What do you actually see?

The triangle of belief, perception, and physical sight

Standing with my “milagro heart” sign at the rally in Santa Fe. New Mexico. And yes, that is snow, and yes it was cooolllddd.

The nationwide Hands Off! Day of Action this past weekend was a resounding success. There were something like 1300 protests in all fifty states plus a few other countries. People came out in droves and were uplifted and energized.

But you probably wouldn’t know that if you’ve only been reading mainstream or legacy media.

“Tens of thousands” most said. Some, like CNN, said nothing at all.

But one to three million is more accurate.

I was worried that a low estimate of the number of protesters from the mainstream media might happen because this collective event was extremely decentralized, perhaps one of the most in human history.

That might sound dramatic, to say “in human history,” but I think it’s important because protesting has been changing in the last few years by becoming more decentralized—and that just keeps accelerating.

I think it might be time to call this a cultural shift.

The first time we saw this happen was at the Women’s March in 2017. About 600 simultaneous protests were going on all over the world separately—but together. It felt really wild back then because it was the first time that had ever happened.

Then, the powerful Black Lives Matter/George Floyd protests of the spring and summer of 2020 both started and grew into a powerful decentralized phenomenon. Over the course of weeks and months, it also became, I believe, the largest protest movement to ever happen—with up to 26 million people participating at some point along the way. At its peak, there were up to ~750 protests happening simultaneously on the weekend of May 30-31, 2020.

So this past weekend, as approximately 1300 simultaneous protests happened at once, I knew the size of the crowds in any one place would be at least somewhat smaller—especially because this was the first truly organized nationwide protest against the actions of DOGE and the Trump administration.

I figured the mainstream media would have a hard time processing something still culturally new they couldn’t fully “see” or because it wasn’t what they “expected to see.” I anticipated that all they’d notice in DC was that it was a few hundred thousand smaller than the Women’s March.

And yet, it was the biggest—if you adjust your perception of size to consider the number of protests versus the size of any single protest.

Images vs Real Life

Lots of the photos taken informally on phones and posted on social media show big crowds and a great turnout all over the place. Even in ruby red states like Utah or Idaho. (I’m personally obsessed with those photos.)

But also, because we’re all so used to experiencing life through images we see on our phones or computers—a long but skinny row of folks in a red county or district lining a street might not “blow your mind.” A few thousand people gathered here or there might seem “insigificant.” Maybe even disappointing.

But this is the danger of only relying on mediated experiences to understand things—and a photo posted on social media is a “mediated” experience.

As an artist, I know this issue well. Certain types of artwork—like very bold, graphic pieces—look great online and therefore get tons of likes on social channels—while more subtle or darker works, don’t. Since I make both types of artwork, I experience the effect of this firsthand. One is not better than the other, but one gets a lot more socially rewarded when viewed on a small screen.

And strangely, size is also experienced differently through an image viewed on a phone. Small artwork can actually look monumental and powerful on a small device while monumental artwork—once you make sure the whole piece can be seen in the photo—can look puny and insignificant.

Most of the time we don’t even realize we haven’t even really seen the artwork in question. Only a picture of it.

Then again, we think we’ve seen all kinds of things that we’ve only seen images of. Wild animals for instance. But I digress.

Vibes & Perception

And then there’s vibes.

Since Trump got elected, the media has been telling us how we feel as a society—that there’s been a strong rightward shift in the country and that the “left” has lost its mojo. I know I live in a blue-ish state in an even bluer town, but since January, every time I heard about this “vibe” shift, I kept thinking that no one I knew had “lost their mojo.”

I think one reason the mainstream media has done that is because they didn’t “see” what they expected to see in regard to push-back against Trump. Especially considering what they saw in 2017—which was immediate and huge.

In fairness, I think we ARE in a different moment from 2017. No doubt helped by being repeatedly told that Trump won every swing state and that he won the election itself “by a landslide.” (Which, of course, he didn’t.)

And yet, in the past week, it’s been revealed that there were actually MORE protests in 2025 to Trump than there were in 2017 by this same point in his term. Just smaller and more scattered.

