Dear Wil,
Yesterday you tweeted what would become the day’s most-retweeted #OccupyWallStreet tweet, linking to a Reddit post that goes pretty much like this:
“Tomorrow, wear a polo and khakis
“Seriously. polos and khakis. Every time you guys DO finally get some fucking press, it’s a scrawny dude with dreads in a ratty t-shirt. You’re going big here, dress it. Tomorrow, Polo shirt and Khakis.
“Why? Because you need to get the right-leaning equivalent of me on your side.”
Now, this isn’t entirely bad advice. It’s not particularly good advice, but it’s not the worst advice ever offered.
As a Twitter intervention into Occupy Wall Street, though, it really really sucks.
I’ve been down to OWS three times. What I saw there was a mix of people, from a mix of backgrounds, wearing a mix of ensembles. There are professionals in suits there, and union workers in jeans and tee shirts and boots. Grandmothers. Hippies. Punks. Secretaries. Dorks.
So if you think it’s important that the nation move beyond the stereotype that OWS is just a bunch of dirty hippies…
Don’t blast your 1.8 million followers with a tweet that stereotypes OWS as a bunch of dirty hippies.
That tweet wasn’t helpful. It was the opposite of helpful. You know what would be helpful? Helpful would be declaring solidarity with the protest without being “helpful.” Helpful would be encouraging your followers to identify with OWS, instead of encouraging them to stand on the sidelines tut-tutting.
That Reddit post uses the word “you” twenty-three times in fourteen short paragraphs. “We”? None. None times. The Reddit guy claims he’s on the side of OWS, claims he wants middle America to see OWS as part of its “us,” but he’s not willing to be a part of that transformation himself.
He’s not willing to show up and put his polo-clad shoulder to the wheel.
And that act, that act of solidarity, is exactly what’s needed right now.
You want to help? Don’t tell a bunch of hippies to go buy polos and khakis. Tell your hundreds of thousands of polo-and-khaki garbed Twitter followers to put on their work clothes and head over to Liberty Plaza. That’s what’s needed, and that’s what’s possible.
Because you and I both know that it’s a hell of a lot easier to get an IT dork to go to a con than it is to convince a trustafarian to shave off his dreads.
Much love,
Angus
studentactivism.net 
12 comments
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October 1, 2011 at 12:24 pm
Taylor Leake
Classic example of concern trolling. He doesn’t want to help OWS, even a little bit. The point is to call them dirty hippies without seeming mean by giving his comment the thinnest veneer of helpful advice. I’m not particularly surprised by this reaction from most. When people don’t want to address a protest’s concern, they make up a new narrative. Back when I was protesting the Iraq war in high school I remember people driving by and yelling ‘get a job, assholes!’ The protests were always on a Saturday morning and everyone there was either in school or had a job.
What is concerning is not the mainstream folks that take this view, but when it catches on among folks who should know better. I’ve seen this “dress better, you dirty hippies, otherwise no one will take you seriously” message on politically left blogs.
I agree that it isn’t the worst advice, but the point of it isn’t to be helpful, it is to distract from what we should actually be talking about. Besides, if they were all in suits and ties, there’d be some other bullshit ‘helpful’ advice to distract from the very real questions the protest is raising.
October 1, 2011 at 1:22 pm
rothstei
You’re right.
But way to fuck it up at the end by using the word “trustafarian”, jerk. I’m not saying you have to love every person with dreads, but in a pretty apt piece about avoiding stereotypes, you managed to step it.
(In my 10 years of having dreadlocks, I’ve been everything from a grad student to a delivery driver to a designer to a blogger, and never once had a trust fund.)
October 1, 2011 at 1:23 pm
zunguzungu
The blame the victim-ism of “the cops wouldn’t hit you if you dressed nice” is also pretty ridiculous. But let us not forget to revel a little in the delicious irony of Wil Wheaton endorsing anyone’s opinions on how to dress: http://t.co/QKuTZRVV
October 1, 2011 at 1:45 pm
poloshirtguy
There have been polo shirts at our local Occupy LA meetings. I’ve been to three now, and there were more t-shirts, but boring polo shirts were well represented, as were casual friday collared shirts, skirts, a few dresses. In fact, for a protest march, there was a lot more “casual friday” than “dirty hippy”, which made me feel uncomfortable in a weird way.
