Most Effective

Here are a few projects that the Actipedia staff believe show clear evidence of effectiveness. Feel free to write to us with any other suggestions!
Birds Aren't Real
Practitioner:
Gen Z
Date:
Dec 9 2021

In Pittsburgh, Memphis and Los Angeles, massive billboards recently popped up declaring, “Birds Aren’t Real.”

On Instagram and TikTok, Birds Aren’t Real accounts have racked up hundreds of thousands of followers, and YouTube videos about it have gone viral.

Last month, Birds Aren’t Real adherents even protested outside Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco to demand that the company change its bird logo.

GLITS 2020 Fundraiser
Practitioner:
Gays & Lesbians Living in a Transgender Society
Date:
Jun 15 2020

In 2020, GLITS raised over one million dollars in less than a month through a grassroots organizing campaign with a clear objective, a call to action, and an open source toolkit. The objective was to raise one million dollars to purchase a building that would permanently house and provide services for transgender peoples of color in New York City. They created a toolkit with coordinated and captivating imagery and made it available to everyone.

United States v. One Book Named Ulysses
Practitioner:
Bennet Cerf, Morris Ernst
Date:
Dec 6 1933

In 1932, Bennett Cerf, cofounder of Random House Publishing, acquired the rights to publish James Joyce’s Ulysses in the United States, believing that the book would be as successful as it had been throughout Europe. But Cerf had a problem. The book was banned in the United States and would be seized as soon as it came off the printing press, which would lose Cerf millions of dollars.

Kissing Doesn’t Kill and other projects
Practitioner:
Gran Fury
Date:
Jan 1 1989

Gran Fury was an AIDS activist artist collective from New York City consisting of 11 members, all artists - but action, not art, was the aim of the collective. Gran Fury member Loring McAlpin described the collective's mass-market ambition to “...fight for attention as hard as Coca-Cola fights for attention.”

Vietnam comes to Washington
Practitioner:
Vietnam Veterans Against the War
Date:
Jun 15 1971

It’s the summer of 1971 and tourists flock around one of Washington DC’s most famous hotspots – the Capitol steps. Journalist Art Goldberg recalls ‘a squad of soldiers moving through the space. They are grubby-looking troopers, clad in jungle fatigues. Jumping a low fence, they begin shouting at a group of tourists. “All right! Hold it! Hold it! Nobody move. Nobody move!” Their voices full of tension and anger. A man runs from the crowd.

Stop Being Serious, This Protest is a Laughing Matter
Practitioner:
Farmers
Date:
Sep 1 1992
In Burma, dogs ridicule the regime
Practitioner:
Burmese dissidents
Date:
Sep 15 2007

Dogs featured in one ruse to ridicule the regime—pictures of dictator Than Shwe were hung around the necks of the stray dogs that roam the streets of Rangoon. The pictures, which rapidly found their way onto the Internet, are the work of an exiled Burmese satirist who goes by the name of Mr Creator. Downloaded copies of his pictures and cartoons are popular items among cyber dissidents.

Freedom riders
Practitioner:
Hundreds
Date:
May 4 1961

The first legislative victory of the Civil Rights era was obtained by hundreds of people going where they weren't invited. In 1961, Black and white Freedom Riders, well trained by SNCC in nonviolent action, rode Greyhound buses from Washington DC southwards primarily in order to wait, together, in waiting rooms that were still unconstitutionally segregated.

Minneapolis police station torched amid George Floyd protest
Practitioner:
activists
Date:
May 28 2020

(See also: approval rates for Black Lives Matter following the start of the protests over the murder of George Floyd by police.)

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