Video Game Characters to Get Out the Vote

Thanks to Gamasutra for the heads up about a political music video starring video game characters that is to start airing on MTV today. The newest "Choose or Lose" video will feature characters from popular video games such as The Sims and BloodRayne and is intended to encourage youth voters to show up at the polls. The video will air for the first time on MTV today on TRL, and afterwards can be seen on the MTV Choose or Lose site. This follows closely on the heels of MTV2's Video Mods series, which uses video game footage for the visuals in music videos.

Comments

Bad Idea

[Doesn't_Comment_Code]

I'm all for high voter turnout. But I also think people should be informed before rushing to the ballot box.

I don't really care for a lot of these recent "get out the vote" efforts. A lot of people who don't vote don't have a clue about who is running. Many can't name the president, and certainly not their congressman. Do they know where each candidate stands on even one issue? Probably not. They do know who just broke up in Hollywood though, and the last person to be kicked off Survivor.

If these people flock to the polls, they'll simply dilute the votes of people like you and me, who really, honestly, and deeply care about voting. They will probably vote for whoever their friends are voting for. They might randomly pick somebody off the ballot. They'll probably just pick whoever they recognize or like more from the 10 seconds they saw them on TV. Is this a good idea? Not really.

Convince people to care, then convince them to vote. That's what I say.

Some people never learned the importance of voting

[TrentL]

I used to be of the mindset that if you need to be encouraged to vote, you shouldn't be voting. But I've since changed my mind.

No one is born realizing the importance of voting. Somewhere, you are socialized, and you come to believe that voting is important. Maybe it was due to school, or family, or friends. But not everyone has that experience. Some people come from families were there was no pattern of voting. Or their schools sucked and never talked about it.

So that's why I do support these "unconventional" methods. And I think you should, too. When a large segment of the population feels disconnected from their government, the entire society becomes unstable.

Re:Here's the thing I don't get about MTV.

[robochan]

About a million years ago, back in 1992, MTV was actually partially reasponible for getting the 1st President Bush out of office.

Way back then, the USA had been involved a war in the Middle East. The folks fighting it weren't quite aware of actually who they were fighting for. At that time, a young politician from Arkansas came to light, and MTV went all out - personal interviews, polls to their audience, even a personal audience with said candidate, with questions from the audience. Sure not all the questions were relevant (boxers or briefs?), but the candidate was brought directly to the audience by a fairly major force in their lives - in terms they could relate to. A young candidate being brought to a young voting constituency in a way that had never been seen before. That candidate's opposition basically shrugged that audience off... and paid the price.

MTV was pretty big back then, but back then they also actually showed videos too. MTV news actually consisted of something more than just record release party announcements. Kurt Loder actually seemed like a real, authoritative, news anchor - or at least sincere one - not some snotty kid in glasses and a t-shirt with a microphone.

The Rock The Vote campaign they (co)sponsored back then was amazingly effective. It brought a huge voting population onto the scene, which would normally be apathetic, and tried to educate them - at least to some extent, even if it was one-sided. These days it's half-hearted at best. Recycled slogans with little or nothing to back them up.

I can almost understand why the younger folks are more apathetic these days. I remember a time when I really thought people with important titles, important positions, and who made important decisions were people to be respected and listened to. Now it seems more and more evident the world is a global high school for super rich men with unlimited resources to fling poo at each other, and the only thing we little bitty humans can do is say...
"Damn. It smells like shit in here."