On September 17, 2011, hundreds of activists gather around Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan for the first day of the Occupy Wall Street Movement—a weeks-long sit-in in New York City’s Financial District protesting income inequality and corporate corruption. While the movement failed to see any of its goals or policy proposals come to fruition, years later, Occupy Wall Street is still considered a blueprint for decentralized activism.
The terms 99 and 1 percenter, fist coined by the Hells Angeles motorcycle club, were popularized by the Occupy movement; the first refers to the majority of people living in the United States, and the second represents Wall Street and the wealthiest portion of the population. These terms—and Occupy Wall Street’s social media strategy—would be modeled by movements including #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter.