G20 protester personality profiles
VICTORIA (CUP) — THE $1.9-BILLION weekend of madness and finger-pointing that was the G20 is over, leaving the city of Toronto to pick itself up groggily like a college student after a 48-hour drinking binge. The G20 protests brought all of the expected violence and theatrics to our living rooms, giving us insight into the mentality of disapproving Canadians across the country. Now, here’s your chance to meet the stars of the G20 protests—or any protest for that matter.
The enthusiastic chanter
She was born with vocal cords of solid steel and a passion for rhyme. It doesn’t matter what the issue is, as long as it has a catchy slogan she’ll scream it for hours during a march—even when it starts to rain and everyone is feeling tired because the revolution isn’t going so well. The enthusiastic chanter serves a dual purpose: to turn the crowd into a frenzied, shouting mob, and also to provide comic relief by mispronouncing “prorogued” into the megaphone 14 times in a row. Whose streets? Our streets!
The “Fuck you, pigs!” guy
Back in 2001, this guy had his bag of pot confiscated by the cops in a Canadian Tire parking lot. After a stern lecture from the officer and a ride home in the squad car, his short-tempered stepfather beat him with a shoe for being woken up by the RCMP at 1:30 a.m. The “Fuck you, pigs!” guy carries this vendetta with him to every rally, protest, and social gathering, using verbal abuse against authority figures to get revenge against that bastard who wasn’t even his real dad.
The hero
At any protest, he’s the guy you want to have on your side. More than willing to take a face full of pepper spray and a nightstick to the shins for the cause, the hero becomes an invaluable asset when things start to get rough. Like the “Fuck you, pigs!” guy, he hates everything in uniform and will be the first one to throw the empty Jones Soda bottle during a standoff.
He got that scar above his left eye at the Vancouver Olympics when he was kicked in the forehead by a police horse in an attempt to steal a mounted officer’s riot shield.
The iPhone journalist
Armed with her trusty mobile device and a steady hand, the iPhone journalist can’t wait to upload all her awesome pictures to Facebook. During the G20 summit, she used Google Maps to find Yonge Street and Twitter to keep Steve, Mark from work, @CanucksFan51, and her two sisters updated on what was happening. Thanks to the CBC app—purchased exclusively from the app store—she was able to receive breaking political news and World Cup scores at the same time. Don’t forget to read her blog post!
The one with all the figures
You can usually find this quasi-intellectual lurking around near the big news cameras hoping for an interview. He’ll use a simple question like, “Why are you here?” to launch into an over-the-top numerical tirade where he mentions the G20’s $5.5 million security fence, 11,560 security personal, and 12 CH-124 Sea King helicopters in a single sentence. He is a walking, talking, Wikipedia-spewing, university campus cliché that, sadly, has never said an interesting thing in his entire life.
