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Barackbook: McCain Continues To Struggle With Internet Traditions
UPDATE: Well, it didn't take long before the lames behind this attempt at parody took down the discussion boards on the BarackBook's functioning Facebook application. It's still posting a scintillating rating of 1.5 stars, though, based on reviews that you can still read here!
Meanwhile, at the BarackBook itself, the feed hasn't been updated since this morning's "Marilyn Katz has updated her profile." COME ON MCCAIN CAMPAIGN! We demand to be entertained!
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In an attempt to appear internet savvy, the Republican National Committee has launched "BarackBook," a terrible parody of Facebook that some dweeb in the McCain campaign probably thinks is just the bee's knees in political humor, but actually only helps to point out how out-of-sorts the candidate is with the web.
I really can only encourage people to go and gawk at this scintillatingly dumb idea. The first item in the feed? "Barack Obama is now friends with Antoin 'Tony' Rezko." OMGZ, TOTAL LOLLERSKATING RINK! "Tony Rezko has updated his profile!" It even simulates Facebook messages that don't actually happen in Facebook, like, "Barack Obama is now friends with William Ayers" followed by "Barack Obama and William Ayers are now friends with Marilyn Katz."
So, hey, it's funny because this is not how Facebook actually works! But it reaches a new level of hilarity once you see the ways in which BarackBook actually does function correctly. TNR's Christopher Orr points out that "BarackBook" is actually tied to a functioning Facebook application, and, as you might expect, it's currently being overrun by Democrats. Topics of discussion include: "Leaders lead, this just sucks," and "Steve Schmidt = the love child of a three-way trist between Lee Atwater, Mark Penn, and Karl Rove."
Another thing I find to be amazingly hilarious is that BarackBook's "satiric" FriendFeed actually comes with an RSS feed! That means you can import all of the McCain campaign's stupid jokes into your RSS reader. Should they manage to come up with any further humor, like the gut-busting "Marilyn Katz has updated her profile," you will be among the first to know.
But beyond the utter, unholy LAMENESS of the effort, one has to wonder why on earth McCain would stir the hornet's nest like this. The Obama campaign has actually been well out in front in using Facebook for their campaign, and counts among its key advisors one Chris Hughes, one of Facebook's founders. There's little doubt that if the Obama campaign wanted to create the category killer of Facebook satire, they could beat McCain's attempt handily. Chances are, however, that they'll just bemusedly wonder why the McCain camp seems to think it has all this time on their hands for hobbies when their poll numbers are hovering just above forty percent.
Anyway, I'm going to go see if John McCain wants to add the Vampires application!
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July 29, 2008 11:56 AM