Shooting Hipsters by Christiana Spens

Author:Christiana Spens
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Shooting Hipsters
ISBN: 9781910924174
Publisher: Watkins Media
Published: 2015-10-08T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Six

Populist Dissent

Populist movements such as the Tea Party movement, Occupy, Stop the War, and others rely on popular, community support, and mainstream media coverage of their protests and political arguments. Though very different politically, Occupy and the Tea Party movement have relied on similar PR techniques, to varying success. They have both used public protest, they have both utilised social media, and they have both relied on grassroots support. They have also both faced similar animosity from the government, given that both were opposed to the government, albeit in quite different ways. As time went on, Occupy suffered from negative and alienating portrayals in the press. While the Tea Party had less of a problem with this, the interest in the movement from big business ultimately undermined its credibility and it was arguably absorbed into the Republican Party – the very people it was (mostly) against.

Occupy

As mentioned in the previous chapter, Occupy fell into the trap (as did Stop the War, Uncut, among many other groups) of being mocked as hipsters and dirty hippies, therein causing disruption and mess. As Jacob Greene for Solidarity US noted: “Many reports were redolent with discussions of the protesters’ waste, including everything from their trash and camping debris to their actual urine and faeces” (Greene, 2011). Greene points to an interview on CNN with Peter Greene, where he characterises the Occupy movement thus: “The entire tone of the demonstrations at Zucotti Park… living in their own faeces and urine” (King, CNN, 17/11/11). He also discusses a Fox News report in which the TV host Greg Gutfeld describes the protesters themselves as waste: “[The Los Angeles Sanitation Department hauled away] thirty tonnes of waste, and that’s not including the protesters!”

Various media reports of violence came to represent the movement in the mainstream, as opposed to its extensive reach, support and careful organisation. There was a tendency to fixate on rare instances of violence that happened during a protest, even if it was not connected to it. In November 2011, for instance, near an Occupy camp in Philadelphia, a 50 year-old man raped a 23 year-old woman. The Blaze reported that: “Sexual assaults and other violent incidents have been reported at a number of Occupy Wall Street camps around the country, though Philadelphia’s has been fairly peaceful, according to WPVI. The movement has been criticized for its responses to sexual assaults, particularly at Occupy Baltimore where it distributed pamphlets discouraging victims from coming forward to the police, instructing them instead to report incidents to the ‘Security Team’” (Morgenstern, 2011). Although Occupy Baltimore refuted claims that their pamphlets discouraged victims from reporting violence (Lewis, 19/10/2011), the Blaze article did not offer readers that comeback, or in fact Occupy statements or explanations regarding many alleged crimes and problems. Even when, in the case of the Baltimore Sun for example, a fuller story was offered (Hermann, 2011), the press nevertheless tended to report only on problems and negative developments within Occupy, rather than anything positive. The portrayal of

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