There’s something about YouTube. It’s a phenomenon. You intend to look for one thing and find yourself an hour later watching more or less topic-related videos. Today it was just the same. But what I found is too good to keep it to myself. My original intention was to see how U.S. parties and politicians use YouTube. I will still write about it, but more than that I will give you a sample of good links that I found today researching my topic. I had a good laugh or two that I wouldn’t want you to miss.
But let me start with videos broadcasted by politicians intentionally. There’s, of course, the weekly republican address. I couldn’t tell you more about the video I found than you can read in the headline. I was too distracted by the representative’s eyes. He was obviously reading from a teleprompter. But it made him look so nervous that I got totally distracted. Poor performance. Next I found an election ad. Though, those are surprisingly hard to find among all the funny clips related. This one is from Massachusetts and I find it representative for American election campaign commercials. Some music in the background, a populist message, then the face of the guy who is going to save the country and finally a ridiculous remark like: “Enough is enough.”
But let’s come to the fun part. Not that those weren’t funny, because they DID have a humorous tone. YouTube comes in handy, when you want to have some insight to crazy stuff happening in a politician’s everyday life. Of course you can see them on the news as well, because most of them are taken from news shows. But on YouTube they live on for everyone to see. For example: Did you know that President Obama got called a liar by a politician while speaking? Or did you see of one of his funniest speeches ever? Where he actually opened his address by saying that he really doesn’t want to be there?! Where else would you see a fan-made video about upcoming elections that refers to Hillary Clinton as “Monica Lewinsky’s ex-boyfriend’s wife”?! And where else would you find all the hesitating answers of politicians when being asked questions about war, comfortably cut together?!
Some videos are really just funny, some might be offending. Some are totally made up, but they get you thinking about incidents. Just like the funny clip about the Florida voting machine.
YouTube is a channel that is extremely connected with politics. It’s used by politicians themselves (more or less successfully) or used to make fun of speeches. And in this way it’s a way to shape and contribute to debates about politics. And it’s an entertaining way to do so. Of course one cannot take everything at face value. A lot is exaggerated or even made up. But still…!
There’s one last video that really left a lasting impression. It’s a campaign video for Barack Obama. It was created with the help of a lot of celebrities. You see, there are some out there who know how to use the internet. There are some that actually can.
by US_watch
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