You May Be Right But If You're Annoying, It Doesn't Matter

Creative is better than angry; funny works better than rage

In high school, I was known as a smart ass.

OK. I'm still known as a smart ass some forty years later but in high school I learned the valuable lesson concerning the power of the smart ass.

I noticed that the guys in my sophomore class who were sort of dumb—not stupid necessarily but more invested in cultivating their physical prowess than their brain power—were more likely to respond to insult with violence than a better insult. It made sense, really. They solved their problems physically and being insulted was a problem to solve. Consequently, I got beat up quite a few times in high school.

LESSON: Smart people rarely resort to violence as a reaction to a problem.

I also noticed that the theater and music kids were, shock, creative in their responses to adversity. I was one of that brood being both in the plays and musicals, choir, and band so my embedded observation of these kids was deep.

I've been arrested—as in collected by the authorities and spent the night in a jail cell—exactly two times. Both were for public nudity. One was from a protest.

There was a problem on campus. Increased reports of on-campus sexual assault by young collegiate women. Mostly at night. The more conservative administration decided that the problem was how the young women were dressing. If the women were more modestly dressed, their ridiculous logic dictated, the less enticing they would be as if ugly, unwashed women dressed as lesbians were immune from sexual assault. Their solution was a referendum on required school uniforms.

There were protests in the quad.

There was the group of young women (who, unsurprisingly were ugly, unwashed, and dressed like lesbians) who staged a march with signs and screaming, marching and interrupting classes all over school and generally being annoying. There was the group of feminist men who attacked the administration office and broke a few windows.

I decided we needed to have some fun. I was twenty so, like most of the protesters in 2020, I had little actual stake in the issue but it was more interesting than going to class so let's get some points with the cute chicks and seem politically active, right? I suggested to my group of band friends that we stand naked in the quad for as long as we could. In a line. No yelling. Just a bunch of dudes standing naked (we wore shoes). By proximity to the lesbians, it was reasonable to assume we were protesting the uniform referendum. I made one sign on foam-core that said "Our New Uniforms."

We arrived nude around noon. There were eight of us. We were so cocksure of our great idea. Then the campus police showed up. These guys thought it was funny but had a job to do. They told us to get out of the quad, get dressed, and stop being assholes. Three of our eight split. The came the actual police. They didn't think it was amusing at all. They had better things to do like racially profile a couple of black kids or rough up some of the feminist men. Four of the five obliged the Man and headed back to their dorms.

I stood my ground. I stood there, naked except for a pair of beat up Air Jordans, and defiantly grinned. The cops got agitated because I wouldn't move. A few minutes of yelling at me and they cuffed me and stuffed me in a car. Took me to jail, fingerprinted me, and tossed me in a cell without even a blanket to cover up. They released me 32 hours later with no charge. I walked the way home because no taxis were picking up naked students that day—no wallet, no fare.

I certainly have no illusions that my naked protest had fuck-all to do with the decision by the administration to table the uniform thing and instead increase campus police in affected areas but I can practically guarantee it had just as much affect on the decision as the lesbians and feminist dudes. And I had a lot more fun despite spending the night naked in a cage.

There are a host of legit studies out there that indicate strongly that non-violent protest is far more effective than violent protest. Part of those results come from the fact that when you participate in a violent protest, full of rage and property destruction, it is easier for the opposing side to focus on the violence than the message of the protest.

Non-violent but annoying protests are more effective but it is the creative protest that gets the eyeballs. Isn't that what a protest is designed to do? Get the message out there?

The message of the protests responding to the murder of George Floyd was rage and looting. Sure, we can accurately say that the vast majority of those protests was non-violent but it was the looting, the burning buildings and cars, the destruction that got the attention.

The first Women's March in response to Trump's election was non-violent but the thing we remember? The pussy hats. The pussy hats were funny and creative. Someone had to get out of their emotional outrage for a moment to suggest them.

"Hey. Ladies? Along with the signs and the chanting, what if we made thousands of pink hats shaped like pussies? I mean, that'd be hysterical."

It's also incredibly smart ass.

Last week, I heard about two climate protests. The first was about thirty people sitting on a Las Vegas highway, blocking traffic. Non-violent but really, really not creative. Mostly just annoying. The viral video of their protest focused on a guy furious that he couldn't get to work, who was on probation, and would go to jail if he missed work. The lede was that he was put in jail because he missed work rather than anything to do with the climate. It was only picked up on local channels.

The other protest had people gluing their hands to paintings in museums—you see, oil paintings, anti-oil protest? Not terribly destructive, certainly non-violent, and bizarrely creative. That protest made international news.

LESSON: Anger and annoyance become the message. Smart people are creative and that creativity spreads the message intended. Be entertaining in protest or cede the message to the madness.

I’ve often been amazed that those of us on the Left of most of our social issues are the most educated, the funniest, the most creative in our country but resort to the rage, the destruction, the very methods of the dumb jocks in high school.

Social media is designed for the smart asses in society. Unfortunately, the idiots have taken over. Time to get creative, gang.

Anyone wanna get naked?