Youth Vote at Take Back America

Due to a scheduling conflict with my book tour, I missed Take Back America for the second year in a row. Some folks put together what looked to be a stellar youth panel and the reports coming in seem positive.

One thing that did come to my attention (via Google Alert) was that a discussion took place about the role of celebrities in reaching young voters. I would have loved to be part of that conversation as I think this is an area with great potential and even greater pitfalls for youth activists. Celebrities can bring a great deal of media attention to your work, but it can also overshadow it. As far as I know, celebrity "endorsements" of voting mean very little in and of themselves, yet if celebrities can encourage a culture of participation among their fans and drive people to action, that can be a powerful thing.

The dividing line between these two is very fine, and it's why I've always loved music endorsements more than endorsements and PSA's by actors. Musicians have a community of supporters with shared experiences that they can activate (Punks for Dean, OK Go fans for Obama). These communities also have geographic meeting spaces - music clubs. The same can't be said about actors - at least not in the same way and I'm not sure in a way that lends itself to organizing. Actors can be validators of a message, but again I'm not sure how effective that is and you run the risk of the personality overriding the message.