#becka todd

[helluvamystery]

Y'know, normal dad behavior

[writingwithcolor]

Hello! Thank you so much for this amazing blog. I have a question that's not about my own writing, but something I've thought about after recently coming across a video (by Lite Writes on YouTube) that claimed the character Diane Nguyen from BoJack Horseman "fetishized" her Vietnamese heritage.

For context, she's an American who is detached from her heritage, and in an episode she travels to Vietnam to try and connect with her roots and herself after a divorce. She points out that she feels like she's wearing a costume when she puts on traditional dress and is alienated when she can't speak the language and can only fake a connection with another American, though she chooses not to speak English to him and pretends to be born and raised in Vietnam to separate herself from her identity back home. Obviously that part is a little morally questionable as all the characters in the show are, though this episode was written with a Vietnamese consultant and a Latina writer, both apparently with their own similar stories of finding cultural identity.

My question is: can a character "fetishize" their own heritage? Is is questionable for one to assume that this story is "fetishization"? I myself certainly don't know as a white American, and would be very interested in hearing some more perspectives on this topic. Thank you all again for your work!

Can you fetishize your own heritage? Bojack horseman Vietnamese character as example

Vietnamese avid fan of Bojack Horseman here. I connected very deeply with The Dog Days Are Over. Though I wasn’t very fond of seeing the cultural disconnect narrative pop up in BH, I personally thought that the way in which the writers went about illustrating that episode was respectful and accurate to diasporic life.

~Em

Not Vietnamese but I have been thinking about that as someone that arrived a year late to watching Bojack Horseman. Fetish, according to Merriam-Webster, is " a strong and unusual need or desire for something". By the logic of the video, Diane has a strong desire to get away from the person that she is in Los Angeles. That means not wanting to be a failed activist, content creator, and Mr. Peanutbutter's latest ex-wife. 

It is possible to fetishize your own culture if you are only taking the superficial trappings of it, without the meaning underneath. The fetish would mean you have a desire to impress your own image without understanding the nuances, and it can result in someone's feelings getting hurt. Diane isn't doing that, in the sense that she becomes obsessed with trying to reclaim an identity that she was never allowed to have as a kid. 

Instead, Diane tries to see if she can get back in touch with her roots. She does not, instead admitting that for all intents and purposes, she is a tourist in a foreign country. Diane gets fried chicken from the same corporate chain from which she helped Todd rescue Becka, and has a fling with a guy that assumes that she is a local. 

The episode is more about the fact that Diane has no easy solution to the divorce that she initiated. It was the right thing to do, because she and Mr. Peanutbutter were plain incompatible together. As she mentions, in a travel movie the divorcee goes to another country, finds herself while partaking in local culture, and finds a second love. You see this all the time in movies about the female midlife crisis. They find their happy ending, and in some cases get to flex their privilege to ensure that some locals also benefit. 

Diane doesn't get any of that peace. As she writes for Girl Croosh, the real reason that she came to Vietnam was realizing that her ex had moved on, and it truly sunk in that their decades-long relationship was over. She wanted to find a place that would make her feel less alone. That ended up not working out; wearing traditional Vietnamese clothes made her feel like a person playing a part, she doesn't speak the local language fluently. Instead, Diane felt more alone when returning back to the States. 

The later episodes touched on the truth that Diane needed: a bit of distance from Los Angeles, with new people in her life who would care about her. Too much proximity to her former clients and ex-husband means that she makes quite a few questionable decisions, from incorporating a tape implicating BoJack in a heinous act into the script of an episode on which they are behind, and trying to stay friendly with Mr. Peanutbutter means that they have spontaneous sex, something that wrecks the dog's relationship with his newest girlfriend Pickles. Her first positive change is traveling the country with her cameraman Guy, and looking for new stories to tell. 

In Diane's case, she is well-aware that what she is doing is wrong in the sense that she lies about who she is to a rebound flame, and the guy in question calls her out when he learns that she can speak English fluently. She also calls him out for thinking that he was taking advantage of a naive local and trying to lie about his status on a film set. As Diane puts it, she's from LA and has worked in film before; she knows what his actual position is, and it is not the same level as someone directing the movie or producing it. 

