The last year has featured a lot of yelling. Yelling on television, yelling in the streets, yelling on Twitter, yelling about health care, yelling at each other. What if we just stopped and yelled at the sky instead?
Next Wednesday, Nov. 8, some 900 people say they plan to gather in Cheesman Park to do just that. The event is aptly named "Scream helplessly at the sky on the anniversary of the election - Denver."
Its organizer writes that it's a chance to join "snowflakes, safe spacers and libtards across the United States, as we enjoy a collective cathartic yell into the heavens about our current political establishment." (All those words are usually conservative insults about liberals, by the way.)
About 900 people say they're going, while 5,000 have marked themselves as "interested" on Facebook -- where, of course, this is being organized.
Similar events have cropped up in numerous cities, including Boston, which also will come with a counter-event: "Watch Liberals Scream Helplessly At The Sky."
Why are people so into this?
Well, I'd guess that it offers a couple of the same things as other, less-pointless protests: catharsis and community. It may not change anything at all, but it also shows that whatever you're feeling is part of a larger thing in society.
Most protests, however, don't include the word "helpless" in their names -- probably because researchers have found that people are more likely to join a protest if they feel it will be effective.
In this case, however, the protest may be appealing to a sense of "shared fate, shared emotions." Sometimes you've just got to laugh at yourself, I guess. And if local political groups are wise, I'd expect to see them at this event trying to channel that frustration.
Anyway, you know what else usually happens about a year after an election? Another election. Read this guide to all the important issues on this year's local ballot.
