,dont buy softwarei know know of u do anywaythey sell cigarettes in the pharmacies(im a smoker but,that just seemed a bit 2 strange to me) anyway, it is US that will illimate the evil force of matter and money,we have to get rid of him and his clones,its up 2 us, its the fall of babylon and the time of zion,what we need is clarity,information and global unity 2 beat the beast.....so on and on, but ask ur corporate neighbor for lots of money to help all the suffering people around the world..and if he/she/it says no, ask him why he is such a rich fucker and doesnt want to share his wealth to save a childs life in afrika,asia,south america,or the usa,etc..spit on him if he doesnt understand,cause me ,myself am so tired of western mentality,indeed complacent..after hiroshima and nagasaki bombs in japan,indeed the intrance of so-called democracy,kyoto and tokyo are the richest cities in the world 2003,but i have traveled the world and never saw so many homeless people as here...this is the american value, and they think its cool..this is life and the lack of,i would like 2 see more art-ivists jamming 4 the futurenot all is goodnice work wiilliam and crew connect 4 global Pe@ce

Red says:
I've been scanning the web for info on what the group is doing re: the war we need to get this rolling again, it was clearly the most effective thing in the last elections and at least in Philly they did a great job of raising a stink and yet not getting arrested. "3 out of 3 Billionares agree: screw arms inspections and make refugees" "i'm an oil baron and I vote (100 times) etc

Esther Gyn says:
Since everybody is so in love with this idea now that the Presidential election is long since past, how about we update it? A simple twist on the original idea would be to go out and protest as Billionaires for Bush's War. No Blood For Oil Profits!

Lou says:
That girl in the top picture... she appeared in a photograph under a similar context in a semi-glossy print magazine a while back. I cut it out as a decoration for my room, since I thought it was both political and romantic. You could imagine my shock as she appears in a picture I randomly encountered when checking out this site. Amazing.

Archelo says:
Die Sam Die. Smoking pot is good. Up with satan down with America. MechaJesus should lear that all we are is a buch of ppl floating through this microcosm we believe is life. Its all about fun and work just doen't fit in. Down with Mecha.

MechaJesus says:
Christ, you people have no lives! Get out and help Corporate America! GET A JOB! STOP SMOKING POT!

Harry says:
This is extremely smart! Now, if only some people could make this their job and do it once a month in new and different ways each time, we might be able to reach the mainstream. I know I never heard about it and I have been an activist for a while, although I didn't used to regularly check the activists websites. EXPAND and DISGUISE MULTIPLE TIMES!!!!!!!!

ememememe says:
Don't STOP!

poorboy says:
This is all very inspiring. Good to see the political statements are still being made clearly and directly while having fun.

ix. says:
sounds like a great campaign with a powerful point. but what does the increased awareness that this promotes actually equate to in the polls?

humble says:
hmmmmmmmmm... I am relieved. I am not alone! This is simply brilliant. I woulda been so delighted and proud to be part of it.

LUX DUH says:
the injection of capital into my arm has created a deficit in the lower eastside of my bodily self. However, i am lucid and able to spend more dollars.

so I says:
Wow... New to the website, absolutely fantastico, such a brilliant idea, so well excecuted.. Viva la playa!

Mark Winkel says:
One of the most genius ideas I have ever heard, Totally amazed with what Complacent pulled off! Free Smores for everyone!!

Jack Oryan says:
Mob mentality?! The exsistense of single issue groups, political parties, religions, worker's unions, corporations only promote our need to revolt. We must unite understanding that we are different and not equal. There would not be Political parties or corporate welfare without the people allowing it. Our parents have sold us down the river for entertainment and material possesions. Shall we do the same for our children?

I Agree says:
Though, the challenge is to have theatrical movements extend beyond one easily digestible issue. One thing I have noticed the Billionaires have been able to do, is to continue by using the message or "meme" on issues besides Bush (or Gore.) Although, once the campaign moves past the core issue and onto other more complex and less direct initiatives the energy seems to depreciate noticeably.

buyitall says:
had i not been preoccupied with velveeta and assembly line hot dogs, I wouldda've dipped my ballz in the celebration.

[fury] says:
Wow! When I saw the protests on TV, I thought "Where did all these people come from, and who organized this?" I am amazed at the passion involved. Everyone feels these issues even the real billionaires, although probably ignored like a pesky annoyance could be. Only halfway. This is an excellent undertaking and I want more information! I'll spend my free time now searching for the answers . ..

nads says:
beautiful.simply beautiful.

