Quote:
Originally Posted by ISiddiqui
You realize the Oliver takedown was on Youtube, right? And Trump's Twitter posting is quite prolific (and has got 9mil followers). It's the most immediate and common way he engages with his supporters. Are you just upset because YOU don't get all the 'new fangled' social things?  |
No, it's that I do understand them all too well but also am from middle America and don't have my head up my own ass, so I'm aware that there are an enormous number of voters (I don't have a political science degree but am pretty sure that old people tend to vote at a much higher rate than does the 18-34 demographic that Twitter and everything else like that is desperate for) for whom this stuff simply doesn't matter
I understand Twitter well enough to know that it skews much younger and more African-American than Facebook and cable news - did you know that? That plays into my opinion that no matter how personally entertaining I may find the Trump-skewering meme or thinkpiece du jour, in the scheme of things it is not reaching many undecided voters. That also applies in the opposite direction. Even if I see something I disagree with or think is just flat-out stupid, I know it's either a relatively minor annoyance that doesn't deserve to be mentioned among the biggest problems in America today or an echo of something that was a problem long before social media ever existed.
I mean, 9 million followers. Once you get rid of bots, duplicate accounts, people involved in journalism, and people who just are following him to crack jokes on anything he says, where does that get you? And then to say in an electorate of over a hundred million people that it reflects the average voter, come on. In fact, here's a nice little article I came across that illuminates my current view, which is that when someone throws out something like "surely you must realize Trump has 9 million followers," it indicates they have a desire to be seen as a hip person who knows what the youths are up to on social media without necessarily having a very deep understanding of it:
Inside Donald Trump's Twitter-bot Fan Club