The Internet reacts to Obama’s landslide win over McCain
Last night’s polling results were watched all over the world. The fate of this election would have far reaching implications globally and here in the United States, so the world was tuning in as one-by-one the states reported their counts.
This may go down as the most watched election night in history, and the reaction to the news of Obama’s win did not disappoint. Earlier in the day there were a few scattered reports of voting machines malfunctioning and weather causing scanner issues, but even so this election was different. There was a charge in the air, and there were few, if any, cries of voter fraud.
This was thanks in part to the online community and the tools they created, like the Voter Suppression Wiki and Twittervote, among others. By making technology and social media readily available for a cause, people felt like they had control over their electoral process again. Couple that with the sense of hope and purpose that surrounded this election on both sides of the political aisle and you get some fairly intense emotions behind the results.
The consensus on Twitter was one of hope and relief as the Obama win came in. Everyone, from every walk of life, shared their 140 character micro blogging thoughts on the results, as it happened. Not all were pleased, but most were civil with each other, and many embraced the feeling of hope. Some of my favorite ‘tweets’ referenced the ability to walk in public in a foreign country without shame again, people once again looking forward to being American, Boston students video taping the emotional reaction to the results of their first election, people making real time predictions throughout, Canadians thanking us, the UK expressing joy, mini critiques of McCain’s concession speech, worry about assassination attempts, and reports of uneasy off line reactions to the Obama win.
Jen Nedeau of Change.org’s Women’s Rights channel blogged about Obama’s Cuban American supporters and the atmosphere in Florida. Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins of Mashable, known for not being an Obama supporter, turned out an even keeled retrospective on the technology President Elect. Chuck Simmins voices his unhappiness as a Republican on North Shore Journal. Reno and it’s Discontent blog kept it’s response to a two line post. Rachel Happe of Mzinga told us what Twitter meant for her on the way to the results on her personal blog. Michael Durwin wrote about social media’s role in the election on qtip. Celtic Angel talked about her reactions, Hillary Clinton weighed in, and still the blog posts keep coming.
What can we learn from this night? That technology can create landslides of effect if used in the right way by the right people. That social media and technology can expose any fake veneers and get to the heart of the truth. that election will never be the same again now that we have all experienced one in real time, together. We also learned that CNN has discovered how to beam reporters in via what they called a hologram. Not very useful, but when taken with the rest of the change today – very, very cool.
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November 5th, 2008
The CNN thing wasn’t a hologram. TV only, the anchor never actually saw the image. It’s just a glorified green screen and nothing new. Pointless waste of time.
November 5th, 2008
Actually, it WAS a hologram, and Wolf Blitzer could in fact see the individuals whom he was interviewing. I’m not sure where you got your info on that, but it’s erroneous.
November 5th, 2008
They CALL it “hologram” but there is clearly no such technology yet in existence. Anything Wolf “saw” was off camera on a traditional display device.
Oh, and Leslie, this election was not a “landslide”. Perhaps you should do some research of the facts first? But since it was your media darling that won after your past two wonks got beat, liberal minds need to savor their victory with platitudes across the board.