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How Homemade Pics Boosted 'Occupy Wall St'

People are revealing their economic misery on Tumblr blog

By Neal Colgrass,  Newser Staff

Posted Oct 8, 2011 5:16 PM CDT

(Newser) – Suffering in this recession? A photo of you with a short description of your problems can be posted online—and might just inspire people to take action. So figured a New York activist who devised the Tumblr blog, "We Are the 99 Percent," to promote the first Occupy Wall Street protest last month. Now the activist—who calls himself Chris—is posting about 100 submitted photos a day with fellow curator Priscilla Grim. They sat down with Mother Jones:

  • Chris: "I think [submitters] want to let others know that they're out there, that they exist, that their problems exist."
  • Priscilla: "Suffice to say that I have read many long letters about medical and student debt, abusive families inside which people are trapped, and the hard choices that people have to face every day, choices that I am sure they thought they were the only ones making—until this Tumblr."
  • Chris: "On the reader side, I think people look for connection, some escape from solipsism, to know that they're not the only ones scared for the future."
  • Priscilla: "We post almost all of the submissions. It's really hard because so many of our fellow citizens have such remarkable stories, and they write more of a letter than a simple fact."
  • Chris: "Right now, we only ask that you do your best to keep it concise, that the sign be hand-written, and that some part of your face be visible, though we'd still prefer whole faces."
Huffington Post looks at some of the most moving images on "We Are the 99 Percent."

Submitters want to let others know that they're out there, that they exist, that their problems exist, says one activist behind We Are the 99 Percent.
Submitters "want to let others know that they're out there, that they exist, that their problems exist," says one activist behind "We Are the 99 Percent."   (YouTube)
I think people look for connection, some escape from solipsism, says an activist behind We Are the 99 Percent.
"I think people look for connection, some escape from solipsism," says an activist behind "We Are the 99 Percent."   (Wearethe99percent)
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COMMENTS
Showing 3 of 76 comments
Pedro1111
Oct 9, 2011 4:06 PM CDT
wall streat is the simbol of capitalism ..................my best friend's mom makes $77 an hour on the computer. She has been out of job for 9 months but last month her check was $7487 just working on the computer for a few hours. Read about it here MakeCash9.com
mistersnaps
Oct 9, 2011 11:57 AM CDT
Marriner Eccles before the Senate Finance Committee in 1933: It is utterly impossible, as this country has demonstrated again and again, for the rich to save as much as they have been trying to save, and save anything that is worth saving. They can save idle factories and useless railroad coaches; they can save empty office buildings and closed banks; they can save paper evidences of foreign loans; but as a class they can not save anything that is worth saving, above and beyond the amount that is made profitable by the increase of consumer buying. It is for the interests of the well to do – to protect them from the results of their own folly – that we should take from them a sufficient amount of their surplus to enable consumers to consume and business to operate at a profit. This is not “soaking the rich”; it is saving the rich. Incidentally, it is the only way to assure them the serenity and security which they do not have at the present moment.
sandmannc40
Oct 9, 2011 9:46 AM CDT
 I find it amazing that you put a sign in the hands of a two year old saying how Kaiser cut her health care.  Your barking up the wrong tree.  It's Obama Care that caused your health care to be cut.  Otherwise they would have to pay much higher taxes because it's not Obama Care.  If not Obama Care then it's top of the line health care and must be taxed at a much higher rate.  Get it right...  I am so tired of incompetent people protesting something they know nothing about... 

 
blog • online activism • activists • Tumblr • Occupy Wall Street

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