It’s 9 p.m. on Tuesday night, you’re sitting in front of the television ready to relax and watch your weekly dosage of the “Real World,” then unexpectedly through your television comes this message: “Vote, you can actually make a difference.” MTV has started up its “Choose or Lose” campaign, and it seems that this year moreso than ever they are determined to “Rock the Vote.”
Twenty million is the number of “young adults” that MTV aims to bring to the ballot box. Recently MTV has been running an interesting commercial suggesting that if our generation had been “20 million loud,” we would likely have a different president today. Through these commercials MTV imparts on its viewers extreme responsibility and maybe even guilt over our present-day political situation.
But what would it take to be able to mold our generation into a legitimate political powerhouse? Why is that half my friends who seem enlightened and concerned on present day issues and are avid viewers of MTV fail to vote? If anything, the 2000 presidential election proves that one vote does matter.
I am often accused of preaching, of blurting out my unwanted political views in an attempt to convert the apathetic; arguably, I have even lost some friends this way. But to vote one does not need be a political junkie or an arrogant know it all; one merely needs to be concerned.
President Bush has proposed a constitutional amendment to secure that “marriage” is defined as only between a man and a woman. Despite the rising economy unemployment rates are still high. We have the biggest budget deficit in recent history and it is predicted that the end of social security is near. The price of a college education is the highest it has ever been. Socialist, Democrat, Republican, Green Party…whatever you are, your vote will affect me.
This past Tuesday 10:30 p.m. rolled around and there was a “Choose or Lose” special, an interview with presidential candidate Senator John Kerry. MTV doesn’t have Tim Russert, but they do have Gideon Yago. More importantly MTV has people like you and me asking the questions. On their Web site www.mtv.com/chooseorlose/ there are ample arenas for you to give your opinion, why you vote, why you don’t vote and why you should vote.
MTV tries to undertake the seemingly impossible task of trying to make politics “cool.” One viewer on Tuesday night asked Senator Kerry if he was cool in college. “If I were cool, if I told you I was cool, I wouldn’t be cool,” Kerry replied.
So it would seem then, that just because MTV tells you voting is “cool” doesn’t necessarily mean today’s viewers will buy into it.
Despite MTV’s valiant efforts to persuade its viewers to vote and be aware, the dominant dinner conversation at the BCC still seems to be about the “Real World” episode and whether Brad and Cameron will get together. More importantly might be that Senator John Kerry said to MTV that he thought that sexual orientation is a matter of genetics, not choice, and that both gay and straight people should be accorded equal rights under the law, yet he doesn’t support marriage rights for homosexuals.
Come November can MTV change the focus of its viewers to politics? Janet Jackson and Britney Spears are incapable of inducing the revelation that our vote matters; we must realize that today’s politicians directly shape our lives, not our music videos. You choose, or you lose, one person… one vote.
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