From the mind of Adam McKay, Yellow Dot Studios is creating a new kind of climate messaging
Mixing social commentary, satire, and celebrity to make climate stories relatable
Yellow Dot Studios is a media production company created by the Academy Award winning director, writer, producer, and actor, Adam McKay and longtime production partner, Staci Roberts-Steele as a non-profit media studio challenging big oil disinformation and climate inaction. Since its inception in 2023, Yellow Dot has produced viral shorts and live events that use comedy to put a spotlight on the climate crisis and ways to respond to it.
The conversation below was recorded before Thanksgiving with Elijah Zarlin, Yellow Dot Studios Head of Digital and Engagement. It has been lightly edited for clarity.
What’s the Yellow Dot origin story? When did Adam decide that this was something to pursue and what are the organizing principles around the work that y'all do?
Adam was concerned about the climate emergency and recognized that accurate information really wasn't getting out to people. That oil company disinformation was still shaping the conversation, that corporate media was failing to inform people and warn people of the danger. So there was a need for information that was presented in a compelling and entertaining way, so it could break through in this environment.
A big part of the genesis obviously was around the creation of “Don't Look Up” and the conversation that came out of that. But the ah-ha moment was, after Don’t Look Up, Adam had this idea to make this little Chevron parody ad which he thought would be funny. And so he and [Yellow Dot Managing Director and McKay producing partner] Staci [Roberts-Steele] made the little two-minute Chevron video.
They just dropped it on Adam's Twitter account and it got five million views overnight. And so there was this revelation that there is an audience for stuff that is presenting the truth, but presenting it in an interesting way, and that doing that can potentially reach people who maybe won’t get this information otherwise.
What are some of the other campaigns that you worked on? You mentioned the Chevron campaign, but what are some of the others?
One of our most viewed sketches is one we did with Tim Robinson where he played this sort of skeptical not exactly climate denier-y person, but a skeptical person, talking to a very real climate scientist, that was really funny. And it was cool to see it sort of enter the internet culture as memes. Not just because of the power of Tim Robinson and his comedy, but because there were memes about climate sort of entering the meme universe.
We just did a great campaign on food waste with D’Arcy Carden [The Good Place, A League Of Their Own] that was in the style of a PSA, but with a lot of self-mocking — the premise was you could cancel out all the bad things you do in your life just by reducing your food waste. Which is of course patently absurd, but at the same time, food waste is actually this really significant bucket of emissions because of the footprint of agriculture, transportation, etc — and the video gave simple, practical steps for people to do. So it was informative and empowering, but also D’Arcy was absolutely hilarious, so it was really watchable.
We've been doing a live comedy show in LA, and we did one in New York, to kind of combine some of the elements of the fun part of going to see new and up and coming and established in some cases very very well-established comedians live, and adding an element of climate information and activism to the show.
We challenge all of the comedians to do one climate joke and we bring in a guest group or a campaigner which gives a theme to the show — for example someone from a green bank talked about getting your money out of fossil fuel investments, or a UCLA professor talked about legislation to make polluters pay for the damage from their pollution. So we sort of have some substantive climate conversations in addition to just a bunch of irreverent comedy.
So we've been exploring how we can play with that format of live audiences and live shows and let people have an experience that is fun but also can be activating and bring them into the climate space.
A lot of the campaigns seem to be around raising awareness of climate change as an issue or working with mission-driven organizations that are themselves either nonprofits sort of science focused. Is that the only kind of work that y'all want to be doing or is there a world in which Yellow Dot works with some companies or other kinds of organizations or groups that are working on climate solutions more directly?
Definitely. We want to inform people on the ways that they can be part of mobilizing towards the shift away from fossil fuels. What needs to happen for us to respond to this challenge. And there are so many pieces to that and stories to tell. The things people can do as individuals, in their own life as consumer actions or financial actions that can have impact — like the D’Arcy Carden sketch — and also to pull the levers of the broader system we all live in shaped by information, and capital, and consumer products, and government.
Of course, the fossil fuel industry wants to paint this all as a sacrifice, like what you're going to be losing, with just this extremely myopic view of cost. They’re focusing on the cost of gas while we’re saying wouldn't it be awesome if we didn't have to buy gas at all? And then you could actually drive or get around for much cheaper. Wouldn't that be cool? So a big piece of the puzzle is people do have to understand what a different world would look like, why it’s better, to, you know, not die because of an unnecessary preference for a certain kind of energy when alternatives exist.
Showing the sort of the world that could be as we talk about what is happening is a big part of exposing and undermining the misinformation that comes from the fossil fuel industry – and the fear-mongering that they do and the control over the conversation that they have.
What sorts of stories aren't being told that you would like to see told or that you would like to be telling?
In a lot of ways many of these stories are being told. They're not being heard.
I mean, scientists have been warning us for decades, right? Environmental groups have been campaigning for decades. So a big question is, as much as we talk about telling stories and getting the message out there, the question is how can you do that in this crazy information ecosystem where the media is no longer as relevant as it used to be and misinformation is rampant and everything is diffuse.
