Blog #5 Collective Action

For my blog, I am going to focus on highlighting and discussing the Occupy Protests of 2011-2012. I will discuss the motives and the arguable "goals" of the protest in addition to highlighting the role media has played in the organization and coverage. Concluding with the positives and negatives that can be derived from the protest.

First, I will begin by stating that protests are nothing new. In fact, they have been a part of human society basically since their onset. The difference today is that the ability to protest is ingrained into our rights as citizens. No king or tyrant is going to have us executed for stating an opinion or organizing en mass to express dissent. Occupy Wall Street 2012 is nothing more than an expression of this. The masses coming out to make their opinions heard.

Motivation for this mass demonstration can be traced back to multiple sources. This discussion website I have found seems to summarize motives as being mostly an expression against greed and by extension  wealth inequality. The economic meltdown of 2008 highlighted many holes in the unregulated banking system and issuing of sub prime rate mortgages and loans in the united states (ex. Working at McDonald's and receiving a $400,000 Mortgage you will never repay). As a result, many defaulted on their financial obligations when a fluctuation of interest rates occurred and thus causing a series of bankruptcies and the toppling of several "too big to fail" banking institutions (Freddy Mac, Fanny Mae and the  Lehman Brothers to name a few). The underlying irritation to many here was how many of the bankers and decision makers of these firms seemed to get off relatively unharmed, whereas the bulk of the economic damage caused a ripple effect that is still being felt throughout our economy today. 

The protests were organized and began in September 2011. With no clear leader or well defined mission, many (including myself) initially struggled to understand the primary goals of the protest. Looking back now, I can see where the motivation came from, but I am unable to discern if anything major has been accomplished. The world seems to same way now as it was before the protests, which leads me to conclude that perhaps the goal all along was merely to inform and increase awareness. If that truly were the goal, it has only celebrated a small victory. Awareness is no doubt a good thing, but I feel that without any societal change nothing major has occurred. This will only be highlighted in the next decade, as to whether another financial crisis is to occur by the same means. Personally, I feel that I would not have participated in the protests simply because of a lack of clear goals and means to accomplish them. I also only partially agree with the motivations. I agree with speaking out against corporate greed, but I feel that a certain degree of inequality is necessary for society to function. 

The primary reason that the protests were able to organize, gain attention and continue for several months was through the medium of social media. Twitter, Facebook and other communication tools which were widely used to distribute information, actions and opinions. In addition to this, many media outlets had wide coverage of the movement, tracking events all around the world. These factors led to the increased popularity and continuation of the events.

Overall, I will conclude by summarizing what I feel are positive and negative outcomes from the Occupy Protests of 2011

Positives:

- Increased usage of social media to quickly organize and communicate across the globe.

- Bringing thousands of people together.

- Increasing awareness and speaking out in dissent against greed and exploitation.

Negatives:

- No defined goals or leader, making it difficult to gauge whether the event was a failure or success.

- No long lasting implications (law changes, justice and government recognition)

- Motivations were broad and sometimes muddled with extremism (Anarchistic and socialist/Marxist tones) making if difficult to find support across broad social groups in society.

Overall, the events are certainly a huge matter for discussion, but with many do not seem to resonate any real action or change. Implications from this event will be felt into the future, as occupy has no doubt shown how effective social media can be in bringing people together. A cynical joke I can remember from the time seems to summarize how I feel about the overall outcome of the protests:

Q: "How many occupy protesters does it take to change a light bulb?"

A: "None, because they would rather sit there and complain about how dark it is"

It was a significant event in name, but in physical change, seems to fall short.

Blog #4, Meme Analysis

I choose to keep things simple and structure my blog post around the first meme that made me laugh.

http://overlymanlyman.com/football-helmet-you-mean-faggot-crown/

The background picture to this meme is known throughout the internet as the Overly Manly Man. In fact, all of the data I have found on his background and origin have been compiled on memebase under the Know Your Meme (KYM) tab (http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/overly-manly-man).  The character depicted is mostly a stab at humour in regards to ultra macho males. Generally speaking, the layout is almost always a question proposed at the top with a ridiculous answer below. This meme is widely used, and this example above is actually a variation of the original which was posted by rken3824 on to a subreddit page on September 24th, 2012. The original caption was: COLOURS? YOU MEAN THOSE THINGS WOMAN AND GAYS LIKE? I can only imagine that the grammatical error in the caption was meant to add emphasis to the ridiculousness of the meme. Ever since, variations have been popping up all over memebase as well as on many other lifestyle blogs. Links to reputable sites are available at the bottom of the memebase KYM page.

I feel that the meaning of this meme is to poke fun at alpha male types. A kind of play in regards to the ridiculousness of trying to always be the biggest, meanest and strongest male. I think this meme was designed and is continually circulated as a running joke around the existing stereotype  Often, the posts contain grammar and context errors in addition to profanity. The shirtless male in a fighting stance to me symbolizes a so called "meat-head" or jock, always looking for confrontation or battle. Where brains may lack but testosterone flows unimpeded.

Historically, the image background is that of a 19th century fighter by the name of Mike Conley. A website with a quick outline of his bouts is found through the link. (http://boxrec.com/list_bouts.php?human_id=40143&cat=boxer). It appears he was a well seasoned fighter with the nickname "The Ithica Giant". His image and historical records sat entirely separate to memebase prior to the upload and variation from rken3824. Personally, I have a feeling that Mike would approve of his new found popularity in the 21st century and seemingly alpha male status on the web. 

I find this meme and many of its variations hilarious. Although it may offend some, I think it's important to understand that the underlying humour lies in the well developed satire. Not just literally interpreting what the meme says.