So yes you can fetishize your own culture when you lack an element of love and respect, only pulling what you want from it and showing a blind worship which reflects your own feelings rather than someone else's. No, Diane did not do this. Far from being happy, she made herself just a little less funky than when she left Los Angeles. She also, as far as we saw, didn’t hurt any locals with her actions. 

- Mod Jaya

[eclipse-rpg]

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LUNA ㅡ ( she/her, 23, pst/gmt-8 ) Barbara Gordon, Harley Quinn, Diana Prince, Koriand’r, Natasha Romanoff, Sharon Carter, Gwen Stacy, Jean Grey

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SOLAR ㅡ ( she/her, 24, est/gmt-5 ) Kate Bishop, Kara Danvers, Tony Stark

✧ MEMBERS

ASTATINE ㅡ ( she/her, 18, gmt+3 ) Harvey Dent, Edward Nygma AXEL ㅡ ( he/him, 24, gmt-5 ) Gabriel Summers BECKA ㅡ ( she/her, 20, gmt-6 ) Thor Odinson

BELLA ㅡ ( she/her, 23, gmt ) Emma Frost, Felicia Hardy, Selina Kyle

BIRB ㅡ ( they/them, 22, gmt+2 ) Helmut Zemo, Shuri

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CHELSEA ㅡ ( she/her, 27, gmt+1 ) Scott Lang, Loki Laufeyson

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JAZ  ㅡ (she/they/he, 20, gmt+11) Billy Kaplan, Arno Stark

JULIET ㅡ ( she/her, 23, gmt-6 ) Dinah Lance, Stephanie Brown KIWI ㅡ ( they/them, 29, gmt-5 ) Oswald Cobblepot MARS ㅡ ( he/they, 21, gmt-5 ) Tim Drake

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REMY ㅡ ( he/they, 18, est/gmt-5 ) Sam Wilson

[incorrect-titans-quotes]

Tag game!

I was tagged by @lady-stirling​ thank youuu ♥

Nicknames: Cami or Camm 

Zodiac: Aquarius

Height: like 1.60 i think??

Followers: 607! thanks for the follow everyone :D

Amount of sleep I got last night: like 6hs or so

Lucky number: i really like 7

Dream job: Translator (what i’m doing rn) and writer

What you’re wearing: Joggings and a hoodie

Favorite song: ehhh depends on the band haha, but i think right now is Old friends by Grayscale

Aesthetic: this is hard haha, but maybe umm dark clothes, scented candles, books, rainy days, clear night skies, cold weather aand idk what else lmao.

Favorite authors: i don’t think i have a favourite, but imma put Becka Fitizpratrick because i LOVE the Hush Hush series.

Favorite animal: Dogs and meerkats.

Random: my classmates and i participated in the Jetix Kids Cup, it was so bizare cause we’ve never played football in school so we went and we sucked lmaoo.

Tagging: @riseofnightwing  @respect-women-or-die @redhoodiejt @teamcaptainamerica @jason-todd-is-my-one-desire and anyone else who wants to do it!

[helenarlett-rex]

Goosebumps Review #7

Moving on with reading all the Goosebumps I never got the chance to read as a kid…

(Spoilers)

The Haunted Car

Goosebumps Series 2000 #21

The Haunted Car was originally published as a part of the Goosebumps Series 2000 but was later republished under the normal Goosebumps title when the movie came out. The movie is actually why I decided to read this book.

I had seen the Haunted Car in the movie, and knew what it was I was looking at, but I didn’t actually know anything about it. So I decided to read the book and see what she could do when she wasn’t just driving Slappy around. And I have to say… I am very disappointed…

The story is about Mitchell Moinian, a 12 year old boy who is obsessed with cars to an extent no one who isn’t old enough to drive should ever be. To the point of being completely ridiculous and unbelievable. It’s like R.L. Stine was sitting around one day looking at his old book, Go Eat Worms, and asked himself, “How can I make a main character more ridiculous than this one?” Then he said, “Oh I know! I’ll just make the same character over again but make his obsession something that doesn’t fit his age!”

