I’m on Facebook, of course, and I’m seeing some friends of mine circulate May Day protests. And going into the posts, I’m seeing all of these plans for potlucks and gatherings, people wanting to play outdoor games and shit. Like, this isn’t about protesting, this is just some gathering that’s being decorated as a protest. What a way to deflate the cause and purpose of what protesting is all about, by deregulating your cause into just something to be treated as passive.

“Ah, Frank, I’d like to protest and all but Maw’s homemade beef stew is to die for and we’re going to be throwing horse shoes in a few minutes, want to tag?”

Not to mention people are using AI lazily to make up all of these protesting posters. This isn’t just one example, this is just the tipping point of many examples I’ve seen, where people are treating the idea of protesting as a means to just gather around short of just fucking eachother out in the open.

That’ll really show those corporate bastards! By unifying together in a remote location away from their sight as we all just hold eachother arm and arm while just singing about anti-capitalism! It’s the same feeling I get when people host marathons and walkathons while branding them with causes to ‘protest’ over. No, you’re just giving yourself a confidence boost by walking miles and back!

This is why protesting is dead to me.