…the Republican National Convention apparently decided to create a parody Facebook website, mocking Obama’s connections with allegedly shady characters. They didn’t do very well – for the better half of tonight, the site was down. Nota bene to the RNC – pay your server bills!
And, a second note to the RNC: your target audience, Republicans and moderates, won’t get the joke, and the ones that do get the joke won’t be convinced. Youth, especially youth on Facebook (our friend Matt once hypothesized that Facebook and MySpace membership broke along class lines, with young professionals making up the majority of Facebook) overwhelmingly support the Democrats, and especially Barack Obama. Facebook-friendly Republicans are few and far between. The RNC might as well talk to a brick wall, and the numbers bear this conclusion out.
On a quick survey of Facebook groups, the group “I bet I can find 1,000,000 people who dislike George Bush!” was safely over one million, and “Barack Obama (One Million Strong for Barack)” was well on its way to its goal (at 600,000), while “John McCain for President” lagged at 30,000, and “Stop Barack Obama (One Million Strong Against Barack)” remained stalled at 1/10th of its target membership. The RNC is cracking a joke to an audience that’s bound to do nothing but sneer, while the rest of America looks on in confusion.
There are interesting trends in denialist groups on Facebook, too. The 9/11 Truth Movement is by far the biggest, with over 15,800 members. The biggest “creation science” group is 1,300 (compare with the biggest pro-evolution group at over 6,400 and Ames’ group at over 1,800). Down at the fringes, the biggest Holocaust denialist site seems to be about 500 members; the biggest HIV denialist site, 131.
Posted by James F | July 29, 2008, 1:00 pmI thought the “I am Expelled” group was pretty big – I thought I saw 6k at one point. But woooo the protest group is awesomely big :-).
Posted by Ames | July 29, 2008, 2:31 pmi have to jet, but i wanted to point out that there IS demographic analysis showing facebook and myspace users DO split along class and (highly correlated) educational-attainment lines … one of my g-friends knows more about this … i’ll try to get some links … ciao!
Posted by didionsmommy | July 29, 2008, 2:56 pmHere’s the article I read a year ago that examined the class divisions of Myspace and Facebook. Quite interesting stuff, though Facebook has seen significant changes since the article’s publishing in 2007.
http://www.danah.org/papers/essays/ClassDivisions.html
As for Barackbook, I maintain that it’s a brilliant idea. It funnels propaganda in an easily recognized and easily digested form. It’s familiar to younger voters, who granted are unlikely to turn out even if they are convinced about McCain.
It’s unlikely, but I can see a stunt like this getting some play in the traditional media, as is already the case in the New York Times. If it does, well, it’s *really* hard to answer. Unlike a swiftboat TV ad, Obama can’t stand up and refute everything. He can’t even denounce the site, lest he drive traffic to it.
Ironically, in this way it has much more in common with anti-Obama email campaigns than Obama’s Web2.0 machinery.
Posted by MattF | July 29, 2008, 3:25 pmThe sad thing is that there’s so much wasted potential there. Everything beyond that first page is merely a list of news articles with summaries and links – there’s no entertainment value in that, and the only people who are going to read it are people who already buy into it anyway. If the whole thing were along the lines of the ‘About me’ on the first page, it’d be something like a right-wing Colbert Report-esque parody, and I’d probably spend some time clicking through it for yuks. By taking it too seriously (and by simply copy-pasting talking points onto the pages), they’re kneecapping a parody’s ability to appeal to the crowd that doesn’t eagerly await the next RNC mass email.
Posted by Gotchaye | July 29, 2008, 4:33 pmIt’s just like the Half Hour News Hour: a wasted chance at comedy :-).
Matt makes a good point, though, but I think the “Obama knows crazy people” talking point is wearing a little thin. I don’t know how much juice there is left in the Rezko thing.
Posted by Ames | July 29, 2008, 7:14 pmWhat’s the average age of a facebook user, anyway? 21? Quoth Don Draper: “Young people don’t know anything.”
The class split between facebook and myspace doesn’t surprise me, given that facebook was originally available only at elite private universities. Then, of course, it sold out.
Posted by Collin | July 30, 2008, 10:39 amI just looked at the site and thought it was funny.
You don’t really have to get what facebook is to be able to take something away from it. The joke isn’t on Zuckerberg; it’s on Obama.
“Barack is hoping to settle on an Iraq policy before November” is funny whether you know it’s a Status Update or not. It’s funnier if you do get it – it’s like a family movie. Some jokes are for the parents and some for the kids, but everybody follows what’s happening.
I don’t understand why Ames talks about this like only people on the facebook can see it or understand it.
The shady people angle is interesting. I have no idea who most of these guys are. And really, Ames, can you say that angle is “tired” when you’ve written five posts on John Hagee?
Posted by Collin | July 30, 2008, 11:00 am