I know Obama's the hipper candidate, but dare I say that Hillary has the better hipster campaign video.
I mean, Obama's is so 'We Are the World.'
--Jason Zengerle
Posted: Monday, February 11, 2008 2:14 PM with 26 comment(s)
Yikes! You may as well post "I'm out of touch with the larger culture."
Hillary's video is like much of her campaign: canned, awkward, and trying too hard to be something it's not. Plus, you've missed an obvious point: "Obama's" was made independently by a group of supporters. This is a cheesy ad that the campaign paid for. I'm not saying either video is weighty, or should influence any voters decisions. But if you really watch both and think you'd rather have Hillary's... youtube analysis is decidedly not your forte.
You gotta be kidding. I guess this is what happens when Mark Penn tries to be hip. How embarrassing. They paid for this??
Are you talking about the black and white Yes We Can thingy? Because the link went to the Hillary video. And also that video [Yes We Can] is not a campaign video - it was made and funded by supporters alone.
But leaving the hipness quotient of that video aside, this Hillary video doesn't strike me as hip or even trying to be hip. Its message is that she's not a rock star, that she's a president, and you can't be both. By photoshopping a guitar in her hand, and showing how ridiculous that is, they hope to make her look more presidential. It's the opposite of Bill's saxophone and dark glasses bit [which was hip if you think the hard rock cafe is hip, but I digress].
It's a variation on her "words are not actions!" theme - she's got no charisma, and is a clunker with the words, so let's make words and charisma look really superficial and juvenile, and her the grown-up who can get things done. She has no choice but to take this tack, even though it's not true at all. The only way a president gets things done is to use words. Inspiring, convincing words.
Jason -- Are you attaining to some pioneering new level of irony?
You do understand that the "we are the world" join the peace corps or teach for Ameica thing is what "young people" like about Obama?
Jason - you must be either drunk or 63 years old. That Hillary video is about as hip as a Perry Como LP. I woudl support either Hillary or Obama in the general, but that video is as lame as lame can be. Cringe-worthy.
"I woudl support either Hillary or Obama in the general"
Quick meta point. I love how everyone is being sort of forced to admit this as a sign of their sanity at this point.
PS: The video? It beats this:
www.youtube.com/watch
Yeah, it's an important distinction that the Obama campaign did not make the "Yes We Can" song and video, while Hillary's campaign did make this.
But the Hillary video fails for one simple reason: It's not funny. It approaches the level of irony needed to be funny, but pulls back. Actually being funny would require taking some artistic risks, and apparently Hillary doesn't do risk. Ever. Not even to put a decent punchline in a video that will only work if it ends on the funny. This could have been absolutely hilarious and therefore effective, in three or four thematically different ways, depending on what message Hillary was really trying to send.
The problem here is that it has become unfashionable to like the Yes We Can video, despite the fact that it was grassrootsy and extremely popular (among people in their 30's as much as anyone), and fashionable/high-mindedly-counter-convention to LIKE something about or by Hillary, regardless of how phony or inauthentic it might seem to a neutral observer.
Can we drop the mindless contrarian business, please? Maybe Maine isn't Obama country. Oops, he won by 20 points. Maybe Virginia won't go his way. Oops, he's up by 12-18 in every poll. Idea for a future post: maybe Michelle Obama voted for Hillary!
You don't have to say ridiculous things in order to have something to say. Originality just takes a little time.
hey, to each his own. i thought it was a better video than the 'yes we can' one. it even had sort of 'death cab for cutie'-ish music there at the end. i love obama's speeches, but i love them when he gives them, not when will.i.am speaks/sings them.
Ewww, that AFSCME ad is yucky in a Bush-looking-into-Putin's-soul kind of way. Much better is this gem:
Thank you virginiacentrist, so much. I just added that video to my favorites. I saw it several times when it first came out, but it has not lost its power to make me shriek and clap my hands until they hurt. It's a rare example of absolute perfection in this world.
That was the worst "Behind the Music" I have ever seen.
VC - thanks for dragging up that video from the depths of hell just to put everything in perspective again.
hahaha yeah. It's a gem. And I won't rest until the The Plank/Stump folks crown it the worst ad of the political cycle!!!!
I'll back Jason up on this -- it actually had a clever concept, and certainly was no worse that Yes We Can. Although it was somewhat lacking in the Scarlet Johansson department.
VACentrist - Thanks, I actually hadn't seen that AFSCME ad. It was roughly comparable to watching someone take a dump on your face - in slow motion (as an added bonus now I get your response to that "Hillary cried again" post a week or so ago).
Wipes the floor with Obama's atrocity.
Clinton's video is condescending. It's funny, but condescending. I experienced this same line of argument at my precinct caucus. Clinton's supporters had one method of pursuasion: condescension. Clinton's supporters essentially said that only the politically uninformed raise their hands for Obama. People who want a beauty contest support Obama. People who want policy substance and sophisication support Clinton. It didn't work at my caucus and it won't work generally. No one is going to be convinced that their carefully considered political opinions are baseless. It's hard to insult someone into voting for you.
I'll also back up Jason on this one. The "We Are the World" video was like starry-eyed flower-children at a Joni Mitchell concert; this wasn't exactly edgy, but it was amusingly satirical. If I were in their focus group, I would have given it a thumbs up.
By the way, who on this site is actually an 18-24-year-old? I think we should be the only ones who get to vote on whether the video was any good. ;-)
How do you compare something produced by non insiders to be poetic and artistic and something produced by a campaign that is market driven. Big difference in my book.
"By the way, who on this site is actually an 18-24-year-old?"
Just barely, and I thought it was clever. Not convincing, though.
Sorry Jason, I thought this was really, really lame. A lot of commenters at Youtube--partisans, just maybe--thought it was supercool. So you're not alone, exactly. And my tastes do not really have mass appeal, unless we count dead people. I'm guessing the people Clinton is targeting will like this video more than I did. As usual, I think Yglesias has it right: she is the middlebrow candidate.
"By the way, who on this site is actually an 18-24-year-old? I think we should be the only ones who get to vote on whether the video was any good."
I'm 19. See my comments above. You're point stands, though. My writing here basically disqualifies any claim I might make of being the representative member of my cohort.
Rhubarbs: hillarious ad
I took a lot of shit in TalkBack for saying I thought this Hillary video was funny. So I just wanted
As a member of the infamous "youth" I have to say that the Hillary video IS cringeworthy. Now, Obama's is a little corny as well, but it is not as desperate to be "cool" and "hip". If anything, his is too sincere, but hers is trying way too hard. None of my friends would find hers the least bit funny.
Also, Obama's video has will.i.am, John Legend, etc. (hip celebrities) which gives it automatic credibility, regardless of content.