I have some news to impart on everyone. It’s election season
in America. To those of you that I have shocked, I apologize, I know not many
of you have known that. (Does this font convey sarcasm? I hope it does.)
In any
regard, at the time of this posting we will be a little over a month away from
the merciful end of Election Season. Whereas Football Season ends with a big
show and Duck Season ends with some hilarious banter with wabbits and hunters,
Election Season ends more name calling and accusations of fraud all around.
But this
is not a post about politics, no, this is a post about social media. You see,
we live in a world where we are connected 24/7. If Mitt Romney pets an adorable
kitten wielding katana blades or if Barack Obama kisses a baby that has a
Hitler mustache, the world knows about it in about fifty seconds and we all
start judging what it secretly means for the election. (i.e, Kittens love
slashing things with knives! Or babies are bringing back the Hitler mustache!)
I
remember being in a bar four years ago when Barack Obama announced that “Smilin’
Joe Biden” was going to be his running mate. You could sign up for a text
message to get the announcement as soon as it came out, so a bunch of people
were looking down on their phones and reading what it said. Now this was
midnight in a bar in Seattle, which means it was earlier in the morning
elsewhere. And later it came out that the campaign announced it because the
media released it.
This
got me thinking… do I need to know everything the minute it happened? Would I
be worse off if I was sitting in a bar in Seattle, had a few beers with my
friends, then got home and saw that Joe Biden was going to be Barack Obama’s
running mate? Other than switching the conversation from how the Seahawks were
doing that year to this, it changed nothing.
Thus, I’m
announcing the great Bad Shakespeare experiment of 2012. I’m going to see how
long I can go without knowing who won the Presidential Election. I’m going to
go to bed on Tuesday, November 6th knowing that Barack Obama is the
President of the United States. I’m going to wake up on Wednesday, November 7th…
well knowing that Barack Obama is President, but not knowing if he has a few
months, or a few years left on his term.
Think
about what that means. I will have to turn off notifications on my phone for
one. I won’t be able to read any of my favorite news sites like Yahoo, Washington
Post, or Cracked. (Ok… maybe the last one.) I won’t even get my morning comics!
I won’t be able to listen to the radio (which may not be a bad thing. Like I want
I want another fart joke from Elliot in the Morning or listening to Kane try to
talk over everything he airs, lest someone forget the sound of his voice) or
watch live television. Nothing with a commercial, anyway. (I know… so 20th
Century with the Tivos and the DVRs and whatnot.) The big thing, however, is
that because of the way things are set up, I will not be able to update Bad
Shakespeare properly until I find out, and the experiment is over.
It’s
not really a political statement. I’m intending this to be an interesting look
at social media, and how we interact with it. I’ve chosen the Presidential
Election because it is the biggest story in America… everyone should be
covering it. With social media, really I should know who wins the election half
a second after they call it.
And of course, I’ll be reporting my
experiences and findings on a future edition of Bad Shakespeare.
No comments:
Post a Comment