Mitchell also has a younger brother named Todd who watches too much of The X-Files and thinks there are ghosts around every corner, a short tempered father who tries to repair everything himself even though he is the worst handy man alive, and a mom who has no defining characteristics at all. After being in a car crash in the first chapter and totaling the family car, they are in the market for a new car, which Mitchell takes it upon himself to find seeing as car related things make up the bulk of his vocabulary. And naturally to a 12 year old boy a news paper ad for a “luxury sports car” with no model or manufacturer name but says “mint condition”, “low mileage”, and “name your own price” sounds great. Why wouldn’t it sound like the perfect car to a 12 year old? 12 year olds don’t think about things like, oh I don’t know… this sounds like a stolen car? But apparently people don’t sell stolen cars in this universe because even when he drags his dad out to see this thing his dad doesn’t think there is anything fishy about it either. Even when the the owner practically begs them to take it, gives it to them for a price low enough to make your head spin, and tells them the only condition is they have to drive it off of his property today.

Naturally it’s not a stolen car. It’s a haunted car. That’s why he’s so desperate to get rid of it. But even if you didn’t believe in ghosts, no normal person would take this thing with how fishy the owner was being with it. So I guess he’s lucky the protagonists in Goosebumps books tend to be dumber than a wet log.

As I said, the car is haunted… Haunted by a girl who must have taken lessons on how to be evil from Roy Trenneman off of The IT Crowd.

I’m not joking either. It’s like this car really wants to be evil but it doesn’t know how so it just sits around all the time saying, “I’m evil… I’m so evil.” If I were to place myself in the position of this kid I wouldn’t be scared at all. Not because I’m some kind of tough badass or anything, but because the car wouldn’t have given me a reason to be scared.

Car: “I’m evil… I’m so evil.”

Me: “Yeah, you keep saying that… If you’re not going to kill me already would you turn the AC down? At best you are… mildly annoying…”

This car’s idea of being “so evil” is luring the kid inside, locking the doors so he can’t get out, and then… turning the AC on… Or taking him for a midnight joyride where she drives really fast but always chickens out before actually doing anything dangerous and then safely delivers him back home when she is done with him. It’s comical how bad this car is at being evil. For a while I was telling myself, this car doesn’t want to kill him… she wants to date him. I mean she’s taking him out and showing him a good time, and he is clearly more into cars than any normal human being. Maybe she thinks he’d be up for it.

Well I was half right. She was actually looking for a companion to keep her company. And she did pick him to be that companion. She just wanted to do it by killing him so his spirit would be trapped in the car with her forever. The reason she didn’t just kill him right away is because she is one really, really incompetent ghost. So incompetent that when she finally decided to off this kid she accidentally saves his life instead. Really…

She is out driving around with the kid trapped inside. He says he wants to go home so she says, fine, I’ll kill you by crashing into your house. And when she gets there and finds that the kid’s house is on fire (because his dad should not be allowed  to do electrical work) she skids to a stop just outside. Because killing him by crashing into a flaming house would just be too epic for anything this ghost can handle… Then Mitchell points out, hey, you just saved my life. If you hadn’t taken me I would have been in that house when it caught on fire and I would have died. This means the ghost did something good which means that she has to “die for real” now and can no longer possess the car, because… ghost rules? I don’t know…

Either way, everyone is safe, the ghost is gone, the car is just a normal car now, and we don’t even get a twist ending. Well we kind of get a twist, but it’s only a twist if you are Mitchell’s parents… who try to start the car the next morning and can’t, then upon inspection find that the car has no battery. It’s a twist for them because they didn’t believe Mitchell when he tried to tell them the car was haunted. But it’s not a twist for the reader because you already knew the car was haunted. It’s like after reading this entire book about a haunted car, R.L. Stine suddenly jumps out and shouts, “Here’s the twist! The car was haunted!”

Well no duh!

