Per Shirky:
I am an anti-Iraq-war Democrat, and it nevertheless brought tears to my eyes (and I don't cry easy -- will.i.am's Yes We Can left me fairly cold.)...By the way, it was "homophilously" forwarded to me many times, and, though I posted many videos, from different sides, I chose not to post that one. Shirky notes that few of his students (in NYU media studies) had seen that video, and, basically, it wasn't meant for them. It was the perfect viral video:
This is a video made by people who knew exactly what they were doing. Stuff like the American flag draped just in frame looks hokey to the godless/ sodomite/ baby-killing wing of the Democratic party (my people), but is part of a "plain speaking and right thinking" package that clearly hit just right with the target audience. It was seen 13 million times in 3 months, which topped Obama Girl in absolute views, and I've got a Crush...on Obama was up a year and a half.
This is why this video is really really important: the simple message and Blair Witch production values (good enough to be effective, bad enough to seem unplanned) made this video like Democratic kryptonite. The video was largely circulated via homophilous forwarding along conservative channels.
For the base, a muscular but polite attack on the very issue that brought Obama into the spotlight. For the undecided, the emotional charge is much likelier to sway them than argumentation. And for the Dems -- nothing. The video might as well not have existed for all it was seen in Democratic circles. Since the video's sole speaker can't be criticized without making the criticizer look churlish at best, almost no Dems forwarded it, linked to it, talked about it.That is, it couldn't be used in a negative way by McCain's opponents, so it didn't backfire, as many videos do: "Dear Mr. Obama was music to Republican ears while being inert in Democratic hands." Bottom line: "expect it to be a template for 2010."
IN THE COMMENTS: Freeman Hunt said...
I had never seen this video before. I must be odd. While I agree with the guy, I don't find the video affecting. Or maybe I'm not odd and Shirky is wrong.Interesting. Me too: I agreed with the man in the video, but he didn't play my heartstrings. He was stating the obvious as far as I was concerned, and the revelation of the prosthetic leg did not change anything for me. Whether he had lost a limb or not, I know plenty of others have. There is no new information or argument, just an emotional appeal that works if you've somehow failed to know the most basic things about the war.
So then, perhaps the interesting question is: Why did Shirky cry? The video was, in his view, "inert" for people like him. I think he means only that war opponents felt like suppressing it because they perceived it as having the power to generate support for the war. But he may be quite wrong about that, since he is imagining the effect on people who don't think the way he does. And it may be that war opponents tend to be people who react very strongly to the sight of physical injuries -- to the point where emotion gets the better of reason. In that case, the video is not inert, and it could be used for the anti-war cause, the way any war injury and death is used.
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That is, it couldn't be used in a negative way by McCain's opponents, so it didn't backfire, as many videos do: "Dear Mr. Obama was music to Republican ears while being inert in Democratic hands." Bottom line: "expect it to be a template for 2010."
So what you are saying that as a political video, it is completely worthless. It does nothing to sway opponents of the war, and just reaffirms with emotional tugs, the views of the supporters of the war. The arguments presented are old, simplistic and have been heard by everyone ad nauseum. That they found an earnest, disabled, Iraqi war vet to present them doesn't change the fact that we have heard them many times before. They don't even address the issue of why Obama called the war a mistake.
It offers no new arguments and even uses the most over-played hyper-patriotic song in existence.
If this is the template for 2010, then the Republicans are going to be in the minority for a very long time.
I had never seen this video before. I must be odd. While I agree with the guy, I don't find the video affecting. Or maybe I'm not odd and Shirky is wrong.
I never saw this before.
Not much of an impact for me.
Maybe if the guy was nude it may have played better to me.
I had sex Friday night.
It was the first time in a month.
He actually came to my loft.
It was pretty good.
Although the rare clumbers were pissed. They wanted to get into the bed the entire time. I asked him jokingly if he liked doing it with dogs which scared him a bit.
I had to put the rare clumbers in the bathroom during the love making.
The next day they were totally pissed at me.
Of course he called me the next day telling me how hot and nice I am. Boy is he wrong, not about the hot part though.
Freder,
Why would it be worthless, simply because it holds no appeal for surrender monkeys? There is of course value in motivating and appealing to a base... or no one would ever hold a political rally, either.
It's also worthwhile to verbalize a coherent political argument, because it assists others in presenting their own case to their friends and acquaintances.
Besides... because an argument isn't novel does not in any way make it invalid...and because an argument is simple doesn't make it simplistic.
Nothing could be more stupidly simplistic than, for example, Rep. Murtha's call for immediate surrender of the battlefield to Al Qaeda and pulling back to Okinawa. Now THAT was frigging stupid!
At any rate, dismissing another's argument as old or simplistic rhetoric without addressing a single point on the merits is the oldest and most simplistic cheap debating tactic on the planet.
And makes you look pretty cheap and cynical, besides.
Can we bring Maxine back and ban Titus, instead?
I have to go to Barney's today.
They are having 60% off most shit today. I have a friend who works there and I can another 20% of with his employee discount.
I have quite a few friends that are high end retail queens. One who works at Saks in the Channel section and another that works at Bergdorf's. They make really good money though. Not as much as me though because if they did we couldn't be friends.
Wish me luck.
Do you ever pinch a loaf and get up from the throne and immediately have to take another loaf?
You think the loaf is complete and you wipe, stand up and immediately feel the need to pinch out a few more loaves.
This just happened to me this morning.
So far this morning I have taken 4 loaves.
At any rate, dismissing another's argument as old or simplistic rhetoric without addressing a single point on the merits is the oldest and most simplistic cheap debating tactic on the planet.
Which is exactly the problem with this ad. The speaker repeatedly states that the war was not a "mistake" because it liberated Iraq (and helped the people etc.). Obama felt Iraq was a mistake because it distracted from the war in Afghanistan and the hunt from Bin Laden. Whether or not the people of Iraq received net benefits from our invasion had nothing to do with Obama's opposition to the war.
And while it is true that rallying the base is important, political ads are generally meant to sway, not rally the base.
A nice video, and a rebuke to the why-do-we-have-a-military-why-can't-we-all-just-make-nice wing of the Democrat party. But the Iraq War was not an issue that had many people in the middle, so not many who could be swayed by this video.
Freder, the reason Obama "believed" that Iraq was a mistake was because that way he won your vote and people like you. Who knows what he really thinks?
We will see what Obama does about Afghanistan now that he can.
A very large part of the problem of keeping Afghanistan central in the war against terror was logistical issues, as I understand it.
Those don't go away just because some fellow says we ought to concentrate on Afghanistan. Hope and Change isn't suddenly going to make it easier to run convoys of supplies across Pakistan.
It is intended to be heartfelt but fails miserably as it's contrived propaganda. He is reading, not speaking from the heart. He looks off to the side for permission from his superior to walk away for what is supposed to be a big revelation which itself is poor dramatics because it is unmotivated. Is he actually leaving and going somewhere? No, it's just a cheap way to show that someone can lose a limb and still be so brainwashed he thinks he lost it for a noble cause. Only a similarly brainwashed warmonger would believe this "gotcha peacenics!" shit was effective.
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do & die,
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
Only a similarly brainwashed warmonger would believe this "gotcha peacenics!" shit was effective.
Totally pro Iraq war here. Didn't call it effective. You're doing what Shirky did--assuming that all the pro war people are deeply affected by this.
Freeman Hunt said...
You're doing what Shirky did--assuming that all the pro war people are deeply affected by this.
And yet I didn't say that, did I.
Zeek,
Just who are you to assume he's brainwashed, and not you?
I rather think he's given the issue a bit more thought than you have.
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