By EncinoMan
Now that the extended Democratic primary has (at long last) concluded its run, it seems fitting to commemorate the occasion with a walk down memory lane courtesy of a handful of imaginative YouTube videos that went viral over the past 18 months. Most of these videos are mashups, combining disparate elements such as music, images, voice-overs, animations, and video clips from other sources to create a wholly new media piece, often satirical.
First up is “Vote Different“, one of the most famous and wickedly ingenious video parodies of the campaign, which to date has been viewed more than 5 million times on YouTube. It appeared in early March 2007 as a homage to Apple’s celebrated 1984 SuperBowl ad, but with one very significant, er, change:
The ad was created by Phil De Vellis, a new media political consultant who was not part of Obama’s campaign staff, though, according to Raw Story, he had once roomed with Obama’s then-press secretary. His sudden notoriety cost him his job after the ad went viral on YouTube and he was outed on the Huffington Post. De Vellis explained:
“I made the ‘Vote Different’ ad because I wanted to express my feelings about the Democratic primary, and because I wanted to show that an individual citizen can affect the process,” he wrote. “There are thousands of other people who could have made this ad, and I guarantee that more ads like it–by people of all political persuasions–will follow.”
And of course, De Vellis proved to be prophetic on that last point. Three months later the Clinton campaign, not to be outdone, released this spoof of the Sopranos finale. Though not technically a mashup — it does not use remixed footage from The Sopranos, nor any content from other sources — it was nonetheless a meticulously crafted parody of the final scene of the popular HBO mob drama and received wide attention, though mixed reviews. Some thought it demonstrated Hillary’s new media savvy while others pointed out that, smart pop culture references notwithstanding, it may not have been the best political move for the Clintons to compare themselves to an organized crime family (and still others didn’t like the choice of Celine Dion’s “You and I” as the Clinton campaign theme song). But most significantly, unlike the other videos in this retrospective, it came directly from the Clinton campaign rather than from grassroots Web artists and activists.
One of the most compelling videos of the primary season was “Yes We Can“, a collaboration between will.i.am of the Black Eye Peas and director Jesse Dylan (yes, Bob’s son), with an assist from celebrities including Scarlett Johansson, Herbie Hancock and Kareem Abdul Jabbar, among others. It juxtaposes side-by-side clips of Obama speaking in his now-familiar cadences, with singers and text echoing his words and phrases, in a call-and-response montage that is both simple and haunting.
“Building a Religion” appeared in March of this year as a tongue-in-cheek response to “Yes We Can”. It combines the popular Cake song with a series of still images that playfully lampoons Obama’s rock star persona and huge following, at a moment in the campaign just before the Jeremiah Wright controversy became front page news. The images, sequencing and pacing perfectly complement the lyrics of the song, and provide an example of how an entirely fresh creation and message can be assembled from disparate puzzle pieces of content originally created for other purposes. Though not nearly as popular as the pro-Obama videos, it was given wide play on the right side of the blogosphere, owing to its satiric skewering of Obama as a cult figure:
As the Democratic primary heated up and the campaign began to resemble a dogfight for delegates, we were treated to “The Empire Strikes Barack“, a wonderfully fun mashup of news and debate soundbites with Star Wars footage. Once again, Obama gets a boost from his Netroots fans, who cast him as Luke Skywalker to Hillary’s Darth Vader:
So where is John McCain in all of this? He doesn’t get off scot-free either. Here he is, kicking it old school (with an assist from Hardball’s Chris Matthews) in a video rap mashup by Matthew Filipowicz for GoLeft TV:
The video mashup as an art form is not, of course, limited to politics but the availablility of political footage and images, plus the obsession candidates and their supporters have with defining memorable narratives combine to create a perfect storm on YouTube. Add to that the ability for people to popularize and share the best creations through embedding them on blogs, emailing links to friends or posting them online, and you have the potential for a video to go viral, especially if it gets linked by one of the more popular blogs or social media sites like Digg.
Most mashups won’t go viral in the way that “Vote Different” or “Yes We Can” did, but for a growing segment of the electorate that gets its information online, it’s a form that allows creative individuals with a political bent to lionize their candidates and take shots at the opposition. And, as noted, this creative dynamic definitely works to the advantage of Web-savvy candidates and campaigns.
So now as we head into the general election, time to grab some more popcorn. Who knew free speech could be so entertaining?