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A POWER MAC USER
Since I posted about the political ad mash-up that composites Hilary Clinton into Ridley Scott’s celebrated “1984” Apple Macintosh ad on March 5, the YouTube clip has gone from hundreds of views to hundreds of thousands of views, becoming a media sensation in the process. Keith Olberman has devoted a couple of spots to it, and various pundits have attempted to figure out the identity of the creator.
Today, on the Huffington Post, the author of the work reveals himself. Here’s Arianna on the whole affair,”, and here’s Phil de Vellis, aka ParkRidge47, the originator of the spot.
An excerpt from his piece:
I made the “Vote Different” ad because I wanted to express my feelings about the Democratic primary, and because I wanted to show that an individual citizen can affect the process. There are thousands of other people who could have made this ad, and I guarantee that more ads like it–by people of all political persuasions–will follow.
This shows that the future of American politics rests in the hands of ordinary citizens. The campaigns had no idea who made it–not the Obama campaign, not the Clinton campaign, nor any other campaign. I made the ad on a Sunday afternoon in my apartment using my personal equipment (a Mac and some software), uploaded it to YouTube, and sent links around to blogs.
The specific point of the ad was that Obama represents a new kind of politics, and that Senator Clinton’s “conversation” is disingenuous. And the underlying point was that the old political machine no longer holds all the power.
De Vellis worked at Blue State Digital, an internet company that provides technology services to campaigns (including Obama’s), but has since resigned so as not to “harm them” by association to this clip.
Far from being a stunt or internet prank, I think this clip is the first of what will be many in which imaginative voters will use media tools to reshape the images of their favorite candidates as well as those, as we have seen here, of their opponents.
