In a recent article, "Smashing
Culture," I briefly described a scene in Philadelphia from 30+
years ago. Sitting in McGlinchey's, I was drinking Rolling Rock.
This
trivia triggered a most curious yet telling response from a commenter,
"Rolling Rock? - really? Were you listening to the Eagles too? Nice
street cred attempt, but it's either 'While knocking back a few beers'
or 'While drinking a Guinness' - Rolling Rock just makes you sound like,
well, another pretentious art f*g."
It never occurred to him I
was simply telling the truth. To establish "street cred," I should have
come up with something way cooler. It's all about one's image, you see.
With
social media, everyone is a microscopic celebrity, the undisputed
global star on his own cellphone, so online preening has become a
universal obsession. Compulsively, they make duck faces while quack
quacking bon, not really, mots.
Enjoying such a fabulous virtual
life, they miss out on a real one, however, so "street cred" must be
established, to mask the fact that they're never on the streets, even
when they're on the streets.
Occupy Wall Street erupted in New
York on September 17th, 2011. Four days later, I took a Chinatown bus
from Philly to see what's going on, and for the duration of this
movement, I kept a pretty close eye on it. Besides the Occupy camps in
Manhattan and Philly, I also visited those in Harrisburg, Trenton,
Atlantic City,
Washington, Raleigh,
Savannah
and Orlando.
Living
in tents like urban savages, these protesters suddenly had a tactile
and smelly existence inside a community, so despite the cold, rain and
absence of indoor plumbing, they were soothed. Night after night, there
were no brick walls between their bodies.
Their movement fizzled
out, however, because it degenerated into an endless display of narcissistic
posturing, with everyone making self-important speeches
about his or her pet cause, to an audience of fifty, tops, which is not
how a revolution is ever made.
Had Samuel Adams showed up, he
would have had to squeeze his truncated speech in between, say, an
animal right manifesto and a black reparation sermon.
Still, it
was fun to fancy yourself a Mao, Che or Comandante Zero, even if your
thundering cosplay was immediately canceled by the next, completely
unrelated yet equally forgettable, performance.
Sitting on a
striped blanket, a glum, balding guy went on a hunger
strike to protest "UNEMPLOYMENT, POVERTY AND CORPORATE
GREED." Ignored by all, he disappeared after a few days, apparently to
stuff his face greedily.
Conceived as not just an indictment but
siege of Wall Street, Occupy became a sad, stinking and incoherent skit
that increasingly annoyed nearly everyone who had to work, do business
or transit around their messy camps.
Though government
infiltrators undoubtedly helped to fragment Occupy, most protesters
gleefully went along with their own gelding, because, to them, it was
never about rallying the 99% towards common goals, as they vaguely
claimed, but airing minority grievances. Most importantly, they could
look
cool doing it.
With visual evidence uploaded onto
FaceBook, Tumblr and Instagram, etc., soy boys from strip malled
subdivisions could accrue street cred.
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