William says:
What worked so brilliantly for "Billionaires for Bush or Gore" is that is was fun and people wanted to be involved. Those on the sidelines enjoyed watching and receiving the message. It didn't alienate anybody but billionaires.

Truth is a Virus: Meme Warfare and the Billionaires for Bush (or Gore) (c) Andrew Boyd 2001

"Truth is a Virus." When I first saw this phrase, defiantly spray-painted on the walls of a suburban high-school, it thrilled me. So what if it was only a fantasy image in a Hollywood movie (Pump up the Volume, the Christian Slater film about a pirate radio station)? It was infectious. As a political activist, it made immediate, intuitive sense; it became my mantra. I want to infect the body politic. I want to unleash a viral epidemic of truth. Eventually this desire, taking shape in fits and starts, became my calling, guiding my strange "career" in culture jamming and guerrilla media provocations. I soon came to see, however, that lies are also viruses. Lies and myth and kitsch and advertising jingles and corporate logos and mood rings and the idea that free trade is free--all of these are viruses. I came to think of the matrix of hearts and minds and media as a vast theater of viral warfare. In his book Media Virus!, Douglas Rushkoff describes it like this: "Media viruses spread through the datasphere the same way biological ones spread through the body or a community. But instead of traveling along an organic circulatory system, a media virus travels through the networks of the mediascape. The 'protein shell' of a media virus might be an event, invention, technology, system of thought, musical riff, visual image, scientific theory, sex scandal, clothing style, or even a pop hero-as long as it can catch our attention. Any one of these media virus shells will search out the receptive nooks and crannies in popular culture and stick on anywhere it is noticed. Once attached, the virus injects its more hidden agendas into the datastream in the form of ideological code-not genes but a conceptual equivalent we now call 'memes.' Like real genetic material, these memes infiltrate the way we do business, educate ourselves, interact with one another-even the way we perceive 'reality.'" Rushkoff's exploration of "memes" fascinated me. But rather than viruses of clothing styles and pop heroes, I was interested in viruses of political ideas and action. For several years, as "Minister of Culture" for the social justice group United for a Fair Economy, I experimented with various media viruses, taking on issues of taxation, sweatshops, wage inequality, and corporate welfare. In the Spring of 2000 we developed a very virulent strain: Billionaires for Bush (or Gore). The Billionaires campaign was devised to educate the public about the twin evils of campaign finance corruption and economic inequality. With the pay gap between CEOs and workers at 475 to 1, both Democrats and Republicans renting themselves out to big money donors, and 97% of incumbents running for re-election being returned to Congress, these problems had reached crisis proportions by the 2000 presidential election. Our idea was to create a humorous, ironic media campaign that would spread like a virus via grassroots activists and the mainstream media.
In early May, I pulled together a team of talented volunteer designers, media producers, and veteran street theater activists. With support from UFE, we began to put the pieces of the campaign in place. We created a stylish logo by splicing together a donkey and elephant, and a "candidate" by digitally morphing photos of presidential candidates George W. Bush and Al Gore into a single eerie image. Riffing off of slogans like "Free the Forbes 400" "Corporations are people too" "We're paying for America's free elections so you don't have to" and "We don't care who you vote for, we've already bought them" we created bumper stickers, buttons, a series of posters, and a kick-ass website that eventually won more than a few awards (www.billionairesforbushorgore.com). We also created a set of more content-rich materials, including a political platform, a full campaign speech, a candidate product comparison chart, as well as a campaign-contribution-return-on-your-investment-analysis. We even made mock radio ads, pressed them onto CD and sent 100 out to stations across the country. The satire was compact, funny and politically on target. The look was slick and the message was unified across a whole range of media. It was quite a package. And we launched it all with a "Million Billionaire March" at the Republican and Democratic national conventions.	The satire was compact, funny and politically on target. The look was slick and the message was unified across a whole range of media.
