2008: MyFirst Campaign

Okay, so 2008 marks the first, interesting Presidential election of my lifetime…and I’ll be 24 in 3 days. I grew up hearing my dad , who doesn’t really understand the link, talk about the TERRIBLE Reagan administration…and then the TERRIBLE Bush administration. Well, guess what? I couldn’t relate AT ALL to talk about such terrible times…unless we talk about games. Because, like my professor, Garrett Graff, says in his new book,

 

An entire generation, myself included, had now grown up on computers. We started on now ancient-seeming Apple IIEs, playing “The Oregon Trail” and “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?” in elementary school and then signed up for our first e-mail addresses in middle or high school.

Oregon Trail!! Carmen Sandiego!! Now we’re talking. And who doesn’t have an e-mail address by the time they’re in high school?

 

So, even though my headphones are still jammed in my ears as much as possible, every now and then Obama’s team politely interrupts, sending me text-messages, like, “Listen to Barack at today’s NPR debate in Iowa starting at 2:00pm ET. The forum will be broadcast on NPR…& webcast live at www.npr.org.”

 

Hell yeah, good look Obama! I didn’t have time to listen to the broadcast because of work, but at least I’m informed and I can look forward to staying up-to-date in the future. Honestly, I haven’t been interested in staying up-to-date in anything, besides clothes and music…until now. Watching tv hasn’t kept my serious attention since before Dill was on Rugrats. It looks like my intuition may have been on point during the brief moments I tried to engage in the tv era, because Garrett says in his new book,

 

The internet opened the first chance for people to debate and discuss in the television age.

 

I’m all about the internet! What good is a tv when I have a computer with access to invisible wires that reach unlimited information??

 

What an intriguing feeling it is to have been wired all my life, through computers and other digital technology—resisting depressing topics like Reagan and shit—and then to look up and find a class, Media, Politics and the Digital World—a class about me—and a black man and white woman dukin’ it out for the President’s seat. Finally, here are some professionals who truly value the web and social networking. These are some people I can listen to.

 

I look forward to reading Garrett’s book in depth, The First Campaign: Globalization, the Web, and the Race for the White House, (especially after learning that he loves words, maybe as much as I do). I also look forward to the drama of the 2008 Presidential campaigns, as technology busts its way to the forefront. This is better than tv…TURN IT UP! (And if you’re not in the wires, where the hell are you? Huh? I CAN’T HEAR YOU…Can you hear me now? Guess not, click.)