by Chris Bodenner NYU prof. Clay Shirky discusses the underappreciated impact of "Dear Mr. Obama," which he calls "the single most affecting video of the election":
I am an anti-Iraq-war Democrat, and it nevertheless brought tears to my eyes (and I don't cry easy -- will.i.am's Yes We Can left me fairly cold.) ... It was seen 13 million times in 3 months, which topped Obama Girl in absolute views, and I've got a Crush...on Obama was up a year and a half. ... The video was
largely circulated via homophilous
forwarding along conservative channels. Despite the incredible
viewership, I'm betting that the ratio of BoingBoing readers who have
seen Obama Girl to those who've seen Dear Mr. Obama is at least 10:1. (When my students presented it to ~100 NYU students on election eve, something like 3 of them had seen it.) ... Dear Mr. Obama was a trifecta. For the base, a muscular but
polite attack on the very issue that brought Obama into the spotlight.
For the undecided, the emotional charge is much likelier to sway them
than argumentation. And for the Dems -- nothing. The video might as
well not have existed for all it was seen in Democratic circles. Since
the video's sole speaker can't be criticized without making the
criticizer look churlish at best, almost no Dems forwarded it, linked
to it, talked about it. ... Dear Mr. Obama was music to Republican ears while being inert in Democratic hands; expect it to be a template for 2010.
