The YouTube Election
Everyone knows that this past election was different but so far no one has put their finger on what it was that made it different. It was the Internet. Actually an Internet site, it was YouTube. The Internet has been around for a long time but until this election the Internet was not a player.
Many people felt the 2000 Presidential Election would be when the Internet would be seen as a vehicle of change. But it wasn’t time yet. Something was missing.
So it was a slam dunk that the 2004 Presidential Election would be the Internet Election. But it wasn’t to be.
The reason? People don’t like to read. They would rather watch. The solution was YouTube. In the advertising world they measure impressions. In Television news Karl Rove and James Carville types worry about the news cycle. So what happens when impressions multiply beyond comprehension and news cycles are extended indefinitely?
Mistakes are amplified and exaggerated.
That is what happened in this election. For George Allen it was macaca. For John F. Kerry it was a bungled joke about education and Iraq. For Harold Ford it was the “Memphis Meltdown” and the “bimbo ad”.
In the days before YouTube these “impressions” and “news cycles” where very brief. After all, do people make a video tape of these moments and exchange them with their friends? Of course not, too much trouble. But YouTube changed everything. Hook your TV up to your computer and pesto chango you have a file you can upload to YouTube for FREE. Then you can link it to any number of Blogs for FREE.
The politicians were caught flat-footed. Most mistakes can survive a limited number of impressions and a short news cycle. But what do you do when you say macaca and it never ends? You lose. That is what happens.
But the YouTube phenomena is not just for elections. All across this country every City Council meeting, every County Commission meeting, every State Assembly meeting, and every meeting of the United States Congress is now a potential YouTube adventure.
YouTube is the inverse of Big Brother. The citizens now control the picture. We the people control the image, we control the horizontal, we control the vertical.
A new revolution has begun and politicians should be warned. We are listening to and watching every word you say.
November 8th, 2006 at 11:09 pm
Except now it’s under the hands of Google.
It won’t last long. Something new will come up to replace it once Google googlifies it, but don’t expect the magic to last. My bet’s on a McCain-Feingold being smacked down and everything involving a politico being disabled around elections.
“Don’t be evil – enable it.” Google Real Motto, Ubersoft.net
November 9th, 2006 at 3:41 am
A very, very smart friend of mine once told me, “Computers and the internet are a far bigger problem for the government than they are for the individual.” I was skeptical but am beginning to be convinced.