A change in the rhetoric and public condemnation are par for the course for media scrutiny of insensitivity, but this video is just funny after that slip up he had.  As much as politics is a media centered endeavor I don’t think that Herman Cain speaking out against a rock at a farm leased by Perry is going to endear him to black voters.

President Obama’s current rhetoric towards black voters may not either.  But this conversation on the polarized racial dialectic and it’s impact on the next big election coming turns into a bad white vs. black joke way too fast (white folks do this-womp … womp and black folks, oh they do this-WOMP!  WOMP!  WOMP!)

I can’t remember if Chris Rock or Dave Chapelle (no, he didn’t actually fly to Mars with Bibble-this happened to Kat Williams too. he didn’t fly to mars either.) expounded on the joke (black people vs. n-words-Chris Rock just remembered).  I think this explains how hard it is to talk to “black people,” when it comes to going directly after votes or even support for legislation.  We are not all n-words and we all didn’t get scholarships to Harvard but we do all have something to say.  You can’t lump us all in together without missing someone.  

The President enacting legislation that can be seen as giving more power to the people seems to be his way of reaching out to his base and seperating his agenda from “Corporate America,” the faceless villain that got us into this mess.  To get out of it and so it doesn’t happen again people have to be informed and ready to make decisions or at least able to articulate what they want beyond “greedy people paying for their mistakes.”

Cornell West is a whole different breed altogether.  That man makes me want to get 2 Ph.D’s just to catch up to however many he has.  Him taking the time to go down to the #occupywallstreet movement just gives it more credence.  A movement that started with middle class suburban kids sleeping in Zuccotti Park just proves that even if we’re all aiming to be Kanye at least we’ll have a chance at being a working Joe Schmoe with kids that will stir the pot after we couldn’t care less.  I don’t think that they are going anywhere.  Where do they have to go anyways?  I think sleeping on a park bench until everything resets is a better story to tell than couch surfing until it fixes itself.

This video is entertaining dot com (I just wanted to use that rediculous phrase in it’s proper context [in reference to things that try to be cool and contemporary, while failing at doing both for one’s self-the phrase that Toni Braxton’s sister constantly says not the video]).

But beyond that it is a good use of video elements that are becoming staples of professionally made viral attempts: a sense of humor about itself (the monkey mask=the monkey see monkey do maturing viral nature of video [expansion of the jabbawockeez idea that it is about the motion of the body not the face-will make sense later]) the use of a bed room setting with a shot from a webcam feel; the use of the dance group poreotics-last years ABDC champs (only guessing on that one, from the playful nievate, group tutting, and robotic isos-but probably); and the general sentiment of the song itself.  

And I say ‘attempt,’ because (and here comes the obligatory rant about socio-memetic implication) I hesitate to call any videos made now-a-days, by professionals to get hits for music artists, politic agendas or online sensations; viral videos.  The nomenclature doesn’t fit, not just because of the impetus behind it, but because the culture that exists in online communities is changing.

I personally don’t interact with video content that is made by professionals and say to myself,

“Self, other people must see this and share in the shock and awe I have experienced.”

But I have before and in the same thought realized that my friends have probably already seen it talked about on TV or by professional aggregates that crawl the internet looking for these sorts of things.  Point of fact: (a little over an hour ago)

mashable Pete Cashmore  Click Around & Buy Things in Devo’s Interactive Video [PREMIERE] - http://on.mash.to/hKv118

In that same vein the, president’s recent live video streams on whitehouse.gov, today even, and coming to Facebook’s new LiveStream channel tomorrow; show that even if he looses the presidency in 2012 he is setting the strategies for online engagement: speed (just came out a few hours ago- a little non-sequeter but still enhances the point of viral success), accuracy, interactiveness, a sense of humor and an understanding of the landscape.

I’m not trying to make a habit of reposting every video on whitehouse.gov untill 2012 d-day (rhetorically speaking).  But a point that I mentioned earlier about archiving videos came up, in the live stream that followed this posting on their site, today; about Latin America and the impact that it will have on American jobs.

(egotistical side: I’m not really an ‘expert’ on anything, in my opinion, especially not on how to fix dinged up and broken market models; however, {you knew it was coming} I feel like ‘social (fill in the blank-media, search, jobs, international parallel peripherals)’ will help usher new and recent graduates into the middle class that is supposedly supposed to save the economy yet again.)

The main point is that archiving live streams, originally produced content, and any other relevant video material on a website seeking to establish and indoctrinate it’s brand is redundancy-just in case the video stream is interrupted or unreliable.  Again, for anyone who thinks this stuff is as simple or obvious as I know it is, some things have to be put down and spelled out.  Human error and out dated tech will always bite you in the ass when you put yourself and your skills to high on a pedestal.

I mean look at how Newt Gingrich is testing the waters as to whether or not he should run in 2012—> Newt.org

It’s not a bad idea, but who did he hire to drive traffic and monitor metrics?  Is this the only portion to the strategy accept for the Facebook page?  Should there be anything more to it?

Video is kind of my thing.  Finding it’s place in the social world is the area I like to focus on; while data mining, measuring metrics and figuring out repeatable ROI stuff for people who just don’t get “it” but know that “it” is important.  

Obama and/or his staff get “it.”  They get how to use video and I’m not giving away any secrets that aren’t obvious.

The just of Obama speech if you didn’t watch the live stream or click the big thumbnail at the top of this post went like this:

[hood Obama-paraphrase]

Gaddafi must be out of his rabbit-a** mind if he thinks him and his son can try me by threating to jack up oil prices.

We will go upside your head if you keep killing people.

… pretty much.

I don’t really want to get into how he dealt with the mid-east instability different than the Bush administrations and the reasons behind it-that’s a job for pundits, aggregates, and other super opinionated people that think their opinion makes them psychic or precognitive.

Basically (when it comes to vidoe):

Hire people that know what they are doing.  Don’t yoke unrealistic expectations on the shoulders of a one-man-band.  Record as much as you can.  Live stream the most timely stuff.  Keep archives of everything and at least give people the option to embed your stuff if they can’t download it, because you’ll only encourage ingenuitive people such as myself to figure out ways to steal it and mess it up worse than you were imagining: just because you wanted to control the content you put on one of the most open forms of communication available after it was put in the ether.