Despite how stupid and disappointing that is, it’s not even my biggest complaint about this book. My biggest complaint is that it takes forever before this haunted car book actually gets around to doing any car haunting. It’s like nothing happens until you reach the second half of of the book. The first half of the book, other than the crash of the first car, and the purchase of the haunted one, is just Mitchell going on about how much he loves cars and his dad trying to fix things but electrocuting himself instead. Even as pathetic as Becka (that’s the Haunted Car’s name by the way) was, she was at least entertaining, and strangely endearing, in just how bad she was at being bad. I would much rather have had more of that than half a book of nothing happening.

But at the very least I now know why Becka never got a chance to actually do anything in the Goosebumps movie. She’s just too incompetent to actually hurt anyone.

[the-firebird69]

Watch "RoboCop (11/11) Movie CLIP - Dick, You're Fired! (1987) HD" on YouTube

And todd kills him and he goes on to other movies and dies but several movies actually trying to get here to kidnap our son and they're being outlawed and they're shrinking rapidly, and they're seeking any tech and special and yes of course they're ruining it completely and their boobs and they talk smack to them the whole time when they're getting killed and when in Gross situations

Thor Freya

And f*** you too Becca and stop talking to him that way

Hera

I do hear it if someone else's and I respect that if I'm going to be single and I hear that too my own clan will come after me to do several things

Becka

[graphicpolicy]

Hope Nicholson Talks Gothic Tales of Haunted Love

Hope Nicholson Talks Gothic Tales of Haunted Love. Back it on #Kickstarter! #comics

The summer might be almost half over, but Hope Nicholson and her imprint Bedside Press are just getting started on a Kickstarter for their new anthology Gothic Tales of Haunted Love, stories that will chill the blood even on the warmest night.   Image Credits: “Gothic Tales of Haunted Love” cover art by Leslie Doyle, logo by Dylan Todd (click on link to see anthology credits and details) Or in…

[tl-the-celestiamod]

Goosebumps Review #7

Moving on with reading all the Goosebumps I never got the chance to read as a kid…

(Spoilers)

The Haunted Car

Goosebumps Series 2000 #21

The Haunted Car was originally published as a part of the Goosebumps Series 2000 but was later republished under the normal Goosebumps title when the movie came out. The movie is actually why I decided to read this book.

I had seen the Haunted Car in the movie, and knew what it was I was looking at, but I didn’t actually know anything about it. So I decided to read the book and see what she could do when she wasn’t just driving Slappy around. And I have to say... I am very disappointed...

The story is about Mitchell Moinian, a 12 year old boy who is obsessed with cars to an extent no one who isn’t old enough to drive should ever be. To the point of being completely ridiculous and unbelievable. It’s like R.L. Stine was sitting around one day looking at his old book, Go Eat Worms, and asked himself, “How can I make a main character more ridiculous than this one?” Then he said, “Oh I know! I’ll just make the same character over again but make his obsession something that doesn’t fit his age!”

Mitchell also has a younger brother named Todd who watches too much of The X-Files and thinks there are ghosts around every corner, a short tempered father who tries to repair everything himself even though he is the worst handy man alive, and a mom who has no defining characteristics at all. After being in a car crash in the first chapter and totaling the family car, they are in the market for a new car, which Mitchell takes it upon himself to find seeing as car related things make up the bulk of his vocabulary. And naturally to a 12 year old boy a news paper ad for a “luxury sports car” with no model or manufacturer name but says “mint condition”, “low mileage”, and “name your own price” sounds great. Why wouldn’t it sound like the perfect car to a 12 year old? 12 year olds don’t think about things like, oh I don’t know... this sounds like a stolen car? But apparently people don’t sell stolen cars in this universe because even when he drags his dad out to see this thing his dad doesn’t think there is anything fishy about it either. Even when the the owner practically begs them to take it, gives it to them for a price low enough to make your head spin, and tells them the only condition is they have to drive it off of his property today.

Naturally it’s not a stolen car. It’s a haunted car. That’s why he’s so desperate to get rid of it. But even if you didn’t believe in ghosts, no normal person would take this thing with how fishy the owner was being with it. So I guess he’s lucky the protagonists in Goosebumps books tend to be dumber than a wet log.

