On March 5, ParkRidge47 posted the video Vote Different on YouTube. The next day, xxxgrimREAPERx posted it as 1984and since then, people have been around the URL in emails and IM messages. Then, on Sunday, the San Francisco Chronicle wrote about the video and it crossed over into the traditional mainstream media.

Everyone has to share their comments about how important this video is. It will become, people argue, the iconic video indicating the transition from a broadcast era of politics to a new era of politics. Instead of being a half million dollar advertisement, it is something that anyone could produce. It represents a fundamentally new style of politics.

Well, whenever such grandiose claims come along, someone always needs to present a different view point. Let me take a crack at that. First, using Apple advertisements to communicate a political message online isn’t anything new. Back in 2003, a bunch of grassroots volunteers created the I Switched to Dean online video campaign. People shared the URL, bought the DVD. YouTube wasn’t around at the time, and it didn’t cross over into the traditional mainstream the way Vote Different has, so they haven’t become the icon that people are predicting Vote Different will be.

As to being something that anyone could make, well, I think that might be an overstatement as well. I spend time talking at various conferences encouraging people to start making their own videos. Many people have cellphones that can shoot video. Others have digital cameras that can shoot good video, and others have gotten digital video cameras that can shoot great videos. Yet when I speak at conferences, very few people know how to shoot a video with their cameras and then get it online. Those who do rarely have any idea about how to do more than the most rudimentary video editing, and those who can edit, rarely are well versed in framing a political message. I know very few people that could have pulled off a video like Vote Different.

Will the video encourage others to learn how to shoot video with the devices they already have, learn how to upload, learn how to edit, and learn how to frame a message? I hope so. If that happens, then the video could end up being incredibly important.

When many more people are used to creating and viewing videos online we will see such videos having much more power. Until then, they are unlikely to have profound effects until they cross over into the traditional mainstream media. The Vote Different video had been around for nearly two weeks before the San Francisco Chronicle ran the story and others picked and started talking about how significant it is. The traditional mainstream media still drives much of the story.

Yet perhaps what is most important is whether or not this brings about any fundamentally new style of politics. After all, the advertisement is still all about image. As San Francisco based political consultant Eric Jaye noted in the Chronicle article, it helps the Obama campaign “call Hillary Clinton a pabulum-spewing pseudo-fascist, without having to own it”. It is a brilliant advertisement, memorable, something people will talk about, but it is still the same old attack advertisement that doesn’t address issues or encourage people to take some sort of action or pursue a new approach. It is Coke versus Pepsi politics, or perhaps Mac versus PC. Instead of trying to convince us to follow one superstar or another, we need Linux style politics, where everyone is encouraged to build their own politics.

Yes, the title of the video on YouTube asks us to “Vote Different”. Some of my more cynical friends often say, “Don’t vote, it only encourages them.” Back in 2004, Gov. Dean told Democrats in Boston that if all you do is vote, you get a ‘D’.

Yes, let’s hope that the video does encourage more people to get out, learn media criticism and media creation. Let’s hope that people do vote differently this time around, but more importantly, let’s look for some Linux style, build your own politics that encourages us not only to vote differently but to act differently.

(Cross posted at Greater Democracy)