Symposium

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

I'm going to be talking in public! About Post It Politics! In front of people! And I hope you can join in! I will be taking part in Humans 2.0: the Sixth Annual Honors Humanities Keystone Symposium. You can come see me at Tawes Hall at the University of Maryland at 10:30 AM. I will be speaking about conclusions from my project, and will probably be doing some real deep analysis about my favorite memes. It should be buckets of fun. Hoping to see lots of support for all of the Honors Humanities folks and all of the hard work they've done preparing for this event. 

In the meantime though, why don't I give the run down of some images that have been circulating since the last time I've updated this blog. 

1). First up is the red Human Rights Campaign logo. It hit the web on March 25, after the Supreme Court began hearing cases regarding Same Sex marriage. 

Circulated by HRC to spread their message of marriage and love, millions of pro-gay marriage people changed their profile picture too this for the days following March 25. And of course, as with any viral image, plenty of people (and organizations and celebrities and business) decided to get creative with it. 

(Note: This collage was taken from viralpoliticsblog.wordpress.com, a great new blog by Dr. Joel Penney that gives "an academic take on the political uses of memes, viral videos, and all things social media." I highly suggest you check it out, especially considering Dr. Penney will probably be a little more reliable when it comes to new posts...)

However, this image has also created some interesting dialogue around the effectiveness of this viral campaign. Do Facebook profile pics actually influence anyone politically? Or are they simply a showing of solidarity? Can this solidarity be enough to create influence? How is someone who changes their profile different than someone who attends a rally? Do supreme court justices even have Facebooks?

2. Another striking moment for imagery surrounded the death of Margaret Thatcher on April 8th. The moment that the death of the former PM was announced, the internet seemed to not know how to handle the situation. As some gave sad goodbyes due to the passing of a legendary woman, others gave shouts of joy to the death of a tyrant. Meanwhile, plenty of people simply asked, "Who is Margaret Thatcher, anyway?" All of this was very well chronicled by the Guardian, not to mention accurately predicted by designer/journalist Martin Belam months and months ago. 

I believe the most striking image was this. A good-riddance farewell to the Iron Lady. A vitriolic take on mortality.

And for anyone looking for some answers surrounding Thatcher's death, or at least a different (Londonized) perspective on it, may I suggest this surprisingly deep column written by Russell Brand. "I always felt sorry for her children," he says.

3. And lastly, there was the Boston Marathon bombings. As this story unfolds, I have been unable to tell quite what these images mean. Or what they will mean. So, for the purpose of this blog, I would like to just present some of them, a montage, with hopes that a glimpse of meaning will surface through the emotions.

Dead                              Captured

Lots of feelings. Lots of questions.

Hope to see you at the symposium. Thank you for joining me in this project everyone. 

--Post It Politics out--

Conclusions, Electioneering, and Moving On

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Feel free to play this song as you read. I believe it sets the mood 

We're done! The election is now a thing of the past. As the internet image community (and myself) predicted, Obama has been reelected to another term, carrying 25 states plus DC for 303 electoral votes (give or take Florida. Oh, Florida, you so rascally), carrying 50.4% of the popular vote. Meanwhile, Romney has come away with 24 states, 206 electoral votes, and 48.0% of the popular vote.

Ok, let's get it out of our system. Bring on the memes.

First, this picture of Obama phone banking to turn out the vote has been circulating since late October, but has really taken off since Obama's win. It shows the implication that a facial expression, a snap shot, can have when someone is being photographed 24/7. A fleeting moment becomes a symbol of smug victory

Next you have the ever popular Obama/Rapper association memes. Not only do these this emphasize the hip-hop ideal of success, but it also shows how online imagery associated with Obama identifies him with the African-American population in America (probably for better or for worse, depending on which political analyst you are talking to).

And finally, you have this meme. Brilliantly done, mad props for whoever had the creativity to think of this and put it together. An awesome metaphor for the campaign. Romney's early achievements. His stumble and struggle in the polls. Obama's steady gains leading into the finish. All of the images and trends that we have tracked over the last two months on this blog, turned into a bike race.