As I said, the car is haunted... Haunted by a girl who must have taken lessons on how to be evil from Roy Trenneman off of The IT Crowd.

I’m not joking either. It’s like this car really wants to be evil but it doesn’t know how so it just sits around all the time saying, “I’m evil... I’m so evil.” If I were to place myself in the position of this kid I wouldn’t be scared at all. Not because I’m some kind of tough badass or anything, but because the car wouldn’t have given me a reason to be scared.

Car: “I’m evil... I’m so evil.”

Me: “Yeah, you keep saying that... If you’re not going to kill me already would you turn the AC down? At best you are... mildly annoying...”

This car’s idea of being “so evil” is luring the kid inside, locking the doors so he can’t get out, and then... turning the AC on... Or taking him for a midnight joyride where she drives really fast but always chickens out before actually doing anything dangerous and then safely delivers him back home when she is done with him. It’s comical how bad this car is at being evil. For a while I was telling myself, this car doesn’t want to kill him... she wants to date him. I mean she’s taking him out and showing him a good time, and he is clearly more into cars than any normal human being. Maybe she thinks he’d be up for it.

Well I was half right. She was actually looking for a companion to keep her company. And she did pick him to be that companion. She just wanted to do it by killing him so his spirit would be trapped in the car with her forever. The reason she didn’t just kill him right away is because she is one really, really incompetent ghost. So incompetent that when she finally decided to off this kid she accidentally saves his life instead. Really...

She is out driving around with the kid trapped inside. He says he wants to go home so she says, fine, I’ll kill you by crashing into your house. And when she gets there and finds that the kid’s house is on fire (because his dad should not be allowed  to do electrical work) she skids to a stop just outside. Because killing him by crashing into a flaming house would just be too epic for anything this ghost can handle... Then Mitchell points out, hey, you just saved my life. If you hadn’t taken me I would have been in that house when it caught on fire and I would have died. This means the ghost did something good which means that she has to “die for real” now and can no longer possess the car, because... ghost rules? I don’t know...

Either way, everyone is safe, the ghost is gone, the car is just a normal car now, and we don’t even get a twist ending. Well we kind of get a twist, but it’s only a twist if you are Mitchell’s parents... who try to start the car the next morning and can’t, then upon inspection find that the car has no battery. It’s a twist for them because they didn’t believe Mitchell when he tried to tell them the car was haunted. But it’s not a twist for the reader because you already knew the car was haunted. It’s like after reading this entire book about a haunted car, R.L. Stine suddenly jumps out and shouts, “Here’s the twist! The car was haunted!”

Well no duh!

Despite how stupid and disappointing that is, it’s not even my biggest complaint about this book. My biggest complaint is that it takes forever before this haunted car book actually gets around to doing any car haunting. It’s like nothing happens until you reach the second half of of the book. The first half of the book, other than the crash of the first car, and the purchase of the haunted one, is just Mitchell going on about how much he loves cars and his dad trying to fix things but electrocuting himself instead. Even as pathetic as Becka (that’s the Haunted Car’s name by the way) was, she was at least entertaining, and strangely endearing, in just how bad she was at being bad. I would much rather have had more of that than half a book of nothing happening.

But at the very least I now know why Becka never got a chance to actually do anything in the Goosebumps movie. She’s just too incompetent to actually hurt anyone.

[trendingnewsb]

General election 2017: What caused Labour’s youth vote surge? – BBC News

Image copyright Getty Images

A boosted youth vote is believed to have contributed to Labour’s shock election result, but what made young people turn out to vote?

In 2015, voter turnout among 18- to 24-year-olds was estimated to be 43%, compared with a 66.1% turnout overall. This year, YouGov puts the youth turnout at 58%.

Polling traditionally shows that a majority of young people vote Labour. This year, the proportion has jumped to 63% for 18-29-year-olds, according to YouGov.

So how did this change happen?

Social adverts

Sam Jeffers, co-founder of Who Targets Me, which monitored the use of social media adverts by the political parties during the general election, said it seemed clear that Labour defeated the Conservatives in the social media battle.

Labour’s adverts had consistently been shared more widely by social media users, he said.

