Are Right-Wing bloggers Having any fun? And Voter Generated Content as Activist Tool
I would like to present two sections to this week’s entry. One: I wanted to post some of my favorite and some of the more notorious voter generated videos over the last year. Two: I wanted to go over some voter generated content that is more about activism.
I was going to do a top ten but found the task a little time consuming and plus not very interactive. Garrett brought our attention to the john.he.is mashup by Public Service Administration, which was funny and certainly somewhat topical. He said it First is another of PSA’s video is comical take on news the way George Allen and the ‘macaca‘ moment and the Wright videos did. Unlike Allen, McCain isn’t actually videotapped saying the offensive slur that Nick Juliano of the Huffington Post reports, so while it is funny and itself a little offensive, it won’t be the unmaking of McCain the way as maccaca was for Allen in 2006. The john.he.is works precisely because the McCain campaign can argue about context all they want, but the actual footage is what incriminates him.
One of the things that I have continually noticed is that subjectively speaking, the more liberal leaning voter generated blogs and particularly the videos are more fun than any of the most viewed anti-Obama material. Beyond the blatantly racist videos found on youtube, I couldn’t find a single voter generated video that is both topical and funny (which I believe are two key componants that drive the viral nature of online content). I am sure its out there but most of the stuff I found which I won’t link to, attempts to demonize Obama. This might not be a big deal, but stuff like the Obama Girl (I got a Crush on Obama), Baracky and Empire Strikes Barack are funny but more importantly speaks to the phenomenon of the campaign that is not talked about. Its reaching people who would otherwise consider themselves apolitical. When was the last time a candidate brought out the positive. There was a moment right before the Pennsylvania Primary when Obama’s campaign got in trouble because people were plastering old voter generated content (posters and stickers) all over the city. The campaign had nothing to do with it, and particularly because of FEC regulations, strongly tried to dissuade it, but even the police who stopped by the office couldn’t really do anything (in fact one of them picked up a yard sign and bumper sticker). Could anyone imagine the same thing for Kerry or Gore? Maybe Dean but I always believed that Dean’s was more the activist’s candidate. Sure some could argue that people showed up to his meet-ups who hadn’t been involved in politics before but that doesn’t mean they weren’t non-political activists. Meet-up started so fans of Lord of the Rings could meet monthly. As silly as it might sound, they and the the popular ‘witches’ meet-up group were activists in their own right. They would seek out information, have action plans of a sort (finding inaccuracies in the LOTR movies, a new incantation-Really I have no idea but follow me), and they left the more pedistrian part of their lives (family, work, etc) for this activity. That was the Meet-up phenomenon. It was people who were already out doing stuff, and at the time Dean was the candidate for that type of person. The movement that Obama I believe is different. Over the course of 50 Primary battles, Obama’s candidacy is activating people who I believe are not just the activists or the netroots. Its something wholey different and I am curious to see how this evolves.
Anyway. . . This stuff is funny and fun and provocative and I look over at the opposition and its just anything but and clearly playing to fears of low-information voters (though how many of them make up the web audience, and of those, how many look to the web for their political news?). Where is the haha GOP?
2.
I have been more and more curious to how either side of the political spectrum their voter generated content in increasingly interesting ways. Open Left has begun a a project Searching for John McCainis ‘a massive, online activism campaign designed to make at least ten million non-partisan, poll-tested, on-message voter contacts that reveal the damning truth about John McCain entirely through mainstream news reports and McCain’s own words.’ Through mass blogger participation and the use of embedded hyperlinks, Searching for John McCain will connect millions of curious, low-information swing voters to negative, mainstream news articles about John McCain without 99% of those voters even knowing that Searching for John McCain exists. This is the next evolution of the googlebombs of 2005-6. Just two years ago, the technology was not quite there for this type of assault on a campaign. Another example of bloggers taking the helm this election cycle was from Wired (Originally found on Personal Democracy Forum) where bloggers managed to work with DC police to arrest Larry Sinclair who alleged committing misdeads with Obama. This reminds me a lot of the section in First Campaign of how the blog community scared off potential nominees for Chair of the DNC allowing Dean to march in as savior.
Other links I want to talk this week:
1,00,000 for Obama on Facebook
Other Great Mashups