We designed the campaign to be participatory: a simple concept that was easy to execute yet allowed for rich elaboration. Through the website, activists could download all the materials they needed to do actions in their own communities. By June, wildcat chapters were springing up. In Denver a Billionaires squad barged into the Green Party convention and tried to buy off Ralph Nader, much to the delight of delegates and the media. By the time we arrived in Philadelphia for the Republican convention in late July, we were already a minor sensation. Advance articles in Time magazine and major dailies, radio coverage, and internet buzz had put us on the map. Our website was getting 100,000 hits a day (20,000 unique page views). Everybody was asking for our buttons and stickers and posters. Nearly a hundred Billionaires in full dress joined us in the streets, chanting, singing, burning money, smoking cigars. We also staged a "Vigil for Corporate Welfare" and auctioned off merchandising rights to the Liberty Bell (would it become the Taco Bell Liberty Bell or the Ma Bell Liberty Bell...?) The media were all over us. FOX, MSNBC, CBS, CNN, BBC, radio, print, corporate, independent -- it was a feeding-frenzy. An informal poll of photo-journalists voted us "favorite protest." We were certainly one of the more focused and cohesive. The Democratic convention in Los Angeles was more of the same. Folks there formed a very strong chapter, which included a marching band and a choir. My Billionaire character, Phil T. Rich, became a hit on the radio interview circuit and web site traffic shot up to 200,000 hits per day. As the campaign picked up, a hub-node structure arose. UFE became the organizational hub of an ad hoc network of Do-It-Yourself movement grouplets. In the weeks after the conventions, we'd get email and calls every day from people across the country, raving about the project and eager to start local Billionaires chapters. "Cheney is flying into town next week." A young student in Ashland, OR told me in a typical call. "I've gotten a bunch of folks together and we're going to meet him at the airport. The local thrift store has already donated ten tuxedos." This student had first seen the Billionaires on a late-night mainstream news program. He then went to the "Be a Billionaire" section of our website, downloaded the slogans, posters, and sample press releases. The group chose satirical names for themselves, called to give us a heads-up, and went into action. While other participants first heard about the campaign through activist email networks or via word of mouth, penetration of corporate mass media was key to the Billionaires' success. It took ingenious "viral design" to get our message through the corporate media's editorial filters and out into the datasphere at large. We built our virus by embedding a threatening idea inside a non-threatening form. The "protein shell" of our virus: "Billionaires for Bush (or Gore)." Our meme, or hidden ideological code: Big Money owns both candidates/parties; both candidates/parties are roughly the same. Elegantly encapsulating the core ideas of the campaign into a funny five-word concept made for a sleek and potent virus. This concision also served as an "inoculation" against distortion. Even the most fragmented and de-contextualized mention in the media tended to carry our name, and thus our message. If they also got our tag line, "Because Inequality is not Growing Fast Enough," then the message deepened. If they picked up modular parts of our shtick, then it deepened further. When they invited us on the air for lengthy radio interviews, we could eventually drop character and proceed with a straight up critique. The campaign had layers of code--concentric rings of more and more elaborate messaging. Each component was modular, compact, and self-contained. It could survive in a hostile, unpredictable media environment and like a fractal, still represent the campaign as a whole. The Billionaires used irony's double edge-it's capacity to simultaneously pose both a straight literal meaning and a subversive implied meaning-to neatly flip between the virus' outer shell and its inner code. In this way we could reach our two disparate audiences-corporate media and grass-roots activists-at the same time. Activists immediately picked up on the various layers of irony. While the mainstream media could be seduced to "play along" with the literal, tongue-in-cheek meaning, letting the public decode the implied and subversive meanings for themselves. Some of the most powerful media viruses-virtual reality, smart drugs, compassionate conservatism-are actually oxymorons. Activist viruses are no exception. Groups working to rein in excessive government subsidies, hand-outs, and tax-breaks to corporations hit on the phrase "corporate welfare." By meshing two seemingly incompatible notions into a new concept, such a phrase demands thought: "Huh, corporations get welfare?" It creates its own unique conceptual slot in the minds of people who hear it. The phrase demands conscious attention, providing an opportunity for the virus to attach itself and inject its meme-code into the public mind. The Billionaires virus made a similar demand: "Huh, billionaires are protesting? Huh, Bush or Gore?" To be successful, a media virus need not be ironic or oxymoronic. It must, however, be mobile, easily replicable, and well suited to the particular vectors of the media ecosystem that it has to travel. The Billionaires virus was virulent partly because it was a carrier on the mega-virus of the Presidential campaign itself. It was designed to appeal to the media: it was timely, visual, funny, and accessible. It was familiar yet different: a new and provocative way to say what everybody already secretly thought. The virus attached easily to a range of physical and semantic "carriers"-logo, posters, slogans, fake radio ads, street actions, email, buzz, laughter, media story, etc.-and we introduced it into the media stream in a manner calculated to maximize its propagation. Content and humor were tightly meshed. Not only did the humor help carry the content (in the way that laughter makes it easier to bear the truth), but if the media wanted the humor (and they did), they had to take the content too. The materials were catchy and accessible and the action model was easy to DIY. Thus the meme "spread, replicated, and mutated."