A short lived Entrepreneurial Dream (Outsmarted by the top 1% of the 99%)

(one occupy movement shirt I found online above)

For such a seemingly disorganized group, it appears that there are some entrepreneurs among the so called 99% protesting against a myriad of issues ranging from Wall Street, to people who make money, to the legalization of marijuana (I saw the sign). Last night, sitting with a friend, I thought to myself that I could be missing out on a big opportunity. If unity is what this movement needs, a common uniform could certainly do the trick. A T-Shirt that somehow encapsulated the movement would be perfect. Easy to produce cheaply, so as I saw it, little downside and huge upside if the symbol became the stamp of the movement.

My friend liked the idea, so quickly I called someone who I knew would become an investor if he liked the idea. He did, so I told him I'd get him something the next day, an idea and a plan for how to proceed. I then called my friend who works in the garment industry knowing that he could help us get the t-shirts made. While a bit skeptical, he didn't mind the idea and also told me to come up with something. We all realized that it was only so long until someone else caught on to the scheme and followed suit. As such, time was truly of the essence.

Today, I walked down to the park hoping to get some sense of who their leadership was. I figured if there were a few people who were in charge of stuff, I could try to rub shoulders with them and get them some free t-shirts in hope that others would soon follow... Then we could start charging. Unfortunately, as I stood their talking to a few kids, (one who could hold a conversation, the other who hated people with money) it became clear that there was no central leadership. They said that it had started with 15-20 people, but that they didn't want to "lead" the movement, because it was not in line with the spirit of the movement. As they put it, it was kind of the problem, the spirit of the movement was not to follow a leader (in fact it is a rather anti-establishment movement so to these protesters, to follow a leader would be to follow the way of the corporate led world in which we blindly operate as cogs of the corrupt machine...or something like that ) yet they knew the movement needed leadership. This was OK, and I figured I'd walk around and talk to a few more people.

It was shortly thereafter that my boyish dream of being the next guy to create a stupid t-shirt that I'd copyright and be forever rich from came to an end. Someone standing next to me asked me if I was in the T-shirt line. I began asking questions. He showed me a T-shirt he had gotten. "O Yeah" he said. "This is the line where you get t-shirts printed". He showed me the T-shirts, they were simple but good. Both of which used the "we are the 99%" slogan, one of which had a fist that reeked of revolutionary symbolism. I asked how much they cost to which he responded "O they're free, you just give a donation". If I wasn't crushed enough, I decided to walk ahead and see where the T-shirts were being made. There were a series of tables, with some simple t-shirt making contraption (I don't know too much about making t-shirts), making these cool simple t-shirts at what had to be so minimal a cost that the donations probably covered whatever they invested. Even if they didn't, Ben and Jerry might give you some ice cream to make it worth your time, or who knows? Maybe Russell Simmons would throw the 99% sympathizing entrepreneurs a Rush card. (for those who don't know about Rush Card.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnzSF9gKgRQ&feature=results_main&playnext=1&list=PLB380E75F0C8D7BD7

I suppose there is still opportunity to get your friends who scoff at the movement to buy t-shirts... but that joke has to end pretty quickly. I will say though that this T-shirt I found online would serve as a pretty good one. If success is 99% failure, and America is success...then I guess the below could be the shirt to symbolize the 1% counter movement... though an expensive suit might send the message just the same.


Kudos to the bright minds taking donations for those T-Shirts. I look forward to seeing you on TV soon talking about how you were never in it for the money and really just cared about the cause. Trust me, I wanted nothing more than to live that dream myself.