Don’t get sick from the viral elections bug

— The Linc’s dubious authenticity correspondent, Maken Eetup, explores the use of viral videos in this year’s election.

Every building. Every wall. Every staircase. Every balcony. Every bridge. Even every tree. Every bit of physical space across the university has been turned in to a billboard for campaigning. Just walking across the main building to avoid a leaflet is like playing a real life game of “Frogger”.

With no more places to put posters, and no candidates yet to start tattooing campaign messages on people’s arses, more lobbying for votes is taking place online – with the campaign video.

Lincoln SU have been using them to promote the elections and explain the progress. People running in the elections have started uploading videos to YouTube, although cats falling off skateboards while playing the piano may appeal more to students than discussions about policy.

But what makes a successful video? How do you make something people would actually be interested in about the elections – and how hard would it be to do that?

As original ideas are non-existent in an election, it might be worth going for a parody. But YouTube is full of enough Downfall ones as it is.

So maybe we should look at television. Compare the Market and GoCompare adverts are well known and open to pastiche, there’s the simple concept of compare the candidates – but with the potential mental harm that comes from the GoCompare advert that’s not a risk worth taking.

But to really get people involved in the elections, it’s got to be honest. And here’s one suggestion of how to go about it…