Part of this appears to be down to the difference in tone of the adverts.

While the Conservatives had almost entirely focused their adverts on the strength of Prime Minister Theresa May and the weakness of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, Labour’s social media adverts had been more positive, seeking to emphasise that the party was building a social movement, he said.

And this had been combined with the repeated use of adverts with practical messages designed to increase youth voter turnout by giving instructions on how to register to vote and where to find local polling stations.

Image copyright Labour

Image caption Many of Labour’s adverts had practical messages on things such as finding local polling stations

Adverts also appeared to have been released on specific days on the basis that their message was likely to cut through for only a limited amount of time, Mr Jeffers said.

For example, Labour had invested heavily on adverts attacking the Tories’ so-called “dementia tax” on social care costs, days before the 8 June election.

The aim of this appeared to be to suppress the older, potentially Conservative, vote or get them to switch to Labour at the last minute, Mr Jeffers said.

Labour also focused its attention on more of the UK, targeting 464 constituencies in the final two days of the election campaign. The Tories targeted 205.

Was it Facebook wot swung it?

Viral videos

While the Labour Party paid for targeted adverts on social media, Momentum – the group that was set up to support Mr Corbyn’s leadership bid and now campaigns for Labour – had a different social media strategy.

Rather than pay for advertising, it instead sought to create content it hoped social media users would share voluntarily.

The group created videos – many of them parodies – it hoped would become viral.

These included Daddy, why do you hate me? – a mock political broadcast telling people to vote for Theresa May “because your children deserve worse” – which Momentum says has been viewed more than 7.6 million times across social media platforms.

Image copyright Getty Images

Image caption Many of Momentum’s videos show Jeremy Corbyn embracing his supporters

Its Facebook and Twitter pages feature a mixture of content, from posts mocking Theresa May’s record to videos of Mr Corbyn hugging some of his supporters.

Joe Todd, from Momentum, said the group had felt its strategy was working when it had realised many of the people sharing its content were not typical supporters of Mr Corbyn.

Increasingly, users liking its Facebook page had been people who also liked the pages of TV programmes not known for their political audiences, such as Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway and Match of the Day, he said.

“We were breaking out of the leftie bubble,” Mr Todd said.

Mobilising campaigners

Using message services to reach the young – and in some cases mobilising them into an army of potential canvassers – had been important in reaching the youth vote, Mr Todd said.

Momentum says it reached some 400,000 people through the messaging platform WhatsApp, which data shows is used most by 18-to 29-year-olds, in the UK.

The group also set up mynearestmarginal.com – a website that enables activists to pool together, and often lift share, to canvass in marginal seats.

Momentum says the website was used by about 100,000 people – more than four times as many as its 24,000 membership.

This meant young people with no experience of canvassing could team up with those with previous election experience for targeted canvassing.

“If you have a young person telling another young person, ‘You should get out and vote because this election is important’, it’s more convincing,” Mr Todd said.

Manifesto

There was also an unashamed pitch for the youth vote at the heart of Labour’s manifesto For the Many, Not the Few – and that was the eye-catching promise of scrapping tuition fees for university students and the pledge to reintroduce their maintenance grants.

Image copyright PA

Further policies pitched with the young in mind included the ending of zero-hour contracts and unpaid internships, a rise in the minimum wage, and a pledge to build more than one million homes.

Of course, Labour wasn’t the only party that targeted young people and it’s hard to quantify the effect of the manifesto in getting the young out to vote, but Mr Todd felt it was among the most significant factors.

“It conjured up a sense of hope,” he said.

Protest movement

The Labour campaign also featured large rallies that accompanied Jeremy Corbyn’s speeches around the country.

Mr Corbyn had been a long-standing supporter of the protest movement, and the veteran anti-war campaigner was well placed to appeal to a growing number of young people who had become engaged in politics through these movements, according to Sam Fairbairn, national secretary of the People’s Assembly protest group.

Although the People’s Assembly does not endorse individual parties or candidates, Mr Fairbairn said the group – and its numerous local affiliates and sister organisations – had encouraged members to join Mr Corbyn’s campaign rallies.

