One of the generalizations you can very accurately make about my generation is that we all like the idea of a “grassroots” effort. There’s this palpable love for the idea that people from different places bubble up through the woodwork to support something they believe in. It’s a lovely idea, but it’s most often just that — an idea. The reality is that movements need centralized leadership to be successful, and those leaders quickly gain stakeholders that typically turn their interests away from the people who came together to begin with. It’s an ugly tyranny of life, but it’s also reality. I said “most often” above because, at times, a movement can really come to be organically. Movements that have leaders, but are still governed by the idea that galvanized them to begin with. The best examples of that are the movements where the powers that be have no reason to intervene at all. Naturally, that typically means these these moments have less real power – at least to start. These are most often movements of art, and of culture.
I’m writing all of this because I have a favorite. A grassroots movement so genuine it’s irrefutable that this could not have been manipulated into being. It is catastrophically genuine.
As I said above, movements need leaders and this leaders goes by SteveGlover69 on Tiktok. At first, it was unceremonious. Steve strapped a boombox-sized JBL speaker over his shoulder, the speaker dangling haphazardly from his side. He grabbed a microphone that paired with that speaker (but didn’t prevent it from playing music and his voice at once, loudly.) Prepared, Steve walked into a fast food chain and to the hurried confusion of all, he declared “FREE CONCERT AT WENDY’S” and began rapping over the beat, both his voice and the music playing at full volume. Then, thanks to some accomplice filming, he posts it to Tiktok in all it’s glory. He even tagged @JBL in the video description, as if they’d sponsor these.
Now — Steve is not the first to do something like this. Disruptive pranks have been a fixture of the internet since video compression went mainstream. There are even other tik-tokers who do similar performances (my favorite is PicklePete12, who plays bagpipes in local stores to see if they’re “pipe zones.”)As quirky and strange as PicklePete12 is, he is not growing any sort of real crowd outside of his online following. But what Steve’s doing has grown into something else entirely. He is brutally persistent with this effort, and he is entirely unafraid to attempt this anywhere. Restaurants, Grocery Stores, Colleges, Barber Shops, even outside of police stations. As he’s done this day after day, he’s started to build an awareness both on tiktok and, infamously, in his community. It’s at the point where each of his videos garners hundreds of thousands of likes wand when he visits somewhere new and starts rapping “WOAH HOLD ON” — the staff raps with him. His reputation and his burgeoning grassroots movement precedes him.
As I said above, the idea of a true grassroots movement is more of a myth than anything. Within the laundry list of ‘grassroots movements’ on Wikipedia most had clear leadership making real strategic decisions. For all the energy of the populace, you still need someone to choose chicken or beef. Or who’s going to pay for gas. Or which local fast food franchise everyone is going to rap at. So – Why Steve..? And why rapping in stores/restaurants as a movement to get behind? I’m not asking these jokingly: hundreds of people have built their days’ schedule around these performances. Why?
It’s no secret that Tik Tok users are overwhelmingly young and in Gen Z. Gen Z as a group do not trust institutions. Roberta Katz, a former senior research scholar at Stanford’s Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) has said “They don’t believe in hierarchy for hierarchy’s sake, they do believe in hierarchy where it is useful.” You could spend all day reading into this and justifying why. In summary, there has been constant technological, societal, political, and cultural turbulence for this generation. That’s been true of most generations, but as with everything it’s been amplified recently. So – hierarchy has to prove itself to be respected. The only way for any rule, regulation, norm, ect. to prove itself is to be tested. Gen Zers are aggressive test facilitators, and this endeavor is just one more example of that. Why can’t we play music loudly? What’s the volume limit on it? Which places would kick you out? Would they actually, physically kick you out? Would the employees be angry or happy about the performance? This particular movement is almost a parody of this process. Instead of challenging unproven rules, it’s challenging rules that have an obvious purpose, that is to be quiet and mindful of others in these places. I’m confident this wouldn’t happen with other generations, this is something only Gen Z could produce.
And as for why Steve specifically, the energy he brings is joyous. The song is great, he’s an engaging guy. There were many civil rights leaders before MLK, but MLK just had it. There were many communists in Russia before Lenin, ect. I don’t even feel the need to justify this more, just watch the videos and you’ll see. On April 30th, he posted posted a video of him rapping on a college campus. Hundreds around him, all joined in rapping along. At one point he even stops and let’s them do all of the rapping like he’s Kendrick Lamar performing Humble. Listen, I know it’s dumb. I know this is certainly not “high art.” But there is something meaningful and uncorrupted here. It’s not created in an office, it’s not being co-opted, it’s not promoting a product or idea, it’s just Steve entertaining and borderline harassing those in his community and in doing so attracting attention from a generation self-aware of how tired it is of testing the worlds rules, and I think that’s beautiful.
After I drafted this, he posted a video singing with Ludacris, I continue to be happy for SteveGlover69.