One movement whose social media presence has always been an intriguing aspect of the way that it presents itself is Occupy Wall Street. Occupy Wall Street (hereinafter referred to as OWS) is a protest movement which began on September 17th, 2011, in Zuccotti Park in Manhattan's Financial District. The movement sought to bring national attention to income inequality, student debt, political corruption, and corporate influence on government, among other issues. The decidedly leftist sentiments embodied by the protesters proved especially potent, and iterations of OWS soon spread to over 1,500 cities worldwide. I first liked the movement's official Facebook page in late 2011 or early 2012, around the height of the movement's popularity.
It's now been over three years since the movement's inception, and OWS has since died down. It is no longer as ubiquitous a topic of conversation in the media as it was at its peak; and yet, OWS' Facebook page remains active almost daily. In its early days, the OWS Facebook page was used as a channel through which to call attention to and urge users to join upcoming protests and strikes. Nowadays, the page is used less as a practical and proactive tool of civic change than it is as a means of advertising many of the political views and stances emblematic of the once burgeoning movement, be it by sharing photos, articles, or quotes, or by attempting to bring the attention of users to certain causes.
In many ways, OWS' Facebook is still an agent for grassroots campaigning; now, however, the page achieves this in a more indirect fashion, by aligning itself with a more generally leftist view of American and international politics, rather than through the actual organization of grassroots protests. Recent posts by the page include photos, accompanied by a caption containing the hashtag #FergusonOctober, of a demonstration in solidarity with those protesting Michael Brown's shooting in Ferguson, MO—an event concerning the issues of racial profiling and police brutality, neither of which were issues popularly addressed at the inception of OWS—as well as several posts condemning the racist and imperialist undertones of Columbus day, accompanied by the hashtag #AbolishColumbusDay. Again, it is worthy of note that these issues were not significant to the OWS movement at its outset. Regardless, the page still has a sizable and enthusiastic following—now standing at 636,000 likes strong—which seems to respond just as well to OWS' promotion of its politics as it did the prospects of civil disobedience. Perhaps "to occupy" is just as much about a state of mind as it is a means of action.
One of several photos accompanied by the hashtag #AbolishColumbusDay.
That OWS—or, at least, its Facebook page—is now aligning itself with and broadcasting its support of certain views of these and other seemingly unrelated issues does not speak to a decrease in the potency of OWS' original message, or a loss of sight of its initial goals. Rather, it speaks to the power of social media to preserve an idea like that which is exemplified in the OWS movement—an idea which would've been represented by little more than a "flash in the pan," so to speak, before the advent of social media. Through social media, OWS is able to further expound its initial goals, its general politics, and even its plans for the future. This wasn't the conclusion that I initially had in mind, but perhaps the best use for social media, as organizations and movements like OWS are concerned, is to immortalize oneself.
Links:
www.facebook.com/OccupyWallSt
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