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First Amendement Auditor hits Downtown Holland!

 

On Friday, August 4, 2023, Amagansett Press hit the mean streets of Holland, Michigan for purposes related to auditing the First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Basically, the dude stands in front of storefronts or on public sidewalks and just...films people.  The people are either entering or exiting businesses, or just walking down the sidewalk.  His goal seems to be to get police to interact with him, then he'll sue the police departments.  Heralded as a folk hero by some, he's pretty financially successful on his Youtube channel, having monetized it to almost $300,000 per year according to this Redditor.

A quick Google search for "Amagansett Press" shows a library of news articles about him suing various police departments.

As it pertains to Holland, he showed 3 distinct "negative" interactions - the medical professional at 8:30 in the video, whom the host makes a point to illustrate that "she scurried off to call the police"; the gentleman in the SUV at 9:44, whom the host lightly roasts with the "you're a young man, don't be so angry" line (which then sets the gentleman off further); and the next person at 10:45 who's featured in the thumbnail of the video itself, who the host seems to go out of his way to interact with and egg on a little.  I was happy to see some of my favorite establishments represented well in the video - big props to Waverly Stone, Hopcat, and Hops At 84 East for maintaining professional appearances...I know in customer services jobs I've held in the past, we had very strict rules on how to interact with members of the press.

The same First Amendment that gives me the right to shitpost like this also gives him the right to film in public - this is true.  There's a line though...as just some jerk with a keyboard, I try to stay uplifting and positive if I'm writing about a person.  As some jerk with a camcorder, it feels icky to me watching a few of the Amagansett Press videos where (like the gentleman in the Youtube thumbnail of this video) they deliberately use microaggressions to generate a negative response out of some people.  I know it's not illegal, it just feels weird.

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