Happy to say that wasn't my experience during the "Clintoon years." My husband and I went to Washington (about 7 hours away) with our then nine year old son for the huge rally on the mall to oust Clinton.
If you believe no one was "acting," that must be because you believed the press about that rally. The reality was we had about 4,000 Freepers on the mall and a whole host of excellent speakers.
Sadly, one of the biggest things that experience taught me was -- if the media doesn't want people to know, you're going to have a hard time getting the word out. There was more coverage of the 100 person pro-clintoon rally than our 4K person rally. If people don't know we're there and what we have to say, it's almost like it didn't happen. And what power do we have to force the networks to publicize something they don't want to talk about?
If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it, did it actually make any noise?