Hostage

The article that was assigned this week, “The Youtube Election,” shined a light on a particular example of how then-US George Allen was defeated for re-election after someone caught him on video calling someone a “macaca.” Well whatever a macaca is, the video went viral on Youtube, and was a great contribution to the Senator’s defeat in the 2006 race. In one moment, the Senator made one misstep, it happened to be caught on tape, and his career was over.

The article also mentioned how Youtube hurt Senator Joe Lieberman in 2006. Lieberman was a Senator who drew a primary challenge because he was deemed “too close” to the Bush administration. His primary opponent kept using a picture of Lieberman will President Bush in TV commercials and internet ads and was trying to insinuate that because the two were photographed together, they must be in cahoots, so Lieberman lost the democratic primary. The “netroots” grabbed on to this images a sledgehammer to hit Lieberman over the head with. Lieberman would win the general election though as an independent.

These two examples, each complimenting the class reading, show a drastic change in the political, and more broadly, the career ramifications of a single moment (which could be easily taken out of context) going virtual online. With Allen some guy showed up at his rally with this camera and was heckling him from the audience. Allen was caught on tape calling the guy holding the camera a macaca. What even does that mean? But because some made it seem like it was a racial statement, he got burned for it and once it got out online he was finished.

With Lieberman, a photo of President Bush was used to show how close the two were. But in actually, probably every US Senator has a picture with every President, regardless of party. But the photo was taken out of context and cost him the race.
What these two examples are creating is mindsets were people are starting to greatly insulate themselves from anything that they deem might come back to hurt them. They are cautious about writing two controversial of papers in college because they fear they can be uncovered. People are of course cautious of Facebook pictures and how those might give off a certain impression. But all this guarding and protection is starting to take it’s toll on liberty.

People are becoming too concerned with an “online imagine” and we are now all held hostage over the fear of online embarrassment costing us something we want. We may be looking for a job, and we see where Allen and Lieberman lost theirs in similar situations. Invisible audiences include people that make powerful decisions about our futures. We should be mindful of them, but sometimes I feel I am their hostage.