Sunday, March 15, 2009

GDI v. Mainstream Indie


Mainstream Indies



GDI's


There's three types of Independents...yes more subcultures...but these three types have been around a lot longer than yours truly or this blog. The first type (which is a Greek-friendly version, e.g. "Swamp," "Impact") was not present in this election. The next garden variety is the Mainstream (or Moderate) Independent (ala Progress '05, Action, or Hernandez-UNITE!), which in this case would be the Orange & Blue Party. The smallest type - and contrary to this year's upset, the worst performing faction - are the GDI's (see Student Alliance '03, Keg '04, Voice '05, and arguably, ARGUABLY Keg '09.

In the featured videos, you see Mainstream GDI's using the same influences as their elder-GDI counterparts and while funny, the O&B version seems forced, whereas as the Pants version is very spontaneous, laid back, and naturally "WHATEVER!"

You decide for yourself. Put your film critic's hat on and comment!

16 comments:

francisco said...

Haha, I remember playing on my laptop in David's apartment to edit those videos. We spent hours trying to find that background music. Those Pants Party videos were perhaps one of the most fun portions of the campaign.

Anonymous said...

As of tonights' R&A meeting all Megan Vu's base are belong to the Unite Party.

There are now TWO people in need of T-shirts that read: Backed by the Progs, then fucks 'em!

Anonymous said...

Either way, I've never believed television ads are all that effective. Perhaps having Youtube content on your website can be useful, but looking at past election results, I've never seen a direct correlation with their use and results.

Now, maybe pre-preview ads on the screens at movie theaters could reach our audience. And so could television. But you have to consider cost-benefits.

Organizing and engaged candidates (O&B clearly lacked the latter despite their slate's experience) are far more important.

I have some thoughts on Duque's subculture definitions - which I will try to comment on later. Suffice it to say, I think he's placing a more ideological label on the 3 groups (conservative, moderate, liberal) than is valid. For example, Hernandez was a Greek leading a coalitional party - but he wasn't a mainstream indie, more like a rebellious and ambitious Greek (see White, Brandon).

Anyway, if I have more time I'll expand on this thought more.

Anonymous said...

i think both the videos are retarded, but graham clark is scary looking and in my opinion, deterred the one or two voters who maybe watched the video.

Anonymous said...

The most popular one was the Parking Lot Cameras. What a stupid idea.

Anonymous said...

Here is O&B doing a better jog http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w81cynxVjPM

Christian Duque said...

ACTUALLY, the acting on the O&B vid buried the Pants vids, BUT, ACTING is the crux of my point.

GDI Parties have a vibe about them, a certain attitude. It's by no means an underachiever mentality, it's just hard to put into words.

Anonymous said...

i heard on the blog that ben d is going to cornell, congrats if that's the case, that's pretty cool.

im not so sure ill be involved in sg in the future, at least for campaigning and such. i just want to see everyone come together. we're really not that different. i saw justin w and josh niederrider at plaza today campaigning together against amend. 1. it made me happy. congrats too to josh simmons on columbia i believe. im so over the sg elections. i hope everyone will come together in the fall, we'll win if we do.

and btw, we definitely need a new party name, with a new constitution, and more inclusive voting rights, but let's wait 'til after the no on 1 thing to talk seriously about that.

Anonymous said...

I heard Dictor was just admitted to Michigan!

Wow.

Anonymous said...

I heard that the Ben Dictor was going to Cooley so he can be friend with Christian Duque!

Anonymous said...

Thanks Dictor wannabe for that fake update. Too bad Dictor's LSAT way below even the 25th percentile to get into Michigan. He will be living in NYC for the Fall.

Anonymous said...

Progress beat the shit out of Orange and Blue. They don't need those awkward children in the fall.

Anonymous said...

Anon 3:42 PM, have you ever herd the expression my enemies enemy is my friend? By trying to destroy not the real plague on this campus, FBK/Unite, and instead trying to destroy those who stand against them you are nothing more than tools. I wouldn't be surprised to see Greeks and FBK power brokers fund the next Progress Party campaign.

What this university needs is more people like Ben Cavatero in Senate writing legislation and less people like Dave Schneider posing for animal crackers. Progress is all about power for power's sake which makes them no better than Unite, although Unite actually has a legislative agenda as does O&B so really Progress is even worse than Unite.

So Progress "won" and Dave Schneider is now the Progress Party minority leader. "The Progs" got their way. So let's take a moment to see what that has translated to.

Dave Schneider asked that his name be removed from the lobbyist bill written by Cavatero. Upon further consideration, Dave decided that the lobbyists perform a valuable service to UF.

For the uninitiated, one of the lobbyists was the FBK legal defense fund raising coordinator during the Charlie Grapski case. The lobbying position is basically a thank you from FBK to him for all his work for them.

So to date: Dave Schneider in his capacity of Progress Party Senate Minority leader has backed Megan Vu (who is an uber tool and who votes straight down the Unite Party line) and he has reneged on one of Progress's biggest platform points which was to get rid of the SG funded lobbyists.

All this in under 3 weeks (and that's with 1 week off for Spring Break!). Truly breath taking.

Keep on going Dave... keep going. At this rate you might be able to get yourself a tap into FBK for all that you have done and are doing to help further FBK/Unite's causes.

Anonymous said...

are you retarded?

Schneider was FOR that legislation. He simply wanted more time to create an alternative before just striking the whole position. And when it was amended, that changed the spirit of the bill and the meaning of it so he was not for it.

Anonymous said...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radikal

Anonymous said...

3:26, Cornell and Michigan's 25th percentile LSAT was the same thing: 166. If Dictor got into Cornell, I don't see why he wouldn't have a shot at Michigan.