Here in Canada, it’s beginning to look a lot like election time. And while it’s not yet a done deal, that hasn’t stopped the ads or the renewed discussion of voter apathy. Oddly enough, I don’t think these two things are unrelated, at least not as far as that ever elusive youth vote is concerned.
Now, on most subjects, I’m just your average under-informed blogging type rambling on about things I know nothing about; however, when it comes to the coveted 18-24 age group, I’m pretty much the Encyclopedia Britannica (only I look better on a bookshelf, zing!). Of course, everyone and their uncle seems to have written a thesis about us 18-24’s and media. We’re over-saturated. We’re addicted to social networking. We’re unable to absorb information through traditional mediums. We’re single handedly destroying family values. Also, we kick puppies.
So what do political parties do? They take to Twitter (which has yet to really catch on with 18-24 year olds who aren’t Lindsay Lohan). They make facebook groups (which you have to first join before you can be indoctrinated via status updates). And they release ridiculous advertisements that fail to do anything but show us how they’re all exactly the same and have no idea at all what 18-24’s are like.
Take for example this conservative ad, aimed directly at us:
First I chuckled. But then, after thinking a moment about how none of my professors would care one way or another, I thought about what it actually says. And then I yawned. Seriously? Conservatives attempting to convince us that they’re the polar opposite of those softy, privileged liberal academics again. Then there’s the Liberal’s latest ad featuring Ignatieff in the Shire with wardrobe courtesy of Mark’s Work Warehouse. And why is Jack Layton sitting at my Kitchen Table? Wait. Who’s the Most Averagest Canadian again?
Every politician is so busy trying to convince us that he is just like Regular Everyday Canadians that, well he seems a lot like a Regular Everyday Canadian. Yawn. The whole being down with the people thing works for Obama for the same reason it works for Jesus: the man is God charismatic in a way that means that no matter how normal he acts, he will never actually be normal. Yes, Obama got in touch with those regular average folk. But they elected him because, he was like them only better.
No Canadian politician can pull that off.
So, you want to convince the 18-24’s to vote for you? Why not try making advertisements that aren’t targeted for the people you’ve already convinced?
That’s the way advertising is supposed to work. Trust me, I watch Mad Men. Ads are basically base methods of persuasion that (usually) lack reason and logic. Now, I’m not idealistic enough to expect politicians to start going around (gasp!) talking about the issues or anything but I’d rather like them to stop showing me that they’re all the same, and start telling me how they’re different. A little less compare, a little more contrast, that’s all I ask.
See, as an 18-24, I have practically infinite methods of entertainment at my fingertips. I am constantly in a state of being simultaneously amused and bored. It’s not so much that I have a short attention span so much as I multitask through life. So, if, like my mother, you take about fourteen years to tell a story which may or may not have a point, I’m going to tune you out. If, however, you feel like actually saying something, I might deign to listen.
I know empty rhetoric is a politicians best friend, but while most 18-24’s may not be able to tell you why it’s empty, they can still tell you that it’s pointless. And that’s the thing: no medium is going to make a difference if the message is the same old bunk.
18-24’s don’t need excessive displays of technological savvy. What we need is a new method of persuasion. Like, say, tell us about your leader, instead of badmouthing the other leaders. Don’t make us dig through piles of worthless rhetoric, because we simply won’t.
There’s a basic method of definition called genus-differentia. Basically, to define something, you take the bigger group to which it belongs and add the characteristic that makes it different than the other things in that big group and voila! a definition. A politician and a political party that can define themselves by this method may be able to reach us lazy and apathetic youth. Why?
Because they could tell us, quickly and simply what is different about them. Voting is choosing, and in order to choose between things, we need to be able to tell them apart. The problem isn’t that 18-24’s are too lazy or stupid to vote, the problem is that we’re too smart to waste our time choosing between four politicians who claim to be exactly the same as the Average Canadian, which, if you’re following my syllogism here, makes them exactly the same as each other.
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