“It’s no accident Jeremy has been part of these movements since he’s been in politics. This is how many young people have got into politics in the last 10 years,” Mr Fairbairn said.

“What we saw was the result of the work all these movements have done.”

Image copyright PA

Image caption Young people have increasingly taken part in political protests

A string of endorsements from anti-establishment celebrities and musicians, including from the world of grime – a genre of music that blends garage and jungle and has a Jamaican influence – also, arguably, further bolstered Mr Corbyn’s youth credentials.

Mr Corbyn also took part in interviews with outlets – such as rock magazines NME and Kerrang, and football YouTube channel Copa90 – outside of the political mainstream that were more likely to reach younger audiences.

Becka Hudson, from the #Grime4Corbyn campaign, told the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire programme Mr Corbyn had “offered young people a programme they can believe in and a better future”.

‘Victory realistic’

The question is what happens next with that youth support.

Is there the danger the young will be discouraged by the election result and be less likely to turn out at the next election, whenever that may be?

Mr Todd thinks the opposite is the case.

“For most people this project was something they believed in, but it seemed like it might not be possible. Now the prospect of victory is really realistic,” he said.

Read more: http://ift.tt/2rmsZ3n

from Viral News HQ http://ift.tt/2s7P88w via Viral News HQ

[mavwrekmarketing]

Image copyright Getty Images

A boosted youth vote is believed to have contributed to Labour’s shock election result, but what made young people turn out to vote?

In 2015, voter turnout among 18- to 24-year-olds was estimated to be 43%, compared with a 66.1% turnout overall. This year, YouGov puts the youth turnout at 58%.

Polling traditionally shows that a majority of young people vote Labour. This year, the proportion has jumped to 63% for 18-29-year-olds, according to YouGov.

So how did this change happen?

Social adverts

Sam Jeffers, co-founder of Who Targets Me, which monitored the use of social media adverts by the political parties during the general election, said it seemed clear that Labour defeated the Conservatives in the social media battle.

Labour’s adverts had consistently been shared more widely by social media users, he said.

Part of this appears to be down to the difference in tone of the adverts.

While the Conservatives had almost entirely focused their adverts on the strength of Prime Minister Theresa May and the weakness of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, Labour’s social media adverts had been more positive, seeking to emphasise that the party was building a social movement, he said.

And this had been combined with the repeated use of adverts with practical messages designed to increase youth voter turnout by giving instructions on how to register to vote and where to find local polling stations.

Image copyright Labour

Image caption Many of Labour’s adverts had practical messages on things such as finding local polling stations

Adverts also appeared to have been released on specific days on the basis that their message was likely to cut through for only a limited amount of time, Mr Jeffers said.

For example, Labour had invested heavily on adverts attacking the Tories’ so-called “dementia tax” on social care costs, days before the 8 June election.

The aim of this appeared to be to suppress the older, potentially Conservative, vote or get them to switch to Labour at the last minute, Mr Jeffers said.

Labour also focused its attention on more of the UK, targeting 464 constituencies in the final two days of the election campaign. The Tories targeted 205.

Was it Facebook wot swung it?

Viral videos

While the Labour Party paid for targeted adverts on social media, Momentum – the group that was set up to support Mr Corbyn’s leadership bid and now campaigns for Labour – had a different social media strategy.

Rather than pay for advertising, it instead sought to create content it hoped social media users would share voluntarily.

The group created videos – many of them parodies – it hoped would become viral.

These included Daddy, why do you hate me? – a mock political broadcast telling people to vote for Theresa May “because your children deserve worse” – which Momentum says has been viewed more than 7.6 million times across social media platforms.

Image copyright Getty Images

Image caption Many of Momentum’s videos show Jeremy Corbyn embracing his supporters

Its Facebook and Twitter pages feature a mixture of content, from posts mocking Theresa May’s record to videos of Mr Corbyn hugging some of his supporters.

Joe Todd, from Momentum, said the group had felt its strategy was working when it had realised many of the people sharing its content were not typical supporters of Mr Corbyn.

