Final Paper

As social media has evolved over the years, people always find new ways to utilize it. Whether it be to help with their own popularity, or to try and make an active change in the world. Though, it is expected that all these uses are going to be utilized because humans are different, and so social media will be different to match the specific person’s interests. Since the 2016 election when Donald Trump used social media as a campaign tool to help him win the election. Before 2016, politicians didn’t have a huge influence on social media, and no politicians were huge figures on the platforms. Most of the influencers were random people who the rest of the population found interesting. Though that all changed in 2016. Say what you want about Trump, but his strategy of using social media to spread his influence caught on like wildfire. Before Trump, no one took to social media to reach out to all of us about their ideas or what they want to do with the country. Then everyone started to see posts about Donald Trump, and the various pictures and photos of him at rallies. It’s not like he had an absurd number of rallies, it was just that word got around on social media because he was communicating to us through it. Another politician has stepped forward and shown consumers a new way for a politician to connect with the mass population. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a politician who has gained a mass following on Instagram with 3.3M followers. She utilized one of Instagram’s newest features, which allows users to post stories to their profiles for people to see. When Cortez got elected into congress, she posted her entire experience on video, detailing the steps that she goes through as she is being sworn into congress. Personally speaking, I had zero knowledge of the process of getting sworn into congress, but in a short amount of time I had been given the grand tour. One of the things that people enjoy seeing on their feeds is something that gives them knowledge. Cortez did that by pulling the curtains back on something usually the common person doesn’t see in their lifetime. She has provided a transparency of sorts for users to look through and learn new things. In the past, the government hasn’t been the best about telling the general public of their actions, but Cortez has given us a sense of being in the loop, which is why so many people follow her account. Compared to another member of congress Tulsi Gabbard who is the representative for Hawaii, a veteran, and a respected politician, Gabbard’s numbers pale in comparison to Ocasio-Cortez’s. Based off of merit, Gabbard should be the politician that people follow and pay attention to, yet the content on her page doesn’t grab people. Ocasio-Cortez’s videos Congress Camp 1 and 2 closely resemble walkthrough videos that can be found on YouTube. Just out of curiosity, I compared the two, and found several similarities. The walkthrough video I used was a video by the youtuber PewDiePie. He was playing the game Alien: Isolation. There are surprising correlations between the two videos and could play a part in why the videos are so popular.

Prior to the 2016 election, Social Media played a slightly passive role when it came to politics and elections. Donald Trump was really one of the first to use Social Media to campaign himself while saving money and having a much larger online reach. Now that it has been shown how powerful Social Media can be, different ways of using it for politics are popping up everywhere. A politician at the forefront of Social Media campaigning is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She is currently sitting at 3.3 million followers on Instagram. One of the highlights of her page is her using Instagram’s relatively new feature, Instagram Stories. Essentially, it’s a polished and more functional Snapchat. These stories are titled ‘Congress Camp’ and there are two parts to them. The stories follow her through the journey of getting settled into congress. Everything from meetings, to orientations, she showed people something they had never seen before. Her tactics closely resemble those of walkthrough videos that are popular on YouTube and could be a reason why she has gained so much traction. This is important to look at because I think we need to know more about how politicians can use platforms to gain traction and eyes in the political community. I compared her feed to Tulsi Gabbard’s who is a representative for Hawaii in Congress, Ocasio-Cortez dwarfs her in number of followers. Gabbard is a war vet, and has fought bravely for our country, yet do you see anything about her in the news or anything of the sort? Followers on Social Media is extremely important in our day in age, because the more Followers, the more eyes on you and everything you do. We all know that the election has been more of a popularity contest than one truly based on merit. I believe there is a need to look deeper into this, and really explain how something as simple as video’s titled ‘Congress Camp’ could help Ocasio-Cortez gain so many eyes. For looking at this I decided to watch a game walkthrough video of Alien: Isolation Part 1. The video was made by the YouTuber PewDiePie, who is a very famous YouTuber for those who don’t know. Upon first Watching Congress Camp, I realized that she had her face on screen most of the time and had little bits of information for the viewer to read while watching the short clip. The interesting thing was, it felt like we were following someone through an entirely new experience and enjoying learning something new and watching someone go through it. Many of these things are the same reason why so many people tune in to Video-Game Walkthroughs when they can just play the game themselves. Though I am sure there are a percentage of people who watch those videos because they are unsure of the game or cannot afford it. Much like there are many people in the population who don’t have a particular political party, who could be swayed to support her on the account of her videos. She has taken the role of the host that takes us through a certain journey, and whenever a group goes through an experience together, there is a sense of a quiet respect shared.

