In 1841, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “A man’s growth is seen in the successive choirs of his friends.” If that’s true, then no man, or at least no politician, has grown as much in recent months as Barack Obama.
Of course, when Emerson wrote the line, a “friend” was still likely to be someone you’d met in person, and the word itself was still a noun. These days, a “friend” might be any random Internet onlooker, and the verb “to friend” has surfaced on our lexicon’s fringes. Social-networking websites like Facebook and MySpace have made “friending” so easy as to be meaningless, and have established the Internet “friend count” as a status symbol. Politicians have always been at the forefront of the fake-friend game, so it’s hardly surprising that all of the top-tier 2008 presidential candidates are using social-networking sites to reach out to prospective voters. But while all the contenders have come to play in the online sandbox, it is Obama who has reaped the most rewards.
Obama’s social-network campaigning is unmatched, with more than double the MySpace “friends” of any other candidate, as well as thousands more Facebook messages and a customized social-networking site of his own. In these online communities, the barriers between politician and citizen are reduced, and the formal conventions of politics dissolve amidst the casual protocols of IMs and text messages. Instead of showing up on a field to wave signs from a distance, Obama’s Internet fans come to hang out, to chat, to talk about themselves and their lives, to send “virtual gifts”—in other words, to be Obama’s friend.
On Facebook and MySpace, exclamation points flow like water and capitalization is mostly decorative. Like dorm rooms, the user profiles are plastered with a rotating array of pop-star posters, notes from friends, favorite quotes, and poorly framed snapshots—anything and everything that screams, “This is who I am!” The sites are festivals of self-proclamation and virtual identity-making for a young, tech-savvy cohort that flits from persona to persona and doesn’t know anything it can’t Google. Who are my friends? What do I love? Just log in to find out.
These sites create a perfect environment for a candidate such as Obama to flourish in. Forget the politics of personal destruction: Obama practices the politics of personal adoration. His candidacy is based not on policy but on identity, not on a record of political success but on personality. He wants everyone to be friends and offers himself as Pal Number One. He might as well be running for friend-maker in chief. On MySpace, he has collected more than 96,000 friends; if Facebook held an election today, he would undoubtedly win.
Unlike MySpace, Facebook does not allow candidates to add friends to their profiles. It does, however, give users the option to post notes on candidates’ “walls”—message boards viewable on the candidates’ profiles. Obama’s Facebook wall doesn’t function like most Internet forums, which typically come off as the conversational equivalent of playground scrums. In comparison, Obama’s wall is low-key, even gentle. Its users post simple encouragements, casual messages written in lazy netspeak, and painfully sincere political mash notes. They treat Obama less as a senator with serious presidential aspirations than as a crush, a buddy, just another popular guy trying to win one for the team.
Many supporters offer encouraging words, albeit filtered through the thumb-saving net-slang of the young and wired. A poster from Dallas gushes, “your my inspiration for life <3 [sic].” A student from Illinois State exclaims, “wooo, u go obama!” Other posters skip encouragement and use his wall to declare “I love you!!!!” One writes, “If I may say this in the most respective way possible. . . . I think I have a man crush on you.”
Attempts to discuss anything so unimportant as politics or policy reveal a similarly careless attitude. “im tired of politics getting in the way of real problems. Please don’t ever forget about the environment as one of your top priorities,” writes one poster. Musing about running mates, another concludes, “I always thought that an Obama-Gore ticket would be a winner!”—as if Gore, a political lifer who has already spent eight years as vice president, might seriously consider playing second fiddle to an upstart, fad candidate.
Some take a more reserved approach with sparse notes like “obama, you’re my dog” or “hey obama wasup” that come off like nods across a schoolyard. One wonders whether they expect a reply.
This raises the question whether Obama reads these notes—or, as one curious poster put it, “does Barack actually go on here and check it out?” But no one ventured an answer, because no one cares. What matters instead is the perception that Obama is like any other Internet friend—and just happens to be running for leader of the Free World.
These sites may devalue the idea of friendship, but they do so in ways that are politically useful. When friendship means nothing, it’s easy to be someone’s friend. Obama gets young-voter karma points while social networkers get to feel connected. It’s like the 1-900 phone-a-star lines set up by teen idols in the 1980s. The stars recorded generic daily messages, and the fans got to have simulated phone calls with the objects of their affection. Obama, whose persona is as much pop star as politician, is reinventing the hotlines for the Internet age.
Not that this bothers his devotees, who lavish their political idol with any kind of attention they can. Facebook users are allowed to give candidates “gifts”—crude, clip-art-style graphics that range from jump-kicking ninjas to hefty flanks of steak—with short notes attached. At the time of this writing, Obama has received 185 gifts. In comparison, Hillary Clinton has 13. Some are predictable—numerous rolls of toilet paper and bars of soap with variants on the message “In case you need help cleaning up America!!!” Others are simply perplexing—a cupcake and the words “enjoy this fine hostess cupcake,” a lonely looking puppy and the note “Win that sh*t son. Here’s a lost puppy to befriend you on your journey.” (If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog, right?)
Then there are the groups. Endless, endless groups. A Facebook search for “Obama” returns more than 500 group results, some in favor, some against. A few—such as “Barack Obama (One Million Strong for Barack),” which has not reached its numeric goal but does boast 323,000 members—have energized the masses. Others not so much: A group calling itself “Anybody that would support Barack Obama for President is a Moronic Liberal” has gathered just over 500 likeminded members, while “Barack Obama can ba-rock me anytime” and “Barack Obama is my Only Hope” claim fewer than 1,000 members each.
Because there are no limits on how many groups a user can join or create, many exist to serve incredibly small niches. How much of an audience could there be for “Barack ‘Holla at ’cho momma’ Obama for President ’08?” Not much, but with 254 members, more than “African-American Females UNITED FOR OBAMA!!!!” which has only 94 members. It’s a fight to slice and dice Obama into a million pieces, each customized to an individual taste. Obama for black women! Obama for American Muslims! Obama for people who love exclamation points! By chopping him down to size, these niche groups bring Obama the candidate down to the level of Obama the friend.
Obama the friend. It’s not exactly presidential, but it sounds pleasant enough. And for the hundreds of thousands of Obama supporters on Facebook and similar sites, it’s the key to his popularity. They may be naïve about politics and confused about policy, but they seem to know what they want from a candidate: someone to “hang out” with, encourage, and generally not take too seriously. In Obama that’s just what they’ve found. He’s a man of the digital people, and a friendly one at that.