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Aug 25, 2008, 08:12AM

McCain's Failed Facebook Satire

Jason Linkins, Huffington Post

In July the McCain campaign set up a Facebook parody website that was meant to draw attention to Barack Obama's shady political connections. Unfortunately the site drew more attention to an obvious lack of understanding when it comes to Facebook and social networking. Now the Republican National Committee has to issue a press release whenever BarackBook.com has an update, because the social networking tool itself isn't generating enough buzz.

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As most people and baby goats with even a passing understanding of Facebook knows, whenever one of your "Facebook friends" adds a new "friend" of their own, you get an "update" on your "News Feed." This is sort of the whole point of Facebook.

But today, when the minds behind BarackBook added an update of their own, they were confronted by the fact that their feature has only garnered 163 fans, who all hate and despise BarackBook. So, rather than having a dynamic social networking tool for their agitprop that's capable of blasting out oppo to thousands of McCain supporters at one time, they have to resort to using the communications arm of the Republican National Committee to do a blast email "Media Advisory" -- with RNC letterhead and everything -- titled "Friend Update Added to BarackBook," in the hopes that someone out there reports on their new clever addition to their frustrating wreck of a parody.

To say that this whole effort misses the point of Facebook would defame the High Art of Point-Missing.

I wouldn't want you to miss the "substance" of their new BarackBook addition, which features Obama adding "Unnamed Philadelphia Street Organizer" as a friend, all of which leads to a fulsome discussion in which the GOP pretends to be shocked -- just shocked! -- at the tradition of "walking around money" which every campaign employs regardless of party and which you could have read about in any one of Larry Sabato's books from twenty years ago, or from cave paintings.
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  • Litcrittoolkit orange 1.gif?ixlib=rails 2.1

    PumpkinTime

    commented

    Wow, just goes to show you how out of touch John McCain and his campaign are with the average young American. I would never want a president in this day and age who does not know how to use a computer and refers to the famous search engine as "The Google." We're too deep into an age of technology to have someone running our country that can't send an email or copy and paste. Also, the whole BarackBook thing is just plain dumb and pointless. It's condescending to people who actually use Facebook and gives older people who do know how to use computers a bad name. John McCain is not the maverick he once was, and his interests and his party's interests are far from those of the average 18-to-34-year-old in our country. This is the type of story that should be getting much more attention than it is, only because it highlights the GOP's utter stupidity and clumsiness when it comes to campaigning to the younger generation, and how awful and worthless of a candidate John McCain is. January 20th can't come any sooner.

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  • Wilson.jpg?ixlib=rails 2.1

    Timothy

    commented

    McCain was never "the maverick he once was." That was a media creation. Yes, this BarackBook is incredibly stupid, and underscores the amateur nature of one part of his campaign, but there are bigger issues to consider than McCain referring to "The Google."

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