In 1924, the U.S. presidential race between Calvin Coolidge, John W. Davis, and Robert La Follette was the first to navigate around a new, democratizing development: radio. Previously, if you wanted to hear the candidates speak, you had to be there in person, and certainly that couldn’t allow for everyone. While kicking the tires of the novel technology, someone in the ultimately victorious Coolidge campaign recognized what was resonating and stuck a succinct bit of wisdom in a memo for posterity: “Speeches must be short.” The political soundbite was born.
Cut to 100 years later, and the message is the same but the medium different—it’s time for adults to accept that TikTok is more than a video-sharing app that teaches your niece acrobatic dance moves. Snappy and effective political videos couched between baking tips and clumsy zoo animals will take an active role in determining our future.
The 2016 U.S. presidential election was certainly the Facebook election and when the idiotic term “fake news” was popularized. (Why this phrase, as opposed to just “lies,” caught on will forever irk me.) 2020 was the election year made for Twitter, where one could see COVID-19 stats updated in real time, watch livestreams of urban riots, and then hit like on Randy Rainbow’s musical parodies and Sarah Cooper’s
