It's a voting sticker and they put it up for a vote — along with 5 other submissions from teenagers. You can see them all here. The rest are respectfully sedate, reflecting the concept of voting as a civic duty. In the predictable style of internet voting — need I say "Boaty McBoatface"? — the wild-eyed voter-insect has 93% of the vote.
An "I VOTED" sticker is supposed to reinforce the values of democracy. You walk around on Election Day in your city or town, and you see your neighbors wearing their stickers, and you think — they want you to think — these are all good people, doing their best, hoping, working, coming together to select our representatives. Surely, they read the newspapers, they talked earnestly and openly with one another and thought deeply about what we need as a group, and they made the effort to arrive at their polling place and to do their little part, contributing to the welfare of the community.
But that's not the message with Hudson Rowan's "I VOTED" guy. You see that sticker and you think something more like: Oh, my God, everyone's nuts and we're trusting them to pick the lunatics who will govern us!
But I salute Hudson Rowan. He didn't just follow the assignment. He transformed it. And he got out his own message — a message worth thinking about, scaring us about democracy.
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57 comments:
only if the insect shown as leaving random droppings [a la flyspecks] on the 'ballot' that count as chosen by /voter/
That’s pretty much how people see those proudly wearing their “I Voted” stickers.
And I just voted for that drawing.
Yes, I immediately thought of Boaty McBoatface and, haven't they learned? But you make a good point that this sticker, unlike Boaty, actually makes a solid and valuable point--"Oh, my God, everyone's nuts and we're trusting them to pick the lunatics who will govern us!"
Which is how many people, especially the ironically named "Democrats"--see democracy.
I want them to have the psycho spider crawling over the capitol dome in the 'respectful' Wendy Stewart sticker. Then we'll have a science fiction plot to explain the crazed voters. You see, they were affected by nuclear/chemical/political contamination and mutated into spider creatures that attacked D.C.
If not random contamination: "The U.S. Surgeon General recommends that you contact your transgender conversion doctor for a furry spider body mod. Following this, the Department of Justice officially directs you to protest the end of national abortion law by climbing the buildings in D.C. It's the logical way to make things happen in 2022. Huzzah!"
Why wouldn't you throw a firecracker into a corny contest for an "I voted" sticker? Kudos to the county for their selection of contestants.
Boaty McBoatface forever. And Isambard Kingdom Brunel was the second greatest Englishman of all time.
Absurd sarcastic iconoclastic funny. Anything else, but not scary. In fact, it makes fun of the social media scare inflation mongers.
So if the final vote is that high for the spider, will it be chosen?
Or will this become another mockery of democracy? With experts who know better.
I've got a dollar that says it wins but is not chosen.
See Boaty McBoatface, HMCS Uganda
John LGBTQBNY Henry
"scaring us about democracy"
Correction: "our democracy."
This is the funniest thing I'll see all day. I love it. I think the 14 year old nailed it.
Not a spider. An insect. 6 legs.
I went to see the other entries and found that I could vote even if not in ulster County.
So I voted for the cool sticker.
John LGBTQBNY Henry
I've got a dollar that says it wins but is not chosen.
I was motivated enough to come and say that...
The people have spoken. It is now time for their betters and the 'experts' to save the people from themselves...
Love the drawing. I can see swapping out “I voted” for various messages from both sides: “Roe Overturned!”, “I was misgendered!”, “Insurrection at the Capital!”, “Invasion at the Border!”, etc. We love our drama.
Reelect no one! Everyone must go. Both parties. Not one incumbent should be enabled to win.
And just to make sure we get the point across, the next batch - the batch of newbies we vote in this time - should be summarily thrown out the next election, just because. Just to make the point. Then maybe we'll have their attention.
Ann Althouse said...
Not a spider. An insect. 6 legs.
Maybe the spider is handicapped? What ARE You? An ablist? Injured spiders are spiders TOO!!
Definition of a Spider: One that Identifies as a Spider.
In the late 60's when Ann Arbor opened a new high-school, they let the students nominate and vote for the new mascot. The school was built near the Huron River, and the students came up with 'River Rats'. Supposedly the administration cancelled the results of the first election, struck 'River Rats' from the ballot and re-ran it -- only to have 'River Rats' win via a write-in campaign, and the name has been around ever since. Though the young lady Rats, at some point, found this too distasteful and go by the 'Stars' ('Rats' backwards -- sort of). When Ann Arbor opened it's 3rd high school about 15 years ago, they did not allow such tomfoolery and ended up, lamely, with 'Eagles' for the 3rd school.
here's a modest proposal.
instead of I voted stickers..
When a person comes to the polls to vote, their right index finger is inked purple.
IF a person's finger is ALREADY purple, obviously they've already voted and Can NOT vote again.
Mail In Votes? Absentee Ballots? Not sure how those would work within purple plan
We were PROUD to impose THIS plan on iraq.. Are you implying we're BETTER than iraqis?
This calls for a nice refreshing bottle of Hitler Did Nothing Wrong Dew
alien ants, or delos androids, *brain dead or westworld,
Government is just a word for the things we do together ... under threat of confiscation, imprisonment, violence, or death.
