A man plays "Hail to the Chief"
[Note: This is long. But you should read it anyway. The traditional news media wrote sterile and boring coverage of the Rally, if they covered it at all. This is Part II the real story. Read Part I. ]
The Rally (Con’t from Part I)
I had been sitting on the roof of a porta-potty for nearly three hours and my ass was starting to get numb. My knees ached and my head hurt, but I was happy! The throng of people had grown since I arrived on the Mall at around 10 a.m. and, looking behind me towards to Washington Monument, people went as far as I could see. Just head after head after head.
The police were out in full force, in all possible incarnations, helped by their trusty canine and equine friends, which really aren’t that friendly. If you feel like you want to pet a National Park Service horse, don’t do it. They are working.
Fear and Sanity are words that got tossed around a lot on Saturday, but they are totally subjective ones. This made it easy to relate to the content of the rally, or make up your own ideas about who or what “sanity and/or fear” refers to. But, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert gave the crowd some examples of each, just to be fair.
Medals for Reasonableness go to…!
- Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Gallarraga, whose chance at having a perfect game was destroyed by a bad call by a mean umpire. Shit, if that were me, I would’ve punched that guy in the face. But Gallarraga, instead, shook his hand and moved on. (Sane!)
- Velma Hart, the woman who told Obama to his face that she’s exhausted defending him, but said it calmly and rationally. (Sane!)
- Pro wrestler Mick Foley, for his charity work. (Somewhat sane. Minus points for being a pro wrestler)
Medals for Fear go to…!
- The mainstream media for not allowing their staff to attend the rally because it may be perceived as being biased. This included the Times Co., ABC, NPR, and others. And the award was accepted by a seven-year-old girl, who showed more courage than all the news outlets put together.
- Anderson Cooper’s tight, black t-shirt. Because wherever it is, there’s sure to be levees breaking, cholera, a dangerous militia, or a natural disaster of some kind. Basically, Anderson Cooper stands for fear.
- Mark Zuckerberg, who wasn’t there to accept his award because “he values his privacy more than he values yours,” said Colbert.
And then it got serious.
Well, as serious as a sarcastic-at-times, albeit “real,” speech could be from Stewart, who closed up the whole affair by explaining himself and his intentions. I listened to hundreds of thousands of people listening to him speak and I thought it was probably the best speech of this election season, if not the last few.
“This was not a rally to ridicule people of faith, or people of activism, or to look down our noses at the heartland or passionate argument, or to suggest that times are not difficult and we have nothing to fear – they are and we do,” he said. “There are terrorists and racists and Stalinists and theocrats. But those are titles that must be earned. You must have the resume. Not being able to distinguish between real racists and Tea Partiers and Juan Williams and Rick Sanchez is an insult not only to those people, but to the racists themselves, who have put in the exhausting effort it takes to hate.”
Stewart drew upon an aerial shot of two lanes of cars merging into one and entering a tunnel as a metaphor to illustrate that Americans work together all the time. We are considerate of each other and friendly, and we do not live in the “fun house mirror” of cable television. Instead, we give concession after concession, like the cars. “You go, then I go. You go, then I go.”
“If we are to get through the darkness and back into the light, we have to work together,” said Stewart. “And yes, there will always be darkness. And sometimes, the light at the end of the tunnel isn’t the Promised Land. Sometimes, it’s just New Jersey.”
The Reaction
It took me a little over 45 minutes to walk the five blocks to my car after the rally was over and people began pouring willy nilly into downtown D.C. I had to find the little car and get out of the city, because at this point I was still trying to get back to Boston by 2 a.m. (I really hadn’t taken traffic and mobs into consideration.)
Chains and plastic penises. "Dick Chainey"
But I figured that since I had no choice but to go along with the flow of the crowd, (because who wants to swim against the tide?) I would just ask people what they thought and what their reactions were. So I walked along in the sun, stretching my legs and allowing the crowd to carry me up and around and drop me in front of the Newseum.
Tim, 21, a junior at William & Mary said, “I’m here for moderation. My mom’s a Tea Partier, and I happen to be along the lines of just chillax everybody, because, quite frankly, everyone’s too stressed out. Two parties, no solutions. But this just proves that even though the Tea Party can come here and be rallying and all that bullshit, and everyone’s arguing on Fox News and CSPAN, this is a whole bunch of people who are just like, ‘everyone, shut up!’”