Pairing up Congress Camp to a video-game walkthrough of Alien: Isolation is a great way to see the parallels that lies between the two videos. In choosing who to compare Ocasio-Cortez’s Instagram to, I chose Tulsi Gabbard. The reasoning being that Gabbard is a woman, war vet, and is currently serving on congress herself. I wanted to take someone who is the same gender, and has more accolades, and see what the rift was that did not allow the same follower success to happen to Gabbard. One of the major differences that can be seen is Ocasio-Cortez is more personable in her feed, really giving viewers a sense of connecting and getting to know her. Although Gabbard does have a few personal posts on her Instagram feed, most of it is her stance on things, and politics in general. While there is nothing wrong with stating what you believe in and stand for, as Social Media is evolving, you must be able to be more dynamic than that. Tulsi Gabbard is an amazing woman who risked her life for our country, yet she doesn’t have a gigantic following like Ocasio-Cortez. I believe Gabbard’s account is the one to compare with Ocasio-Cortez’s because it shows that large followings aren’t just based on policies and service. It has grown more dynamic than that, and Ocasio-Cortez is one of the early ones on the train. The game has changed for Politicians, and ones who are being more personable with their audiences get the strongest support. Social Media is becoming a place for politicians to be honest with everyone and show that they are just as human as the rest of us. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that politicians are just people trying to make a difference. Ocasio-Cortez has proven that she is trying to make a difference for the people, and it has translated into her getting a lot of support from the communities that believe in what she stands for. For a long time, we have been disconnected and lied to by Politicians. They wouldn’t answer our cries, just state their political position and say they are fighting for what is right. Never updating us on any of their attempts. It was always a definite yes or no after many months of radio silence as they fought in the house. The general public has lost interest in politicians like that, because we have been lied to several times before. The average person is now used to being briefed and updated on everything going on because Trump has no problem putting what is going on in his life on twitter. For a time, he made his daily schedule public, so people could follow what he was doing that particular day. Social media is forcing politicians to be more transparent, and I see that as being a good thing. There is plenty of conversation going on that really helps in pushing us forward. I truly believe that Ocasio-Cortez’s walkthrough like methods is truly the way that politicians are going to utilize Social Media in the future. Hopefully it will become the new norm to keep the masses updated, I believe it helps with communication in general between a government and it’s people.

For this project, I wanted to take something that was relatively new, that way I can connect myself to the current form of politics in social media and try to understand it. Since Ocasio-Cortez is such a new figure in the political world, it is fitting that she is paving a brand-new road on how to gain popularity and garner attention in the political circles. Since walkthrough videos on YouTube are so popular and Cortez’s videos blew up, I think the influence of the walkthrough videos helped shape her videos into something a lot of people latched on to. Walkthrough videos had been around long before these tactics have been replicated on a larger scale, so it’s interesting to see their effects on consumers.