Decentralized—and, therefore, underestimated.

But vibes affect everyone.

Even Indivisible, the original organizers of the Hands Off event, initially got a permit for the DC rally for only 10,000 people. Why so low? It was the very first national rally pushing back against the actions of this administration. They had to imagine the future and were taking a risk. DO people care enough to come? How many really will? What do we do?

Even as their own map of local events grew and grew and more and more people registered to participate, it was a very narrow window of just a few weeks and by the time of the rally, organizers only felt comfortable doubling their number for their DC permit to 20K.

But now, they guesstimate that ~100,000 people protested in DC on Saturday. Wahoo! And it was the same for New York and other cities.

The perception that no one cared enough to protest even affected the crowd control planning of the New York City Police Department, which wildly underestimated how many people would show up in Manhattan.

When Phillip Gourevitch from The New Yorker asked a cop at the NYC march why there were so few police there, this is the answer he got—which Gourevitch then posted on Bluesky:

That quote amazes me. It shows both the power of real vibes AND the power of the messaging we’ve been hit over the head with about imagined vibes—affecting even professionals who are experts in crowd control and trained to expect the worst.

The Power of Decentralization

While I think this national event was diminished by the much of the mainstream media, I’m very heartened by the way this movement seems to be unfolding.

Decentralized actions like 1300 simultaneous rallies show a wonderful breadth. It’s also harder to dismiss or shut down this type of movement because it isn’t being built by or around just one or two strong leaders—it’s being driven by individual people’s core values.

It also shows that if one or two figures do rise up as national leaders, this movement still won’t be driven by their individual personalities. Because its origins already live in millions of people’s hearts.

The decentralized nature of this weekend’s events also means that more people must have seen protests happening live in their communities—unmediated by the press or social media silos—than maybe they ever have. Don’t underestimate the impact of that.

That means protesters in red communities showed their neighbors something crucial—and something that they might not have believed—that not everyone in their community thinks the same way. And maybe that gives some wavering people the courage to stand up next time.

And perhaps people in blue states saw smaller demonstrations than they are used to because those rallies were spread out, but Blue-Staters—don’t be fooled by that or feel disappointed.

These protests were a first step not a single step.

And that’s the other important point: the vast majority of humans hate conflict and we all want our anxiety about this to end right now. There’s some little child in many of us that wanted this nationwide event to provide the reassurance that it was all gonna stop ASAP.

But this was never going to end in a hot minute.

Truly accepting that is not the same as giving up. It’s changing your perception to understand the moment we’re in. And doing that can genuinely gird your loins.

So please be careful of what you think “should” be happening and then judging what you actually see happening by that yardstick. And be careful of only relying on old institutionalized sources for your information—and certainly don’t let them tell you how to feel.

We are very social mammals living in an age of extreme flux—and being inside it makes it very hard to see it clearly. We’re all inching forward together, making it up as we go along, and impacting one another every minute.

In a way, it’s an invitation to really be present to the present.

I’m now feeling excited about what might be possible for us as a society. How this extremely stressful time—where it feels like we’re losing so much—could end up creating a real opportunity to build something truly better—where our highest priority as a culture is no longer money and power, but the well-being of all.

Let’s consciously create that vibe, shall we? Because you and I are vibe-creators ourselves. Yeah we are.

Leave a Comment!

In the meantime, what’s your perception about the Hands Off rallies or about the state of things in general? Please leave a comment. I’d love to hear.

P.S.

It’s also interesting to note that the Hands Off protests this weekend were covered extensively by the European press as a top story—while our own mainstream media minimized or ignored it.

P.P.S.

In case you don’t do social media, here’s a overview of protests all over this country last weekend that I swiped off social media. Will you look at super red Utah and Idaho?! It’s also worth noting that Oakland and San Francisco are right next to each other and had separate rallies—and this is how big they were.

And of course, the humor, snark, intelligence, and warmth on the signs everywhere was stellar. Here’s a favorite of mine: