Remembering Occupy

September 17th, 2013 is the second anniversary of the start of the Occupy movement.  Where did all that rage go? It feels longer than two years since OWS. Check out the video to remember.

Backstory: here in New York City where I live, OWS camped out in Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan and Mayor Michael Bloomberg was patient at first but sent the police in after roughly 8 weeks to break it up. While OWS was going on even Mister-Corporate-Video-Producer-Chris Ryan had to check it out. 

I don't need to tell you what it was like -- there have been thousands of blog and news stories, but I felt compelled to document - in my own way - the feeling down there.

A few days later after my initial visit, I brought down a copy of the Allow Us To Introduce Ourselves text from the tumblr blog, We Are The 99 Percent which summed up to me in 300 odd words what the zeitgiest was down on Broadway and Liberty Street. I asked two dozen people to read a few lines each in front of a camera and I edited it together with the help of a some terrific volunteer professionals (watch the credits in the video above). 

I emailed it to the We Are The 99 Percent blog and they put it up on a page the next day.  Dozens of Tumblrs re-blogged it and thousands saw it. That was neat.

If you've ever done Man in the Street interviews in New York City you know that it can be difficult to get blase and too cool for school New Yorkers to be on camera. Not at OWS and not at that moment in time. My biggest takeway from that day was how people lined up to be part of this video. People desperately wanted to be involved. It was a unique moment here in the City where you spend most of the day avoiding eye contact. Everyone wanted to express themselves. 

While writing this post, I discovered that the We Are The 99 Percent blog put my video on the same page -- where the orignial text lived when I first clicked upon it in September 2011. Thank you, 99 Percent blog.