Sarah Palin is Your New…Inspiration for Social Media

September 3rd, 2008

This just in from my friend Chris Cosart: the time of reckoning is at hand. I.e., the internet is turning its collective “genius” on Sarah Palin, meaning that she’s transcended the merely mortal to become a meme. Sarah Palin Is Your New Segway is both inevitable (after Barack Obama is Your New Bicycle) and not entirely flattering in intent, seeing as it’s inspired by a Daily Kos diary post (Segways didn’t quite catch on, you see, and…).

The genius twist on the original is that the answers to the question “Sarah Palin is Your New…” are generated by readers right before your eyes — hit “reload” and watch the results roll by. The first time I visited, the most recent were “Heartburn Inducer,” “Discount LASIK,” “Downtown Julie Brown,” “Screen Door on a Submarine,” and “Royal Crowne Cola.” Obviously, lefties are going to have a lot of fun with this one. New view into the zeitgeist? Or just a great way to burn off a little more of that pesky cognitive surplus?

– cpd

5 Comments Add your own

1. Paula | September 3rd, 2008 at 4:11 pm

Sarah Palin, the face that launched a thousand memes…

Or Sarah Palin iz in yr internet tubes, Sen. Stevens…

What I find hilarious is that one of the best memes about her, the Twitter meme was started by a Republican strategist, Michael Turk. With friends like this…will McCain-Palin win in November?

Or are the memes just amusing to the few of us inside the Beltway on the internets who even know what a meme is?
2. Michael Turk | September 5th, 2008 at 10:44 am

Paula –

If nothing else, it shows that a lot of people on the Internet have way too much time on their hands (myself included).

But the likelihood that any of this is enough to have even a slight impact on the election is zilch.

Any person basing their vote on a “Little Known Fact” or Palin being a new segway should probably have their right to vote rescinded and be sterilized.
3. cpd | September 5th, 2008 at 10:57 am

Hey Mike, I agree with you that this site isn’t likely to switch a vote. But, how about the collective effect of millions of people seeing hundreds of mocking videos/websites/blog posts? Which then feed into a loop that involves the Daily Show/Colbert Report, the network late-night shows, the gossip sites, political blogs, political reporters…
4. Michael Turk | September 5th, 2008 at 11:04 am

Honestly, I don’t see it. The “mocking” of Chuck Norris has made him more of a folk hero than a tarnished has-been. People are sophisticated enough to understand the difference between joking and savaging.

Your typical partisan is never going to move because one of the other guy’s followers puts up a mocking website.

Your average “swing” vote is as likely to laugh at any of them because they typically find the whole process laugh worthy.
5. jane | September 6th, 2008 at 4:40 pm

P is for President Palin
… from Allegations to Zealot.

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