![the monopoly man the monopoly man](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/article/4/6/1/605461.jpg)
Honestly, I don’t even think anyone knew about it. How did your family and community react to your activism early on? Ian Madrigal outside the White House during the Brett Kavanaugh protests in September. Within about five minutes I got kicked out of the mall. When I was 14, I went to the Disney Store at the mall and printed little slips of paper that said, “This clothing item was made in a sweatshop.” I slipped it into the pockets of the clothes and staged a protest outside. When I first got active in politics, one of the first things I learned about was corporations and sweatshops and slave labor happening abroad. I’ve naturally been a troublemaker challenging authority. I’ve basically been raising hell since I was a child. You have been doing creative activism for a long time.
![the monopoly man the monopoly man](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/5-Fqx7WZnEA/maxresdefault.jpg)
You don’t just want to be funny - you want to make your message clear. So you have to be really conscious when you’re using these antics. Everyone who was writing and tweeting about it mentioned the bill. And when I go to the hearings, I have to ask a friend to hold a spot in line for me because waiting there in a costume for five hours would give them way too much lead time to figure out what to do with me.įor me, one of the singular successes of the first Monopoly Man action was not just the attention it got, but the fact that every single article - from the Washington Post to the most clickbaitey news site - talked about the reason I was there, which was to oppose Equifax’s use of forced arbitration and specifically to oppose a bill that was pending in the Senate.
![the monopoly man the monopoly man](https://media.gq.com/photos/59d54114ca2599313ed61946/1:1/w_1332,h_1332,c_limit/2017-10_GQ_Monopoly-Man_3x2.jpg)
I order something to use as a costume on Amazon Prime, which I think of as using one billionaire to fight other billionaires. I usually just come up with a random idea and bounce ideas off of friends to get their reactions. How do you prepare for these actions and what makes them so successful?
![the monopoly man the monopoly man](https://www.costumet.com/images/board-games/monopoly/costume-guide.jpg)
You have done a number of creative stunts during Congressional hearings, from playing the audio of children crying in detention centers to dressing up as a Russian troll. We need comprehensive legislation and agency oversight that we have in many areas of business outside of tech. All of these various controversies show that Google and other tech giants cannot be allowed to self-regulate. I’m also hoping to call attention to the controversy raging over Google’s development of Project Dragonfly, a censored search engine that would endanger dissidents and human rights defenders in China, as well as internal battles over sexual harassment, racial discrimination and pay inequity. My appearance as Monopoly Man aims to highlight the need for regulation and antitrust action to rein in Google’s monopoly in many areas of tech. Why was the hearing with Google’s CEO an important place for Monopoly Man to make an appearance?
#The monopoly man plus
With a background in music and improv - plus a law degree from UCLA - Madrigal’s Monopoly Man has inspired activists around the country, as well as people on both sides of the aisle.
#The monopoly man how to
Their creative stunts - which have taken on powerful figures from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen - are effective, in part, because they understand how to strategically draw the worlds of politics, art and activism together. Ian Madrigal, who uses they/them pronouns, gained internet fame when they first dressed up as Monopoly Man during an October 2017 Senate Banking Committee hearing with the CEO of credit reporting agency Equifax, following its massive data breach. But behind the fake mustache and provocative message about capitalist greed is a dedicated activist for economic justice. To most people, this person - also wearing a monocle and toting a bag of cash - is none other than the famous board game character most commonly known as Monopoly Man. On Tuesday morning, when Google CEO Sundar Pichai testified before the House Judiciary Committee about his company’s data collection practices, there was a familiar mustachioed face in the crowd. Monopoly Man lurking just above the shoulder of Google CEO Sundar Pichai at Tuesday’s House Judiciary Committee hearing.