Words Dept.: entry

Just before going to sleep last night I attempted to have a US election-based multimedia experience, which involved taking the laptop to bed (my intentions were pure) and surfing various sites to do with the vote. This, I am led to believe, is the done thing among web-savvy news hunters of the 21st century.

Twitter, in particular, has been held up as an innovator, thanks to its Election 2008 page. At about 12.45am it was being updated at a rate of more than a tweet a second. Unfortunately, the majority of tweets came from Americans who were simply watching the TV news and typing out what they saw. I was watching the TV at the same time as surfing the web, so it was kind of pointless.

The most entertaining thing about Twitter was the level of ignorance it revealed about the US electoral system. Bearing in mind only a couple of states had been called at this point, there were loads of tweets from people despairing that McCain was up by 21 college votes to 3 over Obama – like it was a basketball game or something.

In the end I gave up on the web and gave my full attention to the telly, where the BBC’s captioning department seemed to be under the misapprehension that the big place in the middle of Midtown Manhattan is called Time Square (they later corrected it). At just after 1am, Pennsylvania went to Obama, at which point it was becoming rapidly obvious he was going to win. The advantage of TV over the web then became clear: as a passive medium, I was able to listen to it while dozing off.

I inexplicably woke up at 4.20am and saw John McCain conceding defeat. This felt slightly surreal, as most events do at that time of day. I thought McCain’s speech was incredibly generous (David Dimbleby possibly called it “handsome”, although I could have dreamt that). Shame the Republican thickos started booing when McCain said he had congratulated Obama on his victory and then booed again when he mentioned his “old friend” Joe Biden.

While Obama’s election as president is exciting, the pessimist in me can’t help but wonder when it’s all going to go wrong. I remember a similar feeling of optimism when Tony Blair got elected in 1997, which dissipated quickly as soon as everyone realised he was just Maggie Thatcher in a purple tie. Just as long as Obama doesn’t start driving round in a golf buggy (see below), addressing the British Prime Minister with the phrase “Yo Brown” or squeezing Angela Merkel, the world should be safe.