It is almost scary how Waldo is almost a direct representation of our recent President Elect Donald Trump. Let's start from the beginning. Waldo started off as a t.v. personality. He was known for being rude and passive aggressive to his t.v. guests. Correlation? How did everybody know Trump before the election? He was a t.v. personality, just as Waldo, on his long running show The Apprentice. Trump, just as Waldo, was extremely rude and aggressive to the guests on his show. Then, I feel like Trump decided to run for President, if not for publicity, then to solely benefit himself. The producers of Waldo did the exact same thing for the exact same reasons. Both Waldo and Trump were considered as jokes as first. Nobody took them seriously as politicians. People thought that them running was merely a publicity stunt or solely for entertainment purposes. Then Waldo and Trump started gaining popularity and momentum among the voters. Neither one of these candidates had any kind of political base or stance. Their strategy was simply to "bully" the other candidates. They harshly shot down their opponent's positions and just said what they thought everybody wanted to hear. Waldo and Trump both had the same M.O: a foul-mouthed and rude radical who didn't stand for anything but instead stood against everything: they didn't say how they were going to make things better, but instead said everything the current politicians were doing wrong. The media played a huge part in both Waldo and Trump's rise to power. The constant media attention and air time gave these two candidates just the publicity they needed. In the end, the candidate that everybody initially took as a joke ended up in power. Even the ending of this episode showed some similarity to the current election. You saw a spur of violence and tensions and division within the country. You already see signs of that happening in real life just shortly after Trump's election. This episode of Black Mirror was aired in 2013. Is it possible that Trump modeled his campaign after the successful campaign of this fictional blue bear?
Sunday, November 20, 2016
Waldo Trump
Last week, my Theories of Human Nature class watched an episode of Black Mirror. Black Mirror is a British television series that explores techno-paranoia and the collective unease about the modern world. This particular episode was called "The Waldo Moment". This episode was about a comedian who portrayed fictional, animated, foul-mouthed, blue bear named Waldo. Waldo, at first, was just a comedy sketch designed to humiliate politicians on a late night talk show. Running with this idea, the owner of Waldo decides to put Waldo in the political race to gain publicity. This publicity stunt eventually got completely and utterly out of hand and it ended up with a radical blue bear in a dictatorship position. This episode was eerily similar to the recent presidential election.
It is almost scary how Waldo is almost a direct representation of our recent President Elect Donald Trump. Let's start from the beginning. Waldo started off as a t.v. personality. He was known for being rude and passive aggressive to his t.v. guests. Correlation? How did everybody know Trump before the election? He was a t.v. personality, just as Waldo, on his long running show The Apprentice. Trump, just as Waldo, was extremely rude and aggressive to the guests on his show. Then, I feel like Trump decided to run for President, if not for publicity, then to solely benefit himself. The producers of Waldo did the exact same thing for the exact same reasons. Both Waldo and Trump were considered as jokes as first. Nobody took them seriously as politicians. People thought that them running was merely a publicity stunt or solely for entertainment purposes. Then Waldo and Trump started gaining popularity and momentum among the voters. Neither one of these candidates had any kind of political base or stance. Their strategy was simply to "bully" the other candidates. They harshly shot down their opponent's positions and just said what they thought everybody wanted to hear. Waldo and Trump both had the same M.O: a foul-mouthed and rude radical who didn't stand for anything but instead stood against everything: they didn't say how they were going to make things better, but instead said everything the current politicians were doing wrong. The media played a huge part in both Waldo and Trump's rise to power. The constant media attention and air time gave these two candidates just the publicity they needed. In the end, the candidate that everybody initially took as a joke ended up in power. Even the ending of this episode showed some similarity to the current election. You saw a spur of violence and tensions and division within the country. You already see signs of that happening in real life just shortly after Trump's election. This episode of Black Mirror was aired in 2013. Is it possible that Trump modeled his campaign after the successful campaign of this fictional blue bear?
It is almost scary how Waldo is almost a direct representation of our recent President Elect Donald Trump. Let's start from the beginning. Waldo started off as a t.v. personality. He was known for being rude and passive aggressive to his t.v. guests. Correlation? How did everybody know Trump before the election? He was a t.v. personality, just as Waldo, on his long running show The Apprentice. Trump, just as Waldo, was extremely rude and aggressive to the guests on his show. Then, I feel like Trump decided to run for President, if not for publicity, then to solely benefit himself. The producers of Waldo did the exact same thing for the exact same reasons. Both Waldo and Trump were considered as jokes as first. Nobody took them seriously as politicians. People thought that them running was merely a publicity stunt or solely for entertainment purposes. Then Waldo and Trump started gaining popularity and momentum among the voters. Neither one of these candidates had any kind of political base or stance. Their strategy was simply to "bully" the other candidates. They harshly shot down their opponent's positions and just said what they thought everybody wanted to hear. Waldo and Trump both had the same M.O: a foul-mouthed and rude radical who didn't stand for anything but instead stood against everything: they didn't say how they were going to make things better, but instead said everything the current politicians were doing wrong. The media played a huge part in both Waldo and Trump's rise to power. The constant media attention and air time gave these two candidates just the publicity they needed. In the end, the candidate that everybody initially took as a joke ended up in power. Even the ending of this episode showed some similarity to the current election. You saw a spur of violence and tensions and division within the country. You already see signs of that happening in real life just shortly after Trump's election. This episode of Black Mirror was aired in 2013. Is it possible that Trump modeled his campaign after the successful campaign of this fictional blue bear?
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Fascinating! Great response to the video.
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