One thing I noticed while watching some of the local news streams is that everyone was waving their fucking phone around in front of them or running around and doing selfie motions in front of the police. Like, okay, I suppose doing it for the FB/IG livestreams? Except the news cameras are clearly rolling and you look like idiots because everyone is literally doing the same thing. Yeeeeeesh, I've never seen so. many. people. this desperate for attention or a haha see look protesters peaceful cops pigs bad kodak moment. It looked like vlogs on crack.
This is the defining characteristic of this "revolution". I have devoted an ungodly amount of attention to watching livestreams, got 4-5 open at any time (and some of those are the multiscreens with up to 9 feeds).
The entire damn thing is performative.
Every "brave" act is performed by 1 person with 50 cameras trained on them. It's 2% of the protesters generating 90% of the imagery; everyone else is just a cameraman.
Anyone who zooms out slightly to include the cloud of cameras and phones turns the shot into a ridiculous caricature.
All the world's a stage; it was true when written 400 years ago, but now all the Internet is the audience.
Sure, every now and then the cops tear gas a mob and push them off the streets. But even that's performative. They should be arresting entire crowds for unlawful assembly, but they don't. They could just ignore the projectiles bouncing off their shields, or keep engage in constant crowd control to clear a space between them and the crowd; but they don't.
The cops are reduced to a necessary backdrop for selfies and ACAB Instagram shots. They only respond to the projectiles because they have to keep up the law & order charade. However, the protests themselves are a charade--they scream and rant and dance in their cordoned off space, and then disperse only when they collect enough superficial annoyances to justify their bravery. "OMG I had to pour milk on my eyes after 9 hours of peaceful protests! I love everyone BLM ACAB LGBTQIAAP+!!!1! (here's my CashApp if you want to help)"
The only real thing happening is the looting, and the protests which take over highways. The people involved there have a different manner--the looters are swift, decisive, and focused. The highway protesters don't perform as much--they're weighing their lives more carefully. (You can also tell they're real by their body counts.)
Everything else is politics and optics. Mayors, brands, and cucked LEOs bend the knee, literally, to create A Moment for everyone to share and brag about. The mob is collecting virtual scalps, which is about as useful as collecting 10 bear asses for your WoW daily, but also triggers the achievement centers in your brain the same way.