October 1, 2011 at 8:45 pm
Cirulian
Saying that the cops hit people that dress like “dirty hippies” is not blaming the victims. It’s pointing out a problem we have in this society where values are placed on people based on things as silly and superficial as clothing. Wearing cloths similar to the stereotype of the “good Americans” or whatever is calling TPTB out on their inequity. And it’s a good freaking idea whether you agree with it or not. Shove their stereotypes & flash judgments in their face (and the few people that might actually see it if the media ever starts to cover the story.)
October 2, 2011 at 1:13 am
zunguzungu
[…] An Open Letter to Wil Wheaton on #OccupyWallStreet […]
October 2, 2011 at 3:53 pm
Jaime Omar Yassin
Its great that you can tell everyone apart by how they’re dressed. Everyone knows that union workers dress in jeans and tshirts ALL the time. And that professionals wear suits. That’s how you can tell people apart in a crowd, by who’s dressed in what way, real people dress just like they do in Norman Rockwell paintings. You can always tell a union worker by a non union worker, because the former is wearing useful looking clothing and the latter is dressed in impractical clothing.
October 2, 2011 at 4:52 pm
Angus Johnston
Taylor, I actually think Wil and the Reddit guy are sincere. (If I thought they were concern trolls I wouldn’t have bothered.) Unfortunately, what they’re sincere about is their belief that the way to fix this movement is to tell the people in it what they’re doing wrong, rather than to join in and make it better.
Rothsei, I never said you were a trustafarian. (I didn’t say everyone in IT is a dork, either.)
Zungu, you get one gratuitious Wesley bash on this blog. That was your one.
And Jaime, you’re looking for trouble where none exists. I didn’t say that everyone in jeans and boots was in a union, or that everyone in a tie was a professional. I said there were some of each there, dressed those ways. Because there were. (Ask me how I knew.)
October 2, 2011 at 8:46 pm
Jaime Omar Yassin
I’m being a bit antagonistic, I admit it. Hear me out, anyway, then you can call me whatever you like at the end.
What I’m saying is that sentence is annoying. Union members in tshirts, jeans and boots? Why that means they’re authentic! If you’re trying to tell me you didn’t mean it that way, I don’t really buy that.
I can’t argue you with what you’re seeing when you go down there. It may be true that you’re seeing people of all kinds there. But what i see whenever I see video or photos is an overwhelmingly monotone demographic. Are these significant numbers of people who aren’t young white, middle class college grads? Or are you committing the error of the mighty drop, where the ubiquity of a certain group makes the hint of different demographics seem like diversity?
Please note, I’m generally supportive of OWS. But I’ve been watching popular movements in the US surge and sputter for nearly twenty years. One thing I know for sure is that making them seem more representative and diverse than they actually are perpetuates the situation, rather than ameliorating it.
This is what I wrote today about it if you care to read it.
http://hyphenatedrepublic.wordpress.com/2011/10/02/2751/
October 2, 2011 at 9:47 pm
Angus Johnston
Most of the photos and video in the media are of the marches, not the occupation, and because of the risk of arrest (and for other reasons) the demographics of the two are going to skew differently. I was talking about the plaza — I haven’t been on any of the marches myself.
And as for those demographics, I can say this — the scene is definitely diverse as far as age goes, and (apparent) class. It’s mostly white, but more racially integrated than the average NYC (non-POC) left event, by far. And the union guys I had in mind when I wrote the original post were wearing union tee shirts or windbreakers.
But even setting all that aside, the young white middle-class people I’ve seen at OWS still don’t fit the Wheaton/Reddit stereotype. And that was the primary point of that paragraph.
October 3, 2011 at 2:24 am
Taryn Hart
I really hoped you tweeted this at him.
October 3, 2011 at 8:47 am
Angus Johnston
I did, Taryn. Haven’t heard back, tho.