Understanding the 1% Rule: Motivations


What motivates the people who make up the content contributors found in "The 1% Rule?" Perhaps the following story offers some clues. (This is an excerpt from our forthcoming book "Citizen Marketers.")
As a patch, it’s pretty simple: A diamond shape surrounded by a blue border, with "1%" embroidered in the middle. It's worn over the heart by members of motorcycle clubs that celebrate their outlaw status from mainstream motorcycle society. They call themselves the "One Percenters."
The inspiration for the patch and its meaning can be traced to 1947, when members of the Pissed Off Bastards of Bloomington motorcycle club and the Boozefighters Motorcycle Club, showed up in Hollister, California, for that town's annual motorcycle race. As parties involving beer in summer heat sometimes do, things got out of hand.
A photographer for Life magazine happened to be attending the race and snapped a picture of a drunken biker perched atop a Harley Davidson, surrounded by broken beer bottles. The photo was published in Life with a caption that read, "Cyclist's Holiday: He and Friends Terrorize Town." A brief story accompanying the photo said 4,000 members of a motorcycle club were responsible for destructive mayhem. The photo and story provoked the American Motorcyclists Association to denounce the boozed-up bikers. It assured worried citizens that 99 percent of its members were law-abiding citizens, thereby marginalizing the remaining "1 percent" as outlaws.
The story has been the inspiration and founding principle for outlaw motorcycle clubs around the world. One Percenters organize and wear their patches as the proverbial finger raised toward society’s expectations of them. For decades, the story of what happened in Hollister has been repeated by numerous writers in magazines and newspapers, codifying its legend.
William L. Dulaney, a visiting professor at Western Carolina University spent months researching the history of the One Percenters for the academic periodical, "The International Journal of Motorcycle Studies." From months spent conducting field research around the United States, and having spent years as a member of an outlaw motorcycle club himself, he argues that contemporary One Percenters in "outlaw" motorcycle gangs are not necessarily pro-criminal, they are anti-bureaucracy. They rebel against the commonality of mainstream expectations.

Furthermore, the One Percenter clubs are organized around the idea of a community, and their unconventional lives and motorcycle lifestyles are reinforced by the strong-as-steel bonds with other members. They revel, sometimes raucously in beer-soaked pandemonium, in a culture that conventional society frowns on. Forget seeking the approval of conventional governing bodies; the One Percenters revel in their minority status.
They are outlaws of culture.




Interesting Read,......

 

That photo was also a fake.

 

which photo?

 

The photo of the drunk on a bike surrounded by beer bottles! It was a staged shot. The guy was a local citizen.

 

The one of the drunk biker in Hollister with all the bottles scattered around. That was a staged photo.

 

This one:


As stated, it was staged.

 

The Photo of the "Drunken" biker on the bike. It was staged after the fact. The photographer asked the dude to sit on the bike and then placed the beer bottles around him.

 

read "Under and Alone" by William Queen

 

oh,......yea,........sorry,....on meds this morning,..kinda foggy.

I think my keyboard just moved by itself.

 

Some are good, some are bad, but my experiance with 1%ers is that if I need anything, the ones I know will be there for me. Better than family in my experiance.