Welcome to the home of Noah Brier. I'm the co-founder of Variance and general internet tinkerer. Most of my writing these days is happening over at Why is this interesting?, a daily email full of interesting stuff. This site has been around since 2004. Feel free to get in touch. Good places to get started are my Framework of the Day posts or my favorite books and podcasts. Get in touch.

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The Other 1%?

Fortune posted this 1992 article about the Hells Angels. In general it’s a bit of a boring factual account of how the group came to be and how it makes money, but I really liked the fact they used to call them the one-percenters:

What makes the Angels and the lesser outlaws so distinctive among criminal enterprises — and adds to the frustration of law enforcement officials — is that many Americans celebrate them and identify with them. Back in the 1950s, the American Motorcyclist Association, the voice of legitimate riders, pronounced that ”only 1%” of all riders were troublemakers. The outlaws gleefully accepted the label, and many still call themselves one-percenters. (The actual percentage is much smaller — counting the hangers-on police call associates, only about 0.2% of the estimated nine million motorcyclists in the U.S.) And plenty of people — including many who have never even sat on a motorcycle — like their style and applaud them for defying convention and authority.

Can’t imaging they’re still calling themselves that …

December 9, 2012 // This post is about: , ,