            As I begin to look at all of the data I have, I begin to notice some pretty cool similarities between a game walkthrough video, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s ‘Congress Camp’ 1 and 2. Instead of using a video from TheRadBrad, I noticed it would be hard to compare since he doesn’t have a face camera in his walkthroughs, just audio. I switched to PewDiePie, and he is playing Alien Isolation. One of the first things I noticed was the engagement with their audiences. Ocasio-Cortez does a very good job of acknowledging the audience watching her video and talking to them on a person level. Another similarity is the ability to joke around and act like yourself, not like your title. Once again, Ocasio-Cortez has several moments where she shares personal posts and seems to be transparent with her audience. She even includes some of her music of the day! The differences begin to show up when we look at how the information is conveyed. With PewDiePie, since he is playing the game, he is experiencing everything with the audience, which does line up to the premise of Ocasio-Cortez’s videos. Though Ocasio-Cortez has more freedom to share multiple points of information since she can pair text with her visual communication. These two examples are even similar to them being in separate parts. A videogame walk-through is something that people usually watch for the experience. Some could watch because they enjoy the personality, others may watch for the information, some even watch to see people’s reactions to things. The internet is always evolving and sometimes you have people that jump on and create their own way of doing things, that blows anything we’ve had before out of the water. I also believe it’s a product of having to deal with the shadiness of politicians of the past, and really take a step to be more transparent with the masses. As time goes on we will only continue to get people in the government that all have similar ideas and hopefully we could actually get something moving. I think Ocasio-Cortez’s Instagram stories are doing a very good job of providing several things that attract people to videos. If you pair that with her subject, which so happens to be our government, she has eyes for all sorts of different reasons.

The other part of my data was to look at the feed of John Boehner, but then I realized he hasn’t posted since 2015. I decided to look at the feed of Tulsi Gabbard. She does a very good job of utilizing all of Instagram’s resources. Yet, she is sitting at 89.9K followers to Ocasio-Cortez’s 3.2 million. I in no way want to judge anyone on their number of followers, I am just looking at this to see what differences there are, that could explain such a gap. Tulsi Gabbard has taken to posting Instagram’s new video watching format. Unlike Ocasio-Cortez, Gabbard’s Instagram feed contains a few of her topics, but it just seems to be lacking that intimate feel. To me, it just feels like a business Instagram account used to get across a message. That’s not to say that Gabbard isn’t personal at all on her account, but it is filled with professionally taken photos of her on stage, talking to a group. They just feel like the typical politicians pictures, and people are slowly moving away from that. I don’t believe it’s the person, I believe it is the posts that drive people away from Gabbard’s Instagram account. Ocasio-Cortez’s feels a little more personal to me, like I am getting to know someone in the process. That really helps in feeling a sense of trust with the person that is gifting you this new knowledge. I think it is very interesting that there are so many similarities between a game walkthrough and Congress Camp 1 and 2. Who would’ve guessed that a videogame walkthrough video could give a politician the tactics she needed to more effectively engage an audience.

In conclusion, Social media now plays a larger role when it comes to the political sphere of things. Before, they were in their own little bubble, conducting business until it was election time. Then they come out and tell everyone how much the people matter, when it’s only about getting reelected. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has brought a fresh new way of communicating to her supporters, and it has garnered her a lot of attention in the process. All of the people who were sick of not hearing from their politicians now had someone who posts on Instagram and on stories, and really gives the consumer a look into her life, and take time to connect with her audience. That is what separates her from the other politicians regardless of what side you’re on, there is no way to ignore the amazing progress she has made using Instagram as her platform. I think it gives a beautiful look to gaming walkthrough videos as well, because it highlights the skills needed to engage with an audience on such a large scale. It also says a lot about the person. Most of the time when people find a personality they like, they will go to that specific one anytime a new topic comes up or a new game comes out. The same thing applies to Ocasio-Cortez now. They will check her Instagram page to see if she has given her opinion on the current events going on now. She has earned herself a very strong longstanding fanbase, because she is presenting herself in a way that no other politician had been presented prior, as a person. It takes a special type of person to be a politician, but we all seem to forget that these are people with personal problems just like the rest of us. Though that is what always happens, if a basketball team loses a close game, usually the blame is placed on the best/most popular player on the team. Even though the entire team lost, the blame is placed on one person or one group of people. So, I think Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did a smart thing in paving a new way for her to connect with her audience on social media. I see her career being very successful on the account of how much support she has gained.