Barbie Liberation Front

The Barbie Liberation Front was an organization that caused a significant cultural jamming intervention in 1993. Having purchased many Barbie dolls and GI Joe action figures, the group switched the voice boxes from a pair of dolls (one from either group) and then surreptitiously placed them onto store shelves. Needless to say, customers who purchased the toys were surprised to find gung-ho, combat ready Barbie dolls or effeminate GI Joes that were more interested in shopping than shooting.

The group's intention was to call attention to the glaring gender stereotyping with which the American public was indoctrinating our children with. The Barbie doll, for instance, would occassionally say "Math is too hard!" and, of course, the GI Joe action figures were unabashedly aggressive in their speech. Information cards in the refurbished packaging directed the customers to call news desks, thereby spreading knowledge of the event even further.

While the Barbie Liberation Front is effectively defunct, many of its members moved on to conduct other interventions along an activist bent. Mike Bonanno, a member of the BLF, became involved in gatt.org, a web site that parodies the World Trade Organization. (and it's predecessor, the Global Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) The web site was so successful at tricking its target audience -- international business interests -- that its authors were invited to speak at several conferences around the world. Needless to say, the opportunity was used to further the parody by portraying themselves as WTO representatives -- and, ultimately, pranking a number of people at a conference into thinking that the WTO was shutting down because it had finally realized the damage that was being done by it on the rest of the world.

Sources:
Sonic Outlaws, Craig Baldwin, 1995
Pranksters Sink the WTO, Yes! Magazine, 2005