13 hours ago
In Washington Square Park, everyone has main character energy.
On any given day, dozens of young people scour the downtown park with smartphones and microphones, looking for people to interview. Buskers and dog walkers increasingly compete for space with tripods, even in corners of the park with well-earned reputations for grittiness.
The park, which for decades was known as a hub of counterculture and an anchor for protests in the city, has now been overrun with social media influencers looking to go viral.
Much of the country got an introduction last month to Washington Square Park’s latest incarnation as a major stage for aspiring social media stars after a popular social media channel promoted a snowball fight. The account Sidetalk put out an invite to its 2 million followers to come to the park. The impromptu event drew hundreds of revelers, many of them social media influencers themselves.
Some attendees pelted police officers with snowballs, creating a viral moment that authorities say was also criminal. Police arrested two men — one of them a Bronx YouTuber named Gusmane Coulibaly who goes by Diaperman — and are still looking to arrest another. Prosecutors declined to prosecute Coulibaly on assault charges, but charged him with obstructing government administration, a misdemeanor, as well as a harassment violation.
Park regulars say its social media-ification became more noticeable after the COVID-19 pandemic, when people were eager to be outside around their friends after more than a year of lockdowns. That era corresponded with the growth in popularity of vertical videos on apps like TikTok.
Andrew Berman, a history buff who runs the group Village Preservation, said the park has long been known as a place for creative expression.
“I think there's an expectation that it's a place where people can feel perhaps a greater degree of freedom and a greater degree of ability to express themselves than they might in many other public spaces in New York City,” Berman said.
Now the park is full of influencers and content creators looking for their next interview subjects — or opportunity to promote a brand.
“They'll come up to you and you can't see it. There'll be someone from afar, like, filming you. It's stressful,” said Harper Ives, a 19-year-old NYU student. “Last semester I got caught in a couple. I was in, like, a perfume one.”
The park has been a flashpoint for all manner of protests and political movements. Some 27,000 people attended a rally featuring Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in 2016, when he was running for president.
Far-right influencer Jake Lang showed up at the park in a U-Haul truck, with a goat alongside him, to antagonize people gathered for a vigil for Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. The next day, he headed to Gracie Mansion — again with the goat — to lead an Islamaphobic protest over Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s faith. That demonstration was met by counter-protesters — and attracted a pair of Pennsylvania teens who police say attempted to set off explosives.
Along with political activity, the park has a long history of crime, drug use and drug dealing.
Joe Puleo, a former parks enforcement officer who now heads the union made up of the unarmed officers, said there’s a careful balance between over-policing and mayhem in the park.
“ When [Mayor Rudy] Giuliani was there, it was zero-tolerance,” he said. “Anybody that does something wrong essentially gets penalized.”
Last year, federal authorities arrested 19 people accused of dealing drugs around the park. Prosecutors alleged the dealers were directly responsible for multiple fatal overdoses. They included an 18-year-old NYU student who prosecutors said died in 2024 after she purchased drugs in the park.
“You have to know how to keep that balance in the park, you can't let anything go on, you have to keep people safe. But you don't want to turn it into a police state either,” said Puleo.
Park-goer and NYU philosophy student Rachel Evazians, 18, said that too many cops can make the park unwelcoming.
“I feel like that creates a hostile environment for individuals and I just feel like there's only negatives to over-policing,” she said.
Evazians acknowledged that the park still had its edge. “We got offered drugs the other day,” she said. “It's not that big of a deal. It's just part of life. You know?”
Yet Washington Square Park now serve more as a forum for influencers to film videos these days than a place to score drugs. Ashton Yeater, 23, was at the park last week promoting a deodorant company. He and a friend were hunting for other people to feature in a social media video.
“Everyone was out playing music, skateboarding, and it was just a sick spot. Definitely not what I'm used to in Ohio,” said Yeater, who moved to Bushwick last fall. “ Honestly, we didn't really think too much about going anywhere else.”
