I’m suffering from protester fatigue. Are you?

On Monday, activists took the Port of Seattle over their displeasure with drilling for oil in the Arctic. Just two days earlier, kayactivists took the the Elliot Bay with the same message.

Tuesday, thousands of teachers from Seattle, Issaquah and Mercer Island took the streets, blocking traffic, to raise awareness on class sizes and education funding.

On May Day, hundreds of protesters took the streets of Seattle to push their anti-cop and anti-capitalist agenda.

And of course, throughout the last several months, we’ve seen protests on wages, housing, elephants and so much more.

Is anyone else experiencing protester fatigue? I can’t be the only one.

We have a protest almost every single day, on every issue you could possibly think of. And I’m not sure if these protesters realize we just don’t care about the antics beyond getting annoyed at how we’re being inconvenienced. Even when I agree with the activists, I find myself annoyed and tuning out their message, focusing instead on their ridiculous behavior.

When you protest everything, you’re protesting nothing. What these children don’t understand – and yes, they’re children – is that every day they decide to get out there and protest, it’s one more day you’re telling the average citizen that you’re protesting as a day job. And when it’s your job to protest, you tend to blend in with every other worker out there. We know they’re there; we just tune them out and we certainly aren’t persuaded to side with them.

We are tired and we’re not paying attention anymore; we just don’t care anymore. And that’s dangerous because activists know that. They know the traditional protest doesn’t quite cut it anymore, so they have to step up their game and get more extreme. It’s why we see the long protests that interfere with our daily lives. It’s not a selfish disregard for our priorities – which can include simply wanting to get home on time and not get stuck in the traffic they create. They’re doing this for our attention because they realize they’re losing it.

When you’re an addict, like these protesters are, they end up going to great lengths to get attention. And that’s scary.