Increasingly, users liking its Facebook page had been people who also liked the pages of TV programmes not known for their political audiences, such as Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway and Match of the Day, he said.

“We were breaking out of the leftie bubble,” Mr Todd said.

Mobilising campaigners

Using message services to reach the young – and in some cases mobilising them into an army of potential canvassers – had been important in reaching the youth vote, Mr Todd said.

Momentum says it reached some 400,000 people through the messaging platform WhatsApp, which data shows is used most by 18-to 29-year-olds, in the UK.

The group also set up mynearestmarginal.com – a website that enables activists to pool together, and often lift share, to canvass in marginal seats.

Momentum says the website was used by about 100,000 people – more than four times as many as its 24,000 membership.

This meant young people with no experience of canvassing could team up with those with previous election experience for targeted canvassing.

“If you have a young person telling another young person, ‘You should get out and vote because this election is important’, it’s more convincing,” Mr Todd said.

Manifesto

There was also an unashamed pitch for the youth vote at the heart of Labour’s manifesto For the Many, Not the Few – and that was the eye-catching promise of scrapping tuition fees for university students and the pledge to reintroduce their maintenance grants.

Image copyright PA

Further policies pitched with the young in mind included the ending of zero-hour contracts and unpaid internships, a rise in the minimum wage, and a pledge to build more than one million homes.

Of course, Labour wasn’t the only party that targeted young people and it’s hard to quantify the effect of the manifesto in getting the young out to vote, but Mr Todd felt it was among the most significant factors.

“It conjured up a sense of hope,” he said.

Protest movement

The Labour campaign also featured large rallies that accompanied Jeremy Corbyn’s speeches around the country.

Mr Corbyn had been a long-standing supporter of the protest movement, and the veteran anti-war campaigner was well placed to appeal to a growing number of young people who had become engaged in politics through these movements, according to Sam Fairbairn, national secretary of the People’s Assembly protest group.

Although the People’s Assembly does not endorse individual parties or candidates, Mr Fairbairn said the group – and its numerous local affiliates and sister organisations – had encouraged members to join Mr Corbyn’s campaign rallies.

“It’s no accident Jeremy has been part of these movements since he’s been in politics. This is how many young people have got into politics in the last 10 years,” Mr Fairbairn said.

“What we saw was the result of the work all these movements have done.”

Image copyright PA

Image caption Young people have increasingly taken part in political protests

A string of endorsements from anti-establishment celebrities and musicians, including from the world of grime – a genre of music that blends garage and jungle and has a Jamaican influence – also, arguably, further bolstered Mr Corbyn’s youth credentials.

Mr Corbyn also took part in interviews with outlets – such as rock magazines NME and Kerrang, and football YouTube channel Copa90 – outside of the political mainstream that were more likely to reach younger audiences.

Becka Hudson, from the #Grime4Corbyn campaign, told the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire programme Mr Corbyn had “offered young people a programme they can believe in and a better future”.

‘Victory realistic’

The question is what happens next with that youth support.

Is there the danger the young will be discouraged by the election result and be less likely to turn out at the next election, whenever that may be?

Mr Todd thinks the opposite is the case.

“For most people this project was something they believed in, but it seemed like it might not be possible. Now the prospect of victory is really realistic,” he said.

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[digitaldeckle]

Happy (early) birthday, Beth!!!

You honestly mean the world to me and in token of my appreciation, I give you this mediocre drawing. Here's to this year being even better than the last!

[helluvamystery]

Some old sketches of Becka and Jac that I forgot about!

[helluvamystery]

i heard they were turning music off of a bunch of tiktoks so i finally got around to downloading a bunch of my speedpaints. anyway another picture of becka be upon ye, this time she's wearing a tshirt with her own wanted poster on it

[helluvamystery]

Today is April Fools, which means it's ~Becka and Jac's birthday~!

They're perfect and I have no notes.

[helluvamystery]

ok im gonna be real i went to go draw fanart of something thats actually popular but i just looked up and i drew the twins again

[helluvamystery]

Becka and Jac's favorite game is to act like they're obviously identical twins. They have not dropped this bit in over a decade.