The protests are foot traffic. The crisis is mindshare. And the opportunity is to burrow your way into that mindshare, too. In place of the now-deceased experience economy, this new concept could be called the Protest Experience Economy. It's like a pivot to protests. Boarded up neighborhoods like SoHo are becoming Instagram traps for the protest-adjacent, as seen in the picture above of the experience economy poster child the Museum of Ice Cream on Thursday. Abandoned businesses that once scrambled to create the most Instagrammable real life experiences are now racing to erect the most Instagrammable protest experiences, essentially billboards that compel you to share them on Instagram to show your friends your values and, crucially, brands’ values. This unforgettable week-long protest, created by centuries of systemic racism, sparked by a viral video that captured the murder of George Floyd by police and fueled by viral supercut videos of protest footage, will continue and evolve and hopefully that moment will never end.
But just as it was triggered by media, specifically smartphone video and social media, its next phase will be chiseled by media, too, its vitality and spontaneity whittled down by Instagram. The Protest Experience Economy will move the protests from the real world onto screens. There, it will exist only as pictures documenting something that happened in the recent past. It will no longer keep people awake at night from the sound of hovering helicopters. The anger will be felt only as an echo on a pink background. The protests will become Instagrammable. Messages promoting social distancing, #MeToo, self-care and #TheResistance all have become Instagram fodder before it. The Protest Experience Economy was made possible by conditions that predate but include the pandemic. Pandemic fatigue had set in just as this most recent expression of the #BlackLivesMatter movement erupted. Experiences disappeared with no return in sight. Marketing repeated itself for over two months and lost its novelty. The physical spaces businesses own or lease have been empty of customers and employees.
Before that, neighborhoods like SoHo were becoming vacuums of community inhabited mostly by empty real estate like vacant store fronts, expensive flagship stores and seldom-used pied-à-terre condos. It’s understandable why those who expressed themselves in ways destructive to property and capital did so in neighborhoods like SoHo. There’s almost no one there right now and almost nothing there but vacant piles of money whose owners or shareholders are nowhere near the buildings physically, many having decamped during the lockdown. In response, everything’s boarded up. The protests will inevitably slow down, but the fortress-like walls erected over businesses won’t because the pandemic will postpone any re-opening and in the meantime the walls are a canvas on which to put something passersby would be stupid to not share on Instagram. On Thursday, up the block from the Museum of Ice Cream, I saw three people taking pictures of Kith's addition to the Protest Experience Economy, a massive three-story wall that looks imposing and defensive but softened by a Nelson Mandela quote, while it was still being finished.
Now, the city is just a stage, unburdened of the duty to enrich the lives of people in any functional way and finally free to serve the entities that own or lease real estate by becoming the sexiest conduit for their messages that it can be. On that stage, the show will go on for as long as we take pictures of it. If we can't march together anymore, at least we'll be able to broadcast our sympathy for the movement thanks to the Protest Experience Economy. It will be thriving for a little while.
The shorter stuff
Pete Davidson speaks for all of us when he says, "It was really hard to gauge if I was actually funny." (NYT)
The new "Looney Tunes" show is the most popular show on HBO Max, which gives me hope for the future of humanity. Anyone remember HBO Max? (Cinema Blend)
Apple being the studio for the "impossible-to-control" Scorsese will be very fun to watch in a few months! (THR)
You could probably get some "Star Wars" dorks to pay even more for this knowing how much they love being punished by the franchise. (EW)
I'm predicting a wave of Nolanology this summer. (NYer)
Reese Witherspoon's female animal show "Fierce Queens" is one of the worst-performing shows on Quibi. (Page Six)
Pokemon Go is still popular and actually growing. (The Wrap)
The title of this Lin-Manuel miranda documentary sounds like it was made by a Lin-Manuel Miranda random name generator: "We Are Freestyle Love Supreme." (AV Club)
Utility Failure Section
John Herrman on why Amazon failed during the pandemic. (NYTMag)
Michael Steinberger on why the stock market only reflects the reality of the wealthy. (NYTMag)
🌀Bill Simmons' Tough Week Section
I actually listened to the pod with Ryen Rusillo and it was really bad. (NYPost)
Hey, but at least Obama had Bill Simmons' "Book of Basketball" prominently displayed on his bookshelf in the background of a Zoom appearance! (Twitter)
I have missed nothing more than McNally Jackson during the pandemic. Owner Sarah McNally has shockingly high rents to deal with. (NYT)
George Floyd was a member of the legendary Houston rap crew Screwed Up Click. Check out Trae talk about their friendship. Surreal. RIP. (RS)