99% movement makes the most of the social Web

When someone in the Occupy movement has something to say, the others - the 99 percent, they call themselves - repeat it.

On the ground, at the protests that have gripped several U.S. cities since September, the process is called the human megaphone.

One person in the crowd leads the chants, often targeting the income gap in America or an assembling police presence, and the crowd repeats each line en masse.

So, too, the Occupy movement has used social media as a megaphone for its message. Each step has been live-tweeted on Twitter, broadcast with live video on sites like www.Livestream.com and posted for posterity and easy sharing on YouTube.

Protesters often come armed only with a smartphone, sending updates to social networks as the protests twist and turn.

Their message - that wealth in the U.S. is disproportionally held by the wealthiest 1 percent - has been born, broadcast and emboldened on the social Web.

On Sunday evening, as the Occupy protesters in Philadelphia faced eviction from their encampment at the city's Dilworth Plaza, a live video feed was broadcast online as the 5 p.m. deadline for eviction came and went.

"I'm in debt!" a woman yelled. The crowd repeated her cry.

"If banks can get bailed out!" The crowd mimicked.

"Why can't I get bailed out?" Again.

Twitter has been particularly important for organizing and broadcasting the protests. Protesters have used the hashtag #ows - for Occupy Wall Street - to group messages together and form a bond online.

Mentions of the Occupy movement have accounted for nearly 1 out of every 1,000 messages on Twitter for the last several months, according to tracking site Trendistic.

At its peak on Nov. 13, as the Occupy Wall Street protesters were forced out of their base in New York City's Zuccotti Park, the hashtag #ows was mentioned in nearly 3 out of every 500 tweets worldwide.

SPRAYING POWER

There may be no more visible, albeit unwitting, figurehead of the Occupy Movement, than University of California-Davis Police Officer John Pike, the riot-clad officer who doused a group of seated Occupy protesters with pepper spray on campus on Nov. 18.

His act was recorded by several of those in attendance, who posted the clip to YouTube. Those clips have been seen more than a million times.

The visual is jarring. Students, huddled together with arms intertwined and heads down, are sprayed just a few feet away from a large red canister of pepper spray. As the spraying begins, many disband and crawl in search of fresh air.

The incident sparked one of the movement's many memes-Internet jargon for a visual gag meant to spark a laugh and get shared again and again.

This meme took the image of Pike spraying the Occupy protesters and pasted him into historical photographs and paintings, offering an often humorous or thought-provoking juxtaposition.

Some of the images are light-hearted, like a mash-up showing Pike spraying mannequins in a store window.

One of the most shared images shows Pike traipsing through the iconic painting "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of la Grand Jatte" by pointillist George Seurat.

That image was the second image posted to a blog - http://peppersprayingcop.tumblr.com - that popped up to highlight the meme. It has been shared on Facebook thousands of times.

Others images are a bit more pointed, including an image showing Pike spraying another peaceful protester, Rosa Parks, as she famously sits in the front of an Alabama bus.

‘PEPPER-SPRAY PROOF'

These sorts of images were made for the social Web.

With just a click, the message reaches thousands. The process spreads the message and the outrage of the movement far past the city plazas covered with tents.

But this eager and instant amplification has caused some confusion. Many know they're part of something, but aren't quite sure what that is.

Some have called the Occupy Wall Street movement aimless. Early cable news broadcasts featured interviews with Occupy protesters, many of whom couldn't quite articulate what had brought them there, turning to platitudes about civil liberty and unfair financial regulations.

Whatever the message is, social media has turned a small grumble online into a movement that has become a sizable force.

And even as protesters are forced from their physical encampments, the social Web will continue to prove a powerful megaphone.

"Remember, even if they evict you, your ideas will remain and ideas are pepper-spray proof," a Twitter user said late Sunday.

And so the movement rolls on, iPhone in hand.

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(c)2011 the Detroit Free Press

A GUIDE TO OCCUPY WALL STREET HASHTAGS

A hashtag is a word or phrase on Twitter, identified by the preceding pound sign (#). Tweets that include the same hashtag are grouped together, allowing for a group discussion around a topic.