The prank has a long folk tradition, as something we do as a rite of passage as well as an act of insurrection. Folklorists (like myself!) have argued that this makes pranks important transformative and anti-hierarchical performances -- ideal, I think, for use in political theater.

I believe in the beauty and power of the political prank. I laugh when those in power are the butts of jokes. The way in which pranks work -- by upsetting convention and hierarchy -- make politicians and those in power particularly good (and funny) targets.

Take the pie-in-the-face political prank, popular in the early 2000s. As Mack Sennett, founder of the Keystone Cops proudly declared, A pie in the face, provided the recipient does not anticipate it, has no equal in slapstick comedy. It can reduce dignity to nothing in seconds. And when prankster/activists like the Biotic Baking Brigade targeted politicians and corporate officials for "pieing," it was meant to do just that "reduce dignity" -- demonstrate that those in power should get their "just desserts."

Sometimes the prank itself isn't that funny, but the reaction -- from the person targeted, from law enforcement, or from the media -- is friggin' hilaroius. (Bernard-Henri Lévy, for example, was the favorite target of famed entartiste Noël Godin precisely because Lévy would come notoriously unglued when pied.) The ways in which those in power respond to (or ignore or imprison) pranksters can say a lot: humorless, insecure, vulnerable, power-hungry.

For this reason I am, of course, incredibly amused by the @BPGlobalPR Twitter prank. It's genius on a number of levels.

I love that it challenges BP by speaking "the truth" about the company's disregard for the environment.

I love that it challenges public relations by rupturing the façade and the spin that some PR agents try to deliver.

I love that it utilizes social media, the tool that corporations are encouraged to embrace for the purposes of social CRM, and makes sure that that "management" doesn't involve the company's whitewashing of the whole tragedy.

If you haven't read Leroy Stick's explanation of why he devised the @BPGlobalPR Twitter account, you should. Pardon my quoting him at length:

You know the best way to get the public to respect your brand? Have a respectable brand. Offer a great, innovative product and make responsible, ethical business decisions. Lead the pack! Evolve! Don't send hundreds of temp workers to the gulf to put on a show for the President. Hire those workers to actually work! Don't dump toxic dispersant into the ocean just so the surface looks better. Collect the oil and get it out of the water! Don't tell your employees that they can't wear respirators while they work because it makes for a bad picture. Take a picture of those employees working safely to fix the problem. Lastly, don't keep the press and the people trying to help you away from the disaster, open it up so people can see it and help fix it. This isn't just your disaster, this is a human tragedy. Allow us to mourn so that we can stop being angry.

In the meantime, if you are angry, speak up. Don't let people forget what has happened here. Don't let the prolonged nature of this tragedy numb you to its severity. Re-branding doesn't work if we don't let it, so let's hold BP's feet to the fire. Let's make them own up to and fix their mistakes NOW and most importantly, let's make sure we don't let them do this again.

Right now, PR is all about brand protection. All I'm suggesting is that we use that energy to work on human progression. Until then, I guess we've still got jokes.

And jokes like the @BPGlobalPR account will help.

Through these jokes and pranks, we can laugh at those in power. It's a subversive laughter, one that hopefully makes us less likely to acquiesce to their bullshit.