A man who wouldn’t say his name into my FlipCam (understandable, this is a march of a the fearful and paranoid), said he was 46 and that he was “so confused by the things people are saying and doing in politics,” he didn’t know which way to turn so he “came down to D.C. to see how many people felt the same way.” He found his compatriots!
Some of the people I spoke to called it a-political. I think it was all-political. Every possible faction of politics, every fringe group, every demographic, was represented here. Obviously, it was more of a left-leaning rally, but that’s not to say there weren’t a number of people holding signs that read “Moderate Republican Here” or something similar.
Personally, I thought it was the experience of being in the crowd that made my day, not the content onstage. Stewart didn’t say or do anything new. We all already agreed with him, that’s why we were there. He didn’t convince anyone of anything, and 200,000 people nodded with him in agreement. But, what he did accomplish was bringing all these Americans from all different colors, creeds, socio-economic brackets and geographic places together so we could all see that we aren’t alone. And in this day and age, that’s a hell of a thing to do.
Afterward:
I ended up sleeping in Queens at my cousin’s place, not making it home that night because of the traffic and various errands I had to run before I left D.C.. I arrived in New York City at about 3:30 a.m., hence my not wearing underwear on the drive back – I hadn’t considered the possibility that I would spend three days, not one and a half, in this little car, and I hadn’t brought enough clean clothes. Whatever.
Boston’s not far off, and I’m feeling pretty good. The sun is at my back and I’m listening to Bad Religion, curving through the tail end of New York. The Rally for Sanity and/or Fear was an eye-opening experience that had me confront not only the 95 highway, more tolls than I want to ever see again, the New Jersey turnpike, and my own humanity, but also “real America.” And fuck anyone who says that left-of-center, everyday people who live and work quiet lives and don’t support Sarah Palin’s fear-mongering aren’t real. We’re real, dammit. And we’re all Americans.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by edwardboches, Christine Peterson and Caitlin Tremblay, NextGreatGeneration. NextGreatGeneration said: NEW POST: Sanity and Fear and a Sleepless Trek to the Nation’s Capitol (Part II) http://bit.ly/afU1WQ #tngg [...]
Who cares if Mick Foley is a pro wrestler? Did you see all of that good work he does?
He does great work. But there is absolutely nothing sane about being a pro wrestler. Wrestling, by definition, is unreasonable.
Good article! I’m a little concerned about the lack of sleep and/or even rest as you drove that little car, but I’m glad you made it safely back to Queens, and that you stayed with your cousin Sarah. Too bad Sami wasn’t there too! I’m so very proud of all you do!
Tons of love, Grandma Susan
Interesting article. One quick question.
Could you elaborate on how this comedy made you “confront [your] own humanity?”
Easy answer: It wasn’t the comedy that made me confront my own humanity, it was the trip. The drive from Boston to DC and back, with a stop Queens, that took a total of 24 hours sitting in a Hyundai (alright, it had sunroof, so that was cool) with no iPod connector and only CDs from high school like Offspring’s “Americana” and TLC’s “Crazy, Sexy Cool,” among many others of the era.
Oh, well that makes sense. I could imagine how such trying conditions in driving from Boston to DC with only a CD player and radio–and no ipod–could force one to really confront their humanity and consider their role in this life. It sounds unbeleiveably trying. I imagine this is similar to how those who suffered under apartheid felt in South Africa as they, like you, were coping with unthinkable stress, while still trying to move forward and understand themselves. I hope you are OK.
Wow, apartheid, really? Do I need to explain that in a post in first person, about my road trip down the east coast, in which I used ample amounts of sarcasm and said that I confronted my own humanity in the same sentence I referenced tolls and the turnpike, that I don’t actually think that the annoyance of traffic is in any way similar or can be compared to one of the worst human rights abominations of our time? Alright, well, didn’t think I needed to, but there it is.
So it didn’t make you confront your own humanity? That was sarcasm?
I ask because it is not clear. You did after all confidently assert that, unlike the mainstream media, you were offering the “real story.” You also gave a rather serious and glowing portrayal of the meaning of the rally, which brought ” all these Americans from all different colors, creeds, socio-economic brackets and geographic places together so we could all see that we aren’t alone. And in this day and age, that’s a hell of a thing to do.” Was that sarcasm, too?
