Monday, October 8, 2012

Kittens with Katana Blades!


               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.

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