Hey young people! Are you tired of hearing old people spout off about how we don't vote?
Well let's shut the mofos up. We have a weapon. It's called Facebook. They're called notes. Let's use them.
Practically all college students are on Facebook. And, thanks to that horrible new feature called Newsfeed, everyone sees every Note that their friends post. So if you publish a Note today, all of your friends will see it between now and tomorrow. And remember, these are your FRIENDS, so you know how they think, and how they'll react to what you write, so you can tailor your message. Tell them how to vote, in YOUR voice, in OUR generation's community.
We're not just dealing with PC soundbytes and talking points. We're talking about your chance to make a
direct and personal appeal to your friends. I wrote a partial voter guide for California. Here's some of it, titled "How I'm Voting":
Vote tomorrow, or I'll fucking kill you.
Just kidding! LOLZ!!
Here's how I'm voting tomorrow. This could be a voter guide for the anti-Repuglican, races listed in order of most important to least important. And I'm still undecided on a few.
1) YES ON 89. Campaign Finance Reform for CA. Fights corruption by taking big money out of campaigns...lobbyists/corporates/unions become less influential, individual citizens gain power. Politicians no longer (have to) focus on pandering to cash. More campaigning, less fundraising. They have to rely on public financing and building broad support at the grassroots level.
snip
3) NO ON 85. Because Mexican coathangers are NOT good for a 16 year-old girl's uterus. Repugs need to back the fuck off and stop putting shit like this on the ballot. Absolutely fucking unacceptable.
4) YES ON 86. Make cancer sticks more expensive. Sounds good to me.
Etc, etc. It's easier than a Comm class. And we can win young votes this way, votes from people who might otherwise stay home, because most politicians don't speak our generation's language, but College Kossacks are damn good interpreters. We can remind our lazy friends to get to the polls. We can demoralize young Repugs into skipping it this time. We can encourage our Dem friends to work harder and talk louder tomorrow, and arm them with good anti-Repug arguments and 18-24yo targeted soundbytes. We can talk our liberal cynic friends out of wasting votes on __ Green Party candidate.
If enough of us do this, we can generate peer pressure.
Yay peer pressure!!
Above all, we're encouraging engagement, and showing our peers that yes, young people DO give a Fk about politics, and yes, we CAN make a difference.
So let's do it. Facebook Notes: The only better 18-24yo GOTV tool would be Nancy Pelosi offering us all free beer.