It is pretty interesting that you would also use sarcasm as your defense, while acting as if you oblivious to the fact that the “apartheid” mention was also a sarcastic jab at your excessive hyperbole.
But maybe I am misunderstanding you. Your three sentence response includes a 76-word sentence. The sentence, when analyzed by the Flesch-Kincaid analyzer (http://bluecentauri.com/tools/writer/sample.php#flesch ), says you are writing to a 28th grade level. You also have a fog scale of more than 28. According to the program, “A fog score of 5 is readable, 10 is hard, 15 is difficult, and 20 is very difficult.
Nice article. Made me wish I was there. We live in interesting times. Good to see this crowd was 3x necks nasty hatefest.
Necks = Beck’s.
Nicely done, Alex, despite the fact that Elduce of Washington may be a tad tightly wound. Maybe he/she has had significantly more trying experiences and is having trouble relating to the difficulty of travel on the Eastern seaboard in a rental car and no underwear. If that’s the case, he/she may want to try using a different medium to obtain information about what Millenials are up to – I thought it was a proven fact that Millenials are pretty much about entitlement and that not having clean underwear on a three day road trip can, indeed, result in an abnormally high amount of stress (what’s the fog index on that one??). In any event, you wrote a good piece about what turned out to be an interesting event in this month’s bizarre trip down political lane.
Bob,
I am a little confused. I thought TNGG was a place where all millennials can be heard? Yet you seem to indicate that, because I potentially have “had significantly more trying experiences” (ie, a lower socioeconomic class, clearly) I should ” try using a different medium to obtain information about what millennials are up to.” It is also telling that you would, in the same comment no less, claim that millennials “are pretty much about entitlement,” a stunningly ignorant and stereotypical statement toward an entire demographic. Even if you were “joking,” that is a pretty terrible way to stereotype young people.
And yet it reveals the ultimate goal of TNGG, narrowing in on the exact population you are trying to target for the trap you have designed. You attempt to attract young people to TNGG with the lure of free speech and open debate; yet your true intentions could not be further from this ideal. Instead, you seek to monitor what those in your target population think, interpreting data acquired by monitoring what users do and say on the site. You compile data about what articles get viewed, and collect survey responses and other data, which is then sold to large corporations to help ensure that our society remains a brainless cesspool of consumerism and materialism – all under the banner of free speech and individual expression.
In the bizarre, Orwellian nightmare that is the marketing world, such predation is so common — and essential to the conduct of everyday business — that it has been given the status of official jargon: “Inbound Marketing.” Edward Boches, a key force behind TNGG, clearly explained the goals and mission of TNGG in a post he wrote about the “Top Ten Reasons to Keep Blogging” on his website, Creativity Unbound, which is dedicated predominantly to declarations of the incredible value of “Inbound Marketing.”
In the post, “understand inbound marketing” was listed as one of the Top Ten reasons to keep blogging. In Boches’ words: “in an age when outbound advertising is getting less and less effective, blogging is an opportunity to learn all about SEO, inbound links, search results and analytics. You know when a post works, whether it gets attention, and how long someone has spent with it. Spend just a small amount of time on learning this stuff and you have a new language and set of skills that increases your value to clients.” Clearly, TNGG is not just a “hip” place for millenials to “hang out” and other such activities that out-of-touch marketing executives have sought to inspire with a display akin to the child molester who tries to lure young children into his van with lollipops and promises of “playing Santa.”
Yet even the limited promises of what TNGG can offer the user in exchange for this look into her psychology are seemingly disrespected. What happened to a place where we can be heard? Why would you want to push a voice away? What does that say about the primary purpose of this site, and the sickening deception that it represents? This is, after all, not a genuine news site, but a project for inbound marketing, correct? I can only say that I hope you do not work for TNGG, because it would be a sad reflection on the site’s priorities if your viewpoint is anywhere close to the institutional view of how this site should operate.
Regarding the original article: The author was not the least bit humble (ie, “the real story”), and implemented sarcasm. I responded in turn, with a jab at her hyperbole (facing my own humanity — seriously?!). What is wrong with a modest critique?
Clearly, you aren’t being censored, as you leave long comments that are off topic and they aren’t getting deleted. As TNGG’s editor, I staunchly disagree with you, and I don’t know where you get your information, but thanks for sharing and I hope you keep reading! Maybe we should be more transparent (and louder) about how TNGG runs and Edward’s relationship with this blog (he incubated it, that’s all) and how it’s funded and makes money, thanks for pointing that out for us.
