5 Harsh Realities of Being a Paid Protester

The Angry Autism Dad
5 min readFeb 25, 2017

I’ve made a lot of money as a paid protester. Not enough to quit my day job. But enough that I can afford to take my family to a nice dinner at Red Lobster once a week. Let me put it this way, I don’t sweat the price of gas.

However, many don’t appreciate the realities of getting up early, driving to the subway, waiting for the red line, then dealing with crowds of people in order to receive a paycheck. Let me explain to you the tribulations of paid protest work:

1. IT’S EXTREMELY COMPLICATED

Think anyone can just “become” a paid protester? Think again. It’s not like the gig is advertised on Monster. Even Craigslist would be too obvious. Most of us who fell into paid protest labor thought we were applying for something else.

You ever see somebody comment on a blog or article something like “My sister makes $6,000 a month and so can you!”? Most of us replied to that comment and were eventually contacted by the organization who had to use a series of complex “roundabout” questions to gauge our interest level in feigning interest in social justice for pay.

Questions like, “If you were to show up to Pershing Square Saturday holding a sign that says ‘Impeach Trump’ and happened to receive a check in your mailbox the next day that you would never, ever tell anybody about

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The Angry Autism Dad

gave up trying to figure it out but my head got lost along the way