Finally an "I Voted" sticker I would wear.
The Atlantic is telling us to "Make Politics Boring Again." That's quite a shift from "Rendezvous With Destiny," "The New Frontier," "The Great Society," "Keep Hope Alive," "The Man From Hope" "Hope and Change" and "The Fundamental Transformation of America" to what? The Status Quo? Managed, Slow Decline? If the alternative to "crazy politics" is "Shut Up and Do What Your Leaders Tell You To Do" do we really want boring politics?
that's a picture of the bug that lives in the minds of people who are happy with Biden.
'Not a spider. An insect. 6 legs.'
A spider down on his luck might have only 6 legs.
Or maybe he's a spider pirate; a spirate.
They should design and "I Voted" sticker you can place on your loved ones grave here in Wisconsin after they cast and absentee ballot and and angel of the Lord puts it in a drop box right next to a mailbox downtown Madison, WI.
During a vacation to the Ancestral Homeland (aka Liverpool) we did a tour of the Birkenhead shipyard where "Boaty McBoatface" was getting its final outfitting. They told us there was no way that thing was leaving the yard with such a stupid name; it was either RRS Attenborough or something else. And Attenborough it was.
John Henry re: HMCS Uganda -- yes, that's a story we Canucks have largely forgotten: the tale of the sailors who voted themselves out of the invasion of Japan, as a "fuck you" to the cowardly politicians in Ottawa who were cynically trying to save their worthless asses after a series of conscription scandals.
I have a problem with the "winning" button, but I have to think about it more before I can express it clearly. It feels like another symptom of the utter, complete failure of our leadership "class" to keep and pass on anything worthwhile to the next generation. But maybe that's just old, misanthropic me.
Insect politics?
Nope, not an insect. No thorax, no abdomen. Closer to a spider.
My family used to play 20 questions to identify "people", quite loosely interpreted. Could be characters in books we had all read, but "is he real?" was sometimes impossible to answer, e.g. King Arthur. One stumper was EB White's Charlotte. The questioners went off track when they determined it was a non human fictional creature but not an insect.
I have voted in EVERY election since I turned 18 many moons ago, and have YET to EVER get an I voted sticker at any of the polling places I have ever voted in. I have lived in two different states.
It looks like a bacteriophage. And it’s going viral.
"Since we don't control the air our good air decided to float over to China's bad air so when China gets our good air, their bad air got to move. So it moves over to our good air space. Then now we got we to clean that back up."
That's one way to put it... This was the guy from Georgias statement not Russia ,China, Hes got me very confused also. Too many hits to the head. LOGO still valid for todays groupings.
When all the mail-in-voting is counted, the bug will lose.
vote harvest drop boxes everywhere! or - show no mercy!
This is just fucking brilliant. I have high hopes for this kid.
Re my comment above: about the high hopes -- I mean it seriously. Fourteen years old, and he's willing to get way out there on his own. Also, the image is fantastic, but that's not the best of it.
I should've read the earlier posts.
"We are not tacos" and this drawing. Paper the town!
I’ll bet it gets 81 million votes.
Lurker21,
Now you've done it. You made me cry.
RIP: National Geographic, Scientific American, The Atlantic, Newsweek
I have never worn an "I Voted" sticker. I think they're ridiculous. I agree with Kevin I guess.
I read Hudson as a guy's name; not sure about Shafil or Kaden.
Good to see that the Great American Smartass still lives and thrives.
I voted for Hudson Rowan
and sent in five magical mail-ins for the run-off. Each mail-in generates five more and then those, more, sort of like a Ponzi scheme. Only it's the last one in the chain, the politician who wins, who gets rich. Go Hudson.
"Politics right now in the world is all kinds of crazy"
As usual.
I had forgotten about my own little civics lesson in the 9th grade. We held a straw poll for mayor (I think) and I wrote in Omar the Tentmaker.
Mrs. Bronaugh didn't like that one little bit. I don't recall getting mashed between the classroom door and wall, which was her usual punishment. I think she just kept me after for a few days.
Take your "I Voted!" sticker and slap it on gravestone.
Blogger Ann Althouse said...
Not a spider. An insect. 6 legs.
We had a tarantula in the bedroom on the wall last spring. I didn't stop to count the legs. We scooted him/her out with the broom and he walked away on however many legs he had left.
The tarantula was the size of my hand, hence the hurry.
I used to give my sticker to my kids to wear. It was my comment on election security.
"Take your "I Voted!" sticker and slap it on gravestone."
Just scrape off all the old stickers from previous elections first.
Am trying to decide if the multi-colored teeth are significant of anything.
What's the problem with tarantulas? The one semester we were in Dallas, the kids carried them around in their hands.
What a hateful arachnophobe. Has he no understanding of the HARM he has done? Spiders will DIE because of this!!
"trying to decide if the multi-colored teeth are significant of anything."
Poor dental hygiene?
Mail In Votes? Absentee Ballots? Not sure how those would work within purple plan
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why not send in your finger to be inked and returned [is less than arm and leg]
Is that Votey McVoteface?
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