AFFIRMATIVE ACTION

TOM VANDERBILT ON THE YES MEN

JEAN-FRAN�OIS LYOTARD famously described post-modernism as "incredulity toward metanarratives." But lately I have thought a more apt characterization would be "incredulity toward MetaFilter," using the popular blog (metafilter.com) as a metaphor for all Internet information, which arrives in such volume and with so many hallmarks of legitimacy as to strain the usual measures of veracity. For example, I was recently alerted by MetaFilter to the existence of a gated community near S�o Paulo called AlphaVille. This seemed an elaborate joke-a cluster of guarded villas named for Jean-Luc Godard's technopulp metropolis, where free expression, art, and even …