Before we go on, some housekeeping. Firstly, could all you anonymous tippers please refrain from messaging me after, let’s say, 11 pm? I know it’s a 24 hour news cycle, or whatever, but I value my REM cycles and guild elections shouldn’t be the last thing anybody thinks about before they fall asleep. That is terribly unfair, and you know it. As for the candidates themselves, I’m pretty sure someone told me that they don’t sleep. Or is it that they sleep standing up, like horses? Could someone confirm? Hit me up.
Secondly, could whoever runs the Liberty/Launch/LAUNCH Instagram kindly stop sending me follow requests? You may not follow me. Many thanks.
It seems like we can officially call it: this year’s big campaign innovation is videos. I don’t know about you, but I am loving it. Cool and fun 1980s MTV vibes. It’s still percolating, but I’m like, 90% sure there’s a ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’ joke in there somewhere. I mean, STAR is literally in the title. We’ll get back to you.
We talked you through Launch/LAUNCH’s first effort the other day, and not ones to lag behind, STAR have started dropping their variations on the theme. To their credit, I can’t really tell if STAR’s videos are reactionary, an afterthought brought on by LAUNCH’s multimedia debut, or just late to the party. But that’s about where the compliments end. An anonymous source spoke to Pelican before the first video dropped on the STAR Instagram last night, warning us that they’d be ‘all cutey poo and shit’, ‘being all playful in fields and shit’, and to ‘think the opening sequence for Friends.’ They weren’t wrong.
So far there’s two vids, one helmed by presidential candidate Maddie Mulholland and the other by Emma Boogaerdt, the candidate for Education Council President. The formula works like this: cutie introduces themselves, standing against a washed-out-blue-Degrassi-Junior-High-vibe brick wall, cut to STAR executive candidates FROLICKING and LAUGHING and EXUDING YOUTH in a literal field of flowers, cut back to the cutie striking a funny pose omg haha I’m so random I just do that sometimes :~), and finish with the STAR logo overlaid.
This is exactly the kind of cult I’ve always felt I’m at risk of joining. This koolaid tastes like Twinkle Berry tea from T2, served hot or cold with the brownies someone’s mum made. I’ve never seen such a smiley group of twenty-somethings. It’s sickening.
The UWA Debating Union is hosting the 2015 presidential debate tomorrow at 2 pm in Weatherburn Lecture Theatre. All four presidential candidates are invited to speak. Once we’ve worked out exactly where that is, Pelican will be on the ground.
Send your video puns and your goss to [email protected] (24/7) 😉
Words by Lucy Ballantyne