# We Are The 99 Percent 'We Are The 99 Percent' is the Occupy Wall Street rallying cry that spread via a Tumblr photo blog started by a 28-year-old New York activist named Chris on August 23rd, 2011. The project turned anonymous economic hardship into a flood of face-and-sign confessionals, and TIME later tagged it the top meme of 2011. ## Origin The '99 percent' framing came from a General Assembly poster circulated on the official Occupy Wall Street site in early August 2011[2]. A 28-year-old New York activist going by Chris (he kept his last name private because he worked for a small media outlet) launched the wearethe99percent.tumblr.com blog on August 23rd, 2011 to put faces to the number, and started publishing submissions on September 8th[1]. The first day drew five posts[1]. Chris had been running food-drive logistics for the Zuccotti Park occupation, so around late September 2011 he brought in Brooklyn nonprofit worker Priscilla Grim to help curate the flood of submissions[1]. Grim had submitted one of the earliest photos herself, with her face obscured[1]. - **Platform:** Occupy Wall Street poster / Tumblr (viral spread) - **Creator:** Chris (NYC activist, surname withheld) with co-curator Priscilla Grim - **Date:** 2011 ## Overview The phrase works as a numeric shorthand: '1%' is the richest Americans holding roughly half the country's wealth, and '99%' is everyone else[1]. The Tumblr format locked in the visual grammar. People wrote their financial story by hand on a sheet of paper, held it up to the camera with their face often partly covered, and signed off with 'occupywallst.org'[2]. Submissions ranged from a 61-year-old who lost her job and moved in with her kids to a couple surviving on tossed-out KFC[1]. The sign-held-to-camera template jumped off Tumblr fast. Protesters carried the slogan on placards at Occupy encampments around the country, and it hit Cafepress and Zazzle merchandise within weeks[2]. Parody blogs then flipped the format, with people writing their own 'We Are The X Percent' signs for everything from left-handedness to red hair[2]. The format's power was its blankness: anybody with paper, a Sharpie and a webcam could file a testimonial. ## How It Spread Submissions scaled fast. By October the blog was publishing close to 100 photos a day[1], and the project started getting written up as the human face of Occupy Wall Street. Mother Jones tracked down the two anonymous curators that month[1], Buzzfeed ran a round-up of submissions headlined as reasons people were occupying Wall Street[3], and Business Insider, Huffington Post, Psychology Today, The Economist and Forbes all filed pieces before the end of 2011[4]. TIME Magazine named it the top meme of 2011 that December[5]. The counter-memes started early. On October 3rd, 2011, conservative blogger Erick Erickson launched 'We Are The 53 Percent' as a rebuttal, built around a 2009 Tax Policy Center figure that 47 percent of Americans paid no net federal income tax[4]. On October 10th, a Reddit post titled 'I am the 9%' flipped the format for left-handed people[6], and on October 12th a 'We Are The 1 Percent' Tumblr launched showing wealthy signatories backing the Occupy demands[4]. The Washington Post covered the spinoff wave the next day[7]. The 53% blog went quiet in February 2012; the 1% blog followed in July 2012[4]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is We Are The 99 Percent? It's an Occupy Wall Street catchphrase and a Tumblr photo blog of the same name, where users posted pictures of themselves holding handwritten signs about their financial struggles[2]. ### Where did We Are The 99 Percent come from? The '99 percent' framing came from a General Assembly poster shared on the Occupy Wall Street site in early August 2011, and a New York activist named Chris launched the Tumblr on August 23rd, 2011 to put faces to the number[1]. ### What does We Are The 99 Percent mean? It contrasts ordinary Americans with the richest 1%, who controlled roughly half of U.S. wealth, framing the Occupy movement around that gap[2]. ### How do you use We Are The 99 Percent? The classic submission format was a handwritten sign held up to the camera listing a personal financial hardship, often with the writer's face partially hidden and the URL 'occupywallst.org' at the bottom[1]. ### Is We Are The 99 Percent still popular? It's a classic of 2011 internet culture, named top meme of 2011 by TIME[5], and the Tumblr was still active in September 2012 at a much smaller volume[2]. ## References 1. [https://motherjones.com/politics/2011/10/we-are-the-99-percent-creators]() 2. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/we-are-the-99-percent]() 3. [https://www.buzzfeed.com/jpmoore/reasons-people-are-occupying-wall-street]() 4. [https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/19/households-wealth-american-1-percent_n_1687015.html]() 5. [https://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2101344_2100875_2100915,00.html]() 6. [https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/l76tp/i_am_the_9/]() 7. [http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/we-are-the-99-percent-sees-spinoffs/2011/10/11/gIQAF5SicL_blog.html]() 8. [http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/we-are-the-99-percent Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library