Shit, I wish you were as smart as you make me out to be. When the Fortune 500 shows up to pay for all that data you claim we’ve so masterfully acquired believe me you’ll know. I’ll be long gone, far away from the digital stream on a deserted island somewhere. This is just a fucking blog. Yes, it’s for and about Gen Y. And yes, it unfortunately attracts mostly aspiring and practicing marketers, journalists, SoMe types. And yes, we wish it would more accurately represent the voice of an entire generation or at least be a little more diverse at times. Why don’t you write for it? The amount of time and thoughtfulness (and argument) you put into your comments merit a byline and a little more attention than you might get in the comment section. Anyway, thanks for reading, and engaging, and criticizing and challenging us. It’s all good. (P.S. The inbound marketing suggestion was a recommendation based on my observation that when traditional message pushers learn a little bit about digital marketing it broadens their perspective and opens their mind to the possibility of other solutions. Broader perspectives and an open mind are good for all.)
Ooops, meant to say I wish I were as smart as you make me out to sound.
Edward,
Thanks for your reply. It is unfortunate, however, that it is so deeply deceptive and misleading about the nature of the TNGG project.
For you to wish you were as smart as I take you to be is surely not a lofty goal; it would be much more difficult for me to become as inept and stupid as you seem to believe I am.
Your editor Alex recently asked, where I get my information. Well, Mr. Boches, you are actually the source of information. It is your own writings on these very topics–the nature of TNGG–that have informed me. They prove, beyond any doubt, that your claim that this is “just a fucking blog,” is well beyond ridiculous, defies all logic and insults the intelligence of all of your readers.
That you would expect me to believe that you – an important leader of a large advertising agency — would pay the costs of setting up and operating TNGG (including hiring staff) as a form of charity for a demographic to which you do not belong, reveals your contempt for the “millenials” you seek to attract to the site. Based on Alex’s response, I take it that you even decieve your poor, unsuspecting undergraduate staff, successfully convincing them they are engaged in serious journalism instead of a profit-making venture undertaken by a large advertising corporation.
But we don’t even have to take the stupefyingly illogical nature of the argument you are making as sufficient. Incredibly, in your massive condescension and contempt, you seem to have forgotten that these claims are backed by your own published words. ( http://www.mullen.com/2010/02/forrester-debuts-its-findings-on-%E2%80%9Cthe-future-of-advertising-agencies%E2%80%9D/ ). Did you not think millenials knew how to use google, Mr. Boches? I thought it was suave, savvy next-generation ad executives like you that most understood the widespread use of “new media” by so-called millenials?
It was you, after all, that called TNGG, “[Mullen’s] own internal social media lab.” This was in response to a panel discussion about how the future of ad agencies, where it was concluded that a successful firm in the modern age must “pull not push” consumers. “We are addressing these changes in numerous ways,” you write. “We developed the Modes of the Mind strategic approach that helps a brand understand its consumer’s relationship to content and community; we’ve built one of the advertising industry’s largest social influence groups; and finally we’ve created our own internal social media lab, which has experimented with projects such as Brandbowl and The Next Great Generation.”
These statements, taken from the Mullen website, make it clear that this inbound marketing approach is not simply an offhand suggestion you made on a blog post, but rather a major strategy for revolutionizing the methods for acquiring information on potential consumers in order to better serve Mullen’s clients. The contempt you hold for the victims of your scheme is revolting. Just a blog? The deception seems never-ending, and the bald-faced lies you printed here are a testament to the dangers in trusting sleazy ad executives to sponsor and protect free speech.
Is TNGG an effort to address changes facing ad agencies, as you tell readers of your blog at Mullen, or is it “just a fucking blog,” as you claim on TNGG. I doubt you want readers to be aware that this is a clever way of earning a profit (while not paying your writers) and helping clients which include: Century 21, General Motors, HSBC , Four Seasons, Jet Blue, Match.com (which may explain the excessive online dating articles), Panera Bread, Stop and Shop and the US Department of Defense, and – and have helped your company take in 284.6 Million in revenue, according to recent data. ( http://www.indeed.com/cmp/Mullen-Advertising ) And by the way, HSBC is Fortune 500 — 39 to be specific (http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/global500/2010/snapshots/7597.html ).
