Technology is amazing. I can chat online with my friends seven time zones and 5,200 miles away in London. I can view pictures of my friends in Pakistan that were taken five minutes before I looked at them. I can talk on the phone with my friends in Thailand for less than 50 cents a minute, something that would have been unimaginable even twenty years ago. Anybody with Internet access can do any of the things mentioned above. Anybody can chat, write, record and post anything they want online.
That is not always a good thing.
I showed my co-workers the video of Hillary Clinton supporters singing her praises that I posted in my previous entry. Reactions varied from “Wow” and “Oh my goodness, I don’t know what to say about that” to the extreme reaction of “It was the worst thing I have ever seen. It makes me not want to vote. It’s so bad.”
Obviously it’s a little far fetched that my co-worker isn’t going to vote simply because she saw this video, but talking to her more about it, she admitted her opinion of Hillary went down a little bit after watching it, even though Hillary neither produced the video herself nor endorsed it, and probably doesn’t even know of its existence.
We judge people. It is human nature. Even subconsciously, our opinions are shaped by what we see other people do. If we watch a bunch of dancing, singing people praise Hillary with an awful video, our opinion of Hillary goes down just by her being associated with them.
Just the opposite happens when we respect those associated with someone, as it’s written in an article published by the London newspaper The Telegraph.
Neil McCormick, the author of the article, claims, “The video achieves things politicians can usually only dream about,” and notes it inspires this generation to follow in the footsteps of our previous generations who went through the civil rights movement.
McCormick answers the critics of the Obama video, who he says are downplaying the impact this video will have on the masses.
“Can Obama continue to upset the traditional balance of power by getting his young converts to the polls? The message beaming out across the net is: yes, he can.”
The presidential race is not going to be decided solely on YouTube videos. However, when I look at the statistics of the “Yes, We Can” video on YouTube – more than four million views, 13 “YouTube honors” including most discussed video of the month and 18th most viewed of all time – if I was asked if these types of vieo can have an impact, I have no other choice but to say yes, they can.
