I think Romney handed Obama the youth vote with his Big Bird comment

[BarackTheVote]

I'm watching this meme blow up. One of my favorite web comedians, Doug Walker (That Guy With the Glasses), moments ago posted "I'm so Blue" from "Catch that Bird" with the title "The New Republican National Anthem." It has over 250 likes as of this moment. Some might think the save Big Bird meme is just about hipster ironic comedy, but in reality, Romney touched a very real nerve. Romney's off-hand zinger about firing Big Bird resonated with young voters, with the internet generation, and in the exact opposite way Romney intended.

[Indpndnt]

1. I've been saying it all day: Willard put a face on his proposed killing of PBS.

The face of an adorable, adored Muppet. It's one thing to threaten a broadcasting company, it's quite another to want to kill Big Bird. The issue has legs. Multiple generations now have grown up on Sesame Street. My kids are in college and they are PISSED about the threat to Big Bird! The rest of PBS, too, of course, but they grew up on Sesame Street. We went to a lot of 'Sesame Street Live' shows, too. It means a lot to them. And they vote.

[Bjorn Against]

2. Sesame Street debuted in 1969

Many people who grew up with Sesame Street are hardly youth any more, some of them are in their mid-forties now. This is a show that more than two generations have grown up on and many who grew up on the show are now showing it to their own kids.

[jberryhill]

7. I still remember the first show!

On PBS affiliate WHYY in Philadelphia. It was back-to-back with Mr. Roger's Neighboorhood.

I sort of figured at the time that maybe Sesame Street was located in the urban area in relation to Mr. Rogers' suburbanish neighborhood.



It's hard to do a media rollout to six year olds, but there was what amounts to a promo article in Weekly Reader, whose circulation was freaking huge, really.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

3. Maybe. My daughter is mid 20's and her friends are pissed.

My daughter is probably of the last generation to have really enjoyed Sesame Street as a child. Still, that's a two generation run of popularity. Not bad!

[regnaD kciN]

4. I didn't know six-year-olds could vote...

[DisabledAmerican]

8. I was once a child 31 now

There are home videos of me with a Big Bird Doll and my parents looking at the tv with Big Bird on. That was back when video cameras were as heavy as Media video cameras are. They filmed me watching it just as people do today. I grew up in a generation that watched Sesame Street and I can vote. I made sure my brother was tormented with the Elmo Potty Training DVD for my nephew. My brother and Sister grew up with Sesame Street although my sister was more barney.

[BarackTheVote]

5. My point is, the youth vote is incredibly important to Obama

yet this demographic, my cohort, is notoriously difficult to convince to get out to vote. They wanted to be part of history in electing the first African American president. That might sound shallow, and of course, many young people also felt passionately about things like ending the wars, LGBT rights, women's rights, etc. BUT in general, this is a low-information voting block, and though they generally lean to the Left, they are also very cynical when it comes to politicians; it has been up in the air whether they would show this election to reelect an incumbent. Big Bird has become the movement, the rallying cry we needed to motivate them. Once again, they want to be part of something that makes them passionate, and apparently, saving Big Bird IS that movement. It will convince a lot of the youth vote to actually come out as they did in 2008 to elect President Obama.

[ellie]

6. I'm 47 and I love Big Bird and Sesame Street

I watched Sesame Street as a kid and later, when I worked at a PBS station, we had Sesame Street and Carmen Sandiego playing in the office during the day.

[vaberella]

9. 32, here...and I can tell you that everyone around my age is livid. Shit my heart broke.

I heard nothing else in the debate except him wanting to kill Big Bird.

[SaveAmerica]

10. Well, you have anyone who was born in the 60s and up

Most likely they watched, their kids watched and some of those kids are old enough to have kids who are getting toys and watching now. And don't forgot the parents of those born in the 60s, they watched as their kids got hooked on Sesame Street.

Sunny days, chasing the clouds away, on my way to where the AIR IS SWEET!! Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Sesame Street?!!

[Kurovski]

11. Not to mention the Perdue family vote.