I also suggest that you check out the Tumblr whitepeoplemourningromney.tumblr.com. It's a collection of pictures of, you guessed it, white Republicans devastated by Romney's lost/four more years of Obama. It's interesting to note the effect that gathering these images has on their meaning. When one image alone might elicit certain feelings or reactions, putting these images together gives them context, adding a new political significance to them. They become a critique on the implications of race in politics, and even social class. 

In the study of imagery, this effect is called montage. If you want to read a great text explaining it, I would suggest checking out The Rise of the Image, the Fall of the World by journalism and communications scholar Mitchell Stephens. 

"That's all great Kyle," you might by thinking, "but did anything happen here at the University of Maryland on election day regarding your project?" (Or you might not be thinking that at all, but that's all good. We don't judge too hard here at Post It Politics.) Why yes something did! Let me tell you about it!

On election day, a hoard of signs sprung up in front of Stamp Student Union, the polling location for students who live on campus here at Maryland. Take a gander.

So, of course, I went on a posting spree. Random posts, about to be seen by real voters.

Check it out! The first Obama stuff I've seen on campus all year. I've been shocked by that.

This is just a fraction of the things I posted and of the causes I posted on. It felt like there were almost too many to count.

Something interesting did happen as I tried to post on a "Vote for 6" sign, Vote for 6 being the movement by Marylanders for Marriage Equality, to get voters to support Question 6 on the ballot to legalize gay marriage here in Maryland (which did end up passing). As I went to post on the sign (an up post, by the way), I was stopped by a Vote for 6 electioneer.

What is an electioneer? An electioneer is someone who stands outside a polling place, talking to voters as they go in to vote, thereby getting one last chance to influence their decision or change their mind. Certain laws from state to state apply to what there people can and cannot do. On November 6th, they were out in droves here at Maryland.

This older gentleman, talking to students of the behalf of friend of Post It Politics Dan Bongino, is an example of an electioneer. I think he's freaking adorable.

I asked this Vote for 6 guy why I couldn't post on his sign, and he explained that it's private property, and (apparently even if I like the sign) tampering with it is against the law. As he was not really that keen on carrying on a lengthy sign tampering discussion, he told me that if I didn't believe him, I should go talk with the election judge inside. Now, I did have some questions. I want to know how these people, many on whom may not even be students here at Maryland, be able to make the claim to private property when they are putting their sign up on a space that they do not own. Shouldn't I, as a tuition-paying student, be able to put my say in? Are there special laws for signs outside polling locations?
*Side Note: In retrospect, I feel that I also should have made it more clear to the guy that he was more than welcome to take down my Post-it. But again, I don't think he had much patience for me regardless.

So, I did try to ask. However, by this time the line to vote had gotten ridiculous.  I like that though. As reported by the student newspaper here on campus, the Diamondback, more than 2,200 students voted in this years election, way more than the 1,566 that voted in 2008. (I assume they are only counting students that voted on campus. We got a lot of students here at Maryland).

The election judge was therefore quite busy. And when I asked an aide if she could find out for me whether or not the election signs outside were private property or not, she did her best, but in the end was unable to find out one way or the other. This intrigues me. Hopefully in the future I can talk to someone who has been an election judge and they can let me know.

So, did the posts I put up get much reaction? Maybe. Most of the posts that I put up, especially those opposed to liberal signs, were gone when I checked back. Was this from the wind that day, due to the electioneers, or a result of liberal college students? I don't know. There was no resulting activity on twitter (though I did get a retweet by the Stamp's Twitter page when I tweeted at them about the signs outside. Minor victory there.)

However, I do know for a fact that these signs grabbed the attention of some of the student body. How do I know this? From this sign, paid for by MDPetitions.com, that urged people to vote against the three most Democrat issues on the ballot, the Dream Act, new redistricting, and gay marriage. As you can see, someone, armed with a pen, made their opinion to the contrary.

Though we may roll our eyes at lawn signs, and call them a waste of time and money or what have you, people see them. And they do motivate people to political action. Just sometimes not in the way the person who put it up might have wanted.

Thanks for reading everybody. I will have another blog up on Monday. I'm interested in seeing the way things go imagery wise on and off-line as we move past Election Day, and start looking ahead to the Inauguration.

@Post_It_2012