And so, of course we're trying to tell the story of fossil fuel disinformation. We're trying to tell the story of what is happening scientifically and what that means for humans and why people should care about that. The story of how big money is controlling our government and has corrupted many facets of our lives. The story of, hey there are these other ways to do things, other ways to get energy, other was to do the work and the jobs that they do. And there are lots of opportunities to tell those stories but people have been in some ways telling those stories and it's really a question of how do you actually get them to connect with people and get them seen in a time when people's information comes from as much like a search for entertainment as anything else.
So a big part of our approach has been trying to utilize the personalities and the techniques of the entertainment industry. Which is good, compelling writing that makes you laugh or makes you think and draws you in. The incredible creative talents of celebrities, and creators, and people who have followings because they are incredibly good at their art and what they do, and so we want to follow them and we care about what they do, because they're interesting.
How does a company that has an electric stove or a new EV or something else, work with Yellow Dot instead of any other creative agency? Or are there limitations on kind of the work that y'all can do given the mission that's been set for the organization?
We are a media production company so we can meet the needs of media production in compelling and creative ways. We're not a marketing agency in the sense of setting up people's marketing campaigns and their marketing automation and their ad buying and all of those things.
But in terms of creating creative content, thinking about how it can reach people and what type of messages, what are funny ways or interesting ways or just dramatic ways to present stuff, often with the mind of Adam McKay, is a pretty unique proposition and it's certainly an opportunity that I would hope a lot of companies and funders would be excited about.
Given the current political climate and where things are right now, do you think climate messaging needs a rebrand? Do you think, that companies need to be focused more on solutions, storytelling or the benefits of what they're doing rather than talking about climate?
Climate has always been a challenging message. It's always been a hard thing to talk about because it's big, it's global, it's diffuse, your own personal actions don't necessarily correspond to the direct benefits or costs that you're seeing. It's a collective action problem.
But it's becoming an unavoidable topic. First of all because extreme weather has been manifesting in more and more places. And that is a story that we've been working to tell that we've seen really resonate with people, because there are so many extreme events that are happening around the world that people see, and so many that people don’t see, and when you bring them all together it’s a powerful message about the threat level, and scale, and urgency. And that brings a personal relevance.
That gets back to your question too in that we know that humans are social creatures. They do what other people around them are doing. The biggest predictor of whether someone's going to go solar is if their neighbors have gone solar, not if they're a Democrat or Republican or a lefty or green, or whatever.
It's proximity and social norms. So the more that we can see these norms take hold, the faster and faster things can change, whether that’s the adoption of a product or products that get footholds in the marketplace or there is political will and political momentum for the level of policy change that we need to cut out fossil fuels and to prepare for adaptation – all of the things that need to happen to harden communities –all the stuff that needs to happen that just isn't happening now at remotely the scale that it needs to.
So there’s a big opportunity to bring climate responses more into the realm of celebrities, actors, content creators, and the broad entertainment industry, which creates the type of spaces where our imaginations still live, and just getting out these messages — be it in an earnest PSA from a celebrity that you care about, or a funny sketch, or just as sort of background in a show that you're watching — is meaningful.
Just building more of the overall atmospherics and the sheer volume of seeing that the people that you care about and you follow and that you respect care about this. Maybe people just see that they have an electric induction stove, or they're driving an EV.
It's a question of how you bring anybody into this conversation, and have them do something in a way that just feels authentic. Because the reason that anybody has a fan base and a following is there's something about them that is compelling and that is authentic.
You talk about authenticity as one of the key things that these creators bring to the table. When you think about climate messaging or messaging are there other things to consider: How do you balance the intense and profound challenge of responding to climate change with something that gives people some modicum of hope?
A big, foundational thing about Yellow Dot is that we try to tell the truth. That has a power in and of itself. And that frankly is at odds with certain styles of communication or maybe certain voices who want to present things one way or another.
But within truthtelling and authenticity, there's a lot we can do. For example, we have an internal discussion about the word ‘solutions’ and if that word is even misleading because we're at this point where this isn't something that you just solve. So we try to tend to use the word ‘responses’ because there are things that can address the problem. But when you talk about solving something — that would be if we could magically snap our fingers and bring CO2 levels down to below 350 and stop all the methane, etc. If that existed, then maybe we could call it a solution.
Are there any other linguistic slides things that y'all are very conscious about when you're communicating about these things? This notion of using responses instead of solutions is really apt.
We just talk about challenging bullshit, and not being bullshitters ourselves. Out in the world there are lies, and there are scientific truths that are too hard and abstract to understand. We try and present what we can in as plain, human, and interesting a way as we can. Ultimately, the question is: What is the essential truth of this?
And maybe it's absurd, and maybe it's funny, or maybe it's sad, but trying to connect the relatable part of something. How do you present this stuff in a way that allows someone to understand the fundamental or essential meaning, that cuts through the bullshit. And our hope is, by doing that, we ultimately empower a lot of people to help push the world toward the shifts we need, as fast as we need them.
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