Even the 'Fun' Campaign Spots Are Negative This Year

More

Move over Obama Girl: 2008's worshipful indie videos have given way disappointed and satirical takes.

We've come a long way since "Yes We Can" and "Crush on Obama." After the most negative presidential primary contest in memory we're getting a highly negative general election campaign, and that's spilled over to the "pro-am" community, the professional amateurs and outside groups who since the rise of the online media campaign have sought to boost their favored candidates -- or critique those they don't love -- through independent creative efforts.

Above from Ryan Newbrough and Justin Monticello of Just New Productions in Los Angles is an excruciating ballad of disappointment in President Obama (excruciating because of the look on the singer's face, not the content) done in the video style of Gotye's 2011 break-up song "Somebody That I Used To Know." You really have to watch the Gotye video to properly appreciate this riff on it; Just New replicates the vulnerable opening shot and the body painting in Gotye's video, but using Shepard Fairey's Hope icon of Obama instead of an abstract pattern.

"We could have been so much more than just friends with healthcare benefits," the parodists tag their song.

Also premiering this week in negative independent videos is The Agenda Project Action Fund's parody of Danish-Norwegian group Aqua's 1997 "Barbie Girl" song and video. It's pretty well done, or at least has pretty decent musical production values.

I think we'd all forgotten about that particular moment in dance pop.

Jump to comments

Garance Franke-Ruta is a senior editor covering national politics at The Atlantic. More

She was previously national web politics editor at The Washington Post, and has also worked at The American Prospect, The Washington City Paper, The New Republic and National Journal magazines. At The Prospect she won the 2007 Hillman Prize awarded to its group blog, "Tapped."

In 2006, she was fellow at the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School in Cambridge, Mass., and in 2007, a summer fellow with The Iowa Independent, based in Des Moines, Iowa.

Garance has lectured at the Kennedy School, the Harvard Art Museums, Williams College, Wellesley College, Brandeis and Georgetown Universities, and taught in Georgetown's Master of Professional Studies in Journalism program. She also has made numerous appearances on national and regional television and radio programs.

Born in the South of France, Garance grew up in San Cristobal de las Casas in Chiapas, Mexico; New York City, New York; and Santa Fe, New Mexico. She has resided in Washington, D.C., since graduating from Harvard in 1997.

Get Today's Top Stories in Your Inbox (preview)

Video

More Video
Here's What Happens When You Light a Fire in Space


Elsewhere on the web

Join the Discussion

After you comment, click Post. If you’re not already logged in you will be asked to log in or register. blog comments powered by Disqus

Video

Miami: The Next Big Start-Up City?

How the city became a center for innovation

Video

Video

A Brief History of Romantic Comedies

From The Atlantic's Chris Orr

Video

Life in 'the New Arctic'

A moving portrait of a fading landscape

Video

Video

The Rise of New York City

A fascinating look at Manhattan in the 1940s

Video

What Is Methane Hydrate?

"Flaming ice" is a vast natural energy source

Video

NASA's Time-Lapse of the Sun

Now with epic dubstep music

Video

Shaken Not Tuned: Cocktail Experiments

Can a tuning fork improve a cocktail?

Video

Video

Is He Cheating? A 1950s Guide

'That little blonde secretary from the office?’

Video

New Yorkers: Vintage Vacuum-Tube Amps

Risking electric shock to restore old amplifiers

Video

The DIY Piano-Bicycle

Everybody needs a hobby

Video

What Does It Take to Make Real Craft Gin?

Tour the Green Hat Gin distillery

Video

What Straights Can Learn From Same-Sex Couples

New insight from decades of research

Video

The End of the Mall Rat

A tribute to that pillar of teen culture

Video

The Wonderful World of Capitalism

An adorable 1950s cartoon

Video

New Yorkers: Miss New York USA

An unconventional beauty queen.

Writers

Up
Down

More in Politics

In Focus

Early Monsoon Rains Flood Northern India

Just In