Forum Post: We, the Redheaded Stepchildren

We are the redheaded stepchildren of OWS. The last of the loyal forum posters.

Ignored from the beginning by those we came here to learn from, we bravely faced abuse from right wing trolls of all stripes. Bigots abounded, as did conspiracy stuff about things as varied as the Illuminati and Ron Paul and so many other forms of attack, but there in the middle of it all, there were threads full of ideas. Threads full of support. Threads full of information. All were calling out to the larger body of OWS.

All were ignored by that body.

With the exception of jart, who would stop by occasionally to give us updates and talk about anarchy. We didn’t all agree with everything she said, but we sure liked hearing from her, judging by the upvotes she would get in an instant. And I like to think we learned a few things.

Thank you jart.

There are those that have called you an egoist. They are wrong. You could have “ruled” this forum any time you wanted.

Thank you too, for all the informative threads you’ve put on the front page.

As time went on, attrition from boredom, troll attacks, both on the forum and in PMs and schoolwork, took it’s toll on the forums user base. As that happened the bots and puppets of the trolls became a glaring problem, accelerating the user loss.

Still, we redheaded stepchildren hung on, pretending it didn’t hurt.

It did.

At this point, I would like to say that for various reasons, we redheaded step children are not in a position in our lives that allows us to actively protest on the streets. We take a lot of abuse from the few posters here that claim to be “on the street” too. They call us names, while telling us they are intimately involved in the movement.

That hurts too.

Current events, have seemingly put the forum in the spotlight, as it is part of the .org domain.

So I would like to take this apparent window of opportunity to tell the larger body of OWS, that we are still here.

We are still in support, in our own rag tag way.

We still Occupy this forum. 2 1/2yrs and running.

In conclusion, I will call out to the geeks, nerds, hackers and idea experts in the larger movement.

Help us to help you.

Find ways for us to do internet actions. It’s why many of us came here in the first place.

Use your knowledge and expertise, in all things internet, it’s not too late and it just might fuel something bigger.

In solidarity for a better future,

All remaining members of occupywallst.org