You also tell readers of your own blog, Creatity Unbound, that TNGG is “an experiment in everything from crowdsourcing, to personal branding.” (http://edwardboches.com/does-the-world-really-need-another-blog ) Again, an experiment in crowdsourcing and branding, or “just a fucking blog?”
By the way, I am happy to take you up on your offer of turning this into a post, rather than a comment, and posting it on the home page for TNGG.
Signed ElDuceofWashington
Good article!
Edward,
Thanks for your reply. It is unfortunate, however, that it is so deeply deceptive and misleading about the nature of the TNGG project. For you to wish you were as smart as I take you to be is surely not a lofty goal; it would be much more difficult for me to become as inept and stupid as you seem to believe I am.
Your editor Alex recently asked, where I get my information. Well, Mr. Boches, you are actually the source of information. It is your own writings on these very topics–the nature of TNGG–that have informed me. They prove, beyond any doubt, that your claim that this is “just a fucking blog,” is well beyond ridiculous, defies all logic and insults the intelligence of all of your readers.
That you would expect me to believe that you – an important leader of a large advertising agency — would pay the costs of setting up and operating TNGG (including hiring staff) as a form of charity for a demographic to which you do not belong, reveals your contempt for the “millenials” you seek to attract to the site. Based on Alex’s response, I take it that you even decieve your poor, unsuspecting undergraduate staff, successfully convincing them they are engaged in serious journalism instead of a profit-making venture undertaken by a large advertising corporation.
But we don’t even have to take the stupefyingly illogical nature of the argument you are making as sufficient. Incredibly, in your massive condescension and contempt, you seem to have forgotten that these claims are backed by your own published words. ( http://www.mullen.com/2010/02/forrester-debuts-its-findings-on-%E2%80%9Cthe-future-of-advertising-agencies%E2%80%9D/ ). Did you not think millenials knew how to use google, Mr. Boches? I thought it was suave, savvy next-generation ad executives like you that most understood the widespread use of “new media” by so-called millenials?
It was you, after all, that called TNGG, “[Mullen’s] own internal social media lab.” This was in response to a panel discussion about how the future of ad agencies, where it was concluded that a successful firm in the modern age must “pull not push” consumers. “We are addressing these changes in numerous ways,” you write. “We developed the Modes of the Mind strategic approach that helps a brand understand its consumer’s relationship to content and community; we’ve built one of the advertising industry’s largest social influence groups; and finally we’ve created our own internal social media lab, which has experimented with projects such as Brandbowl and The Next Great Generation.”
These statements, taken from the Mullen website, make it clear that this inbound marketing approach is not simply an offhand suggestion you made on a blog post, but rather a major strategy for revolutionizing the methods for acquiring information on potential consumers in order to better serve Mullen’s clients. The contempt you hold for the victims of your scheme is revolting. Just a blog? The deception seems never-ending, and the bald-faced lies you printed here are a testament to the dangers in trusting sleazy ad executives to sponsor and protect free speech.
You also tell readers of your own blog, Creatity Unbound, that TNGG is “an experiment in everything from crowdsourcing, to personal branding.” (http://edwardboches.com/does-the-world-really-need-another-blog ) Again, an experiment in crowdsourcing and branding, or “just a fucking blog?”
By the way, I am happy to take you up on your offer of turning this into a post, rather than a comment, and posting it on the home page for TNGG.
signed elduceofwashington
The below paragraph was strangely omitted from the posted comments above – it seems there is some technology blocking comments with your client’s names. I have altered the names slightly in the paragraph below in order to circumvent this repressive practice:
Is TNGG an effort to address changes facing ad agencies, as you tell readers of your blog at Mull3n, or is it “just a fucking blog,” as you claim on TNGG. I doubt you want readers to be aware that this is a clever way of earning a profit (while not paying your writers) and helping clients which include: C3ntury twnety wun, General Motors, HSBC , Four Seasons, Jet Blue, Match.com (which may explain the excessive online dating articles), Panera Bread, Stop and Shop and the US Department of Defense, and – and have helped your company take in 284.6 Million in revenue, according to recent data. And by the way, HSBC is Fortune 500 — 39 to be specific (http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/global500/2010/snapshots/7597.html ).