Alternative title: “Me Being Endlessly Fascinated By The Increasingly Important Role The Internet Is Playing On Politics And Governments, Part 9645.”
Much has been written about the role Facebook and Twitter have played in organizing protests and toppling totalitarian regimes, but I don’t think near enough credit has gone to YouTube (though the Kony 2012 movement, with its many faults, was a not-so-subtle reminder of the power of online video). After all, YouTube makes it nearly possible for the rich and powerful, people like Mitt Romney, to bury the retarded things they say. Conversely, it allows such things to come back to haunt them again and again and again.
Additionally, like Twitter and Facebook, it puts the power of creating and distributing messages into the hands of “the little people.” In the past, if a presidential campaign wanted to remind voters of an idiotic thing his or her opponent said years ago and hoped to have, say, ten million people see the ad it was presented in, such a media buy could cost well into six figures, not to mention production costs. With YouTube, anyone, in this case a teenager in Australia, can convey a hilarious but damning message — this one being that Mitt Romney is a robot with a penchant for saying whatever he thinks people want to hear in the moment — to millions of people with hardly any money, as long as they possess some decent editing skills and buttload of patience.
With all of that said, this is a goddamn masterpiece — arguably better than any “professional” political ad I’ve seen in years. Mitt Romney has been rebranded today as “The Real Slim Shady.” POWER TO THE PEOPLE!
(HT: Buzzfeed)
