Occupying Wall Street: A Twenty-First Century Revolution

October 08, 2011
244 Days until Graduation

As of writing this, the "Occupy Wall Street" organization will be entering into its fifth week of protest. Battle cries of "We are the 99%" are shouted from the streets of New York as hundreds of new picketers arrive daily. Protesters demonstrating against corporate influence in America have been marching up and down Wall Street in an act of coordinated social disobedience. Clashes with NYPD leading to the arrest of 700 protesters has done little to stop the demonstration and the group has vowed that it is in for the long-haul.

While conventional media has only recently taken a serious interest in Occupy Wall Street, anyone paying attention to social media sites has been well aware of this protest before it even began.

This is a screen-cap of occupywallstreet.tumblr.com, a hub of information related to the Occupy Wall Street movement. From here, users are linked to other Occupy Wall Street sites providing information about their cause, pictures from the picket line uploaded minutes after they were taken and social contacts to organize similar protests across the country. Weeks before the first protester stepped on the picket line, they were organizing and preparing online. 

Much like the Arab Spring Movement from which it draws inspiration, Occupy Wall Street represents the future of organized protest in the United States. Young social activists today can spread information as fast as they can type it and connect with other like-minded individuals.

Occupy Wall-Street represents more than any single group of protesters; it represents the way socio-political demonstration is going to be carried out in the future.