The “Occupy” movements have made it to SLO, and we are not alone. The “Occupy Wall Street” (OWS) movement has spread all over the nation, each city adding their name to the “Occupy” movement. In Southern California we have “Occupy San Diego”, “Occupy Los Angeles”, and now, “Occupy SLO”.

The world’s richest people now control almost 39% of the world’s wealth. (Speakeasy) The OWS Movement is bringing attention to the people in America who are struggling in this economy, jobless, hungry and mad that the wealthiest of the population, the 1%, have so much control and are doing nothing to improve the situation in our country but instead are sitting back, buying their yachts and making things harder on the little guys.

Word spreads about these protests all over the country extremely fast through the use of social media and some help from tech-savvy young protestors. “Occupy Wall Street: We are the 99%” is already a Facebook page, giving constant updates along side a plethora of others just like it, including new twitter accounts like @occupywall that give real-time updates on the protests including videos and pictures.

The “Occupy” movement is dedicated to demonstrating against Wall Street institutions. Their mantra, “We are the 99%” is, by now, extremely well know and draws attention to the country’s expanding wealth gap.

In a culture where everyone shares nearly everything through social media, it’s surprising it took as long as it did for the OWS Movement to spread from New York all the way across the country. Now, it seems you can’t go anywhere in a big city like New York, DC, Los Angeles, or even San Diego without running into these protestors. People have come together from all walks of life over this issue and their feelings about the financial crimes Wall Street and big corporations have committed.

Now, San Luis Obispo (and even Cal Poly) has hopped on the bandwagon, so to speak. As of Oct. 19th, residents were camping out near the San Luis Obispo courthouse in a peaceful sit-in.

The OWS Movement lacks official leadership and with this kind of social media impact it’s not hard to see why. Anyone can pick up a sign and go protest, but if these protestors are serious about change they will need to organize and be more focused on a single set of issues.

Social media has helped the movement expand, clearly, but can it also help this movement bring tangible change? We will have to wait and see.