Posted on 09/18/2006 7:36:35 PM PDT by jdm
The Bush administration is taking its fight against illegal drugs to YouTube, the trendy internet video service that already features clips of wacky, drug-induced behaviour and step-by-step instructions for growing marijuana plants.
The decision to distribute anti-drug, public service announcements and other videos over YouTube represents the first concerted effort by the US government to influence customers of the popular service, which shows more than 100 million videos per day.
The administration was expected to announce the decision formally today.
It said it was not paying any money to load its previously produced videos onto YouTube's service, so the program is effectively free.
"If just one teen sees this and decides illegal drug use is not the path for them, it will be a success," said Rafael Lemaitre, a spokesman for the drug office.
The government's YouTube videos include a previously televised, 30-second ad of a teenager running from a snarling dog and bemoaning pressure from his friends to smoke marijuana.
"Then today, they said I should try to out run Tic Tic, the lumber-yard dog," the teen says. "And I don't think I can. I'm an idiot."
YouTube, a San Mateo, California-based startup, has become one of the internet's hottest properties since two 20-something friends started the company 19 months ago.
The free service allows users to share and view videos, most of which are amateurishly produced and include clips of young people singing and dancing - usually badly.
The government's short public service announcements - all of which were produced previously for television - are highly polished.
They will compete for viewership against hundreds of existing, drug-related videos that include shaky footage of college-age kids smoking marijuana and girls dancing wildly after purportedly using cocaine.
Other YouTube videos describe how to grow marijuana and how to cook with it.
"Welcome to the great experiment," said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew internet & American Life Project.
He predicted computer-savvy critics of US drug policies will quickly edit the government's videos to produce parodies and distribute those on YouTube. "This seems pretty new and pretty adventurous."
The government linked its videos with the terms "war on drugs," "peer-pressure," "marijuana," "weed," "ONDCP" and "420," so anyone searching for those words on YouTube could find its anti-drug messages.
All the videos were associated with a YouTube account named "ONDCPstaff" and identified as an 18-year-old living in Washington. The term 420 is a popular reference for marijuana.
If anyone knows how to speak to the youth of today, it is definitely those hipsters at the ONDCP.
Parents are the ones that need to see the damn videos.
I believe these must be them ... http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ONDCP&search=Search
Actually, here's all their ads on you tube ...... http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=ONDCPstaff
Cool, thanks!
"Above the influence"! Yeah, that's gonna register with the pimply faced morons who's only desire is to hump something that's breathing.
Teens'll be teens unless their Baptists, then they'll just end up in therapy with sexual hangups.
Yeah, let's win the drug war!!!
Taking money from you to fund telling you lies isn't the America I thought I'd grow old in.
...Teens'll be teens unless they're Baptists....woops...too much weed...
From what I've seen of YouTube, it's not drugs but underaged drinking that needs the attention.
Sadly this would be a good way to get to youth, but the kids on YouTube won't listen to them. Most of the people on YouTube I think are 13-17 year old jr and High (skrewl) students. You can tell by the comments if you use a word with more than two syllables they don't understand. Also do a quick search for George Bush Vs. about any liberal he is Bush is bashed about as bad on YouTube as DU. It's too trendy nowadays to hate Bush and Republicans everyone is with the cause de jure.
Oh. Well I bet this will be a huge success, just like the rest of the Insane, Racist War on (Some) Drugs.
LMAO, nothing makes kids want to stop smoking pot more than the president telling them not to! If only Willie Nelson could've been saved on time.
I generally agree, but have you seen the Geriatric1927 videos? This is an old guy from England who basically just sits and talks about his life. No gimmicks, just talking like someone's grandpa. The kids seem to love it, tho some of them should be listening to their own grandparents while they have the chance.
I watch YouTube (I'm 53) because you can get old tv like SCTV and because as a doctoral student in information science, I'm interested in the diffusion of technologies. I'm very interested in what kind of stuff winds up on YouTube and what kind of people, people you wouldn't expect like Geriatric1927, use it.
I don't bother with the political stuff. As you say, these are mostly young people and I just don't care what they have to say about something as important as running the country. Obviously their 'change the government now' rhetoric doesn't match their actions or they would have turned out in greater numbers at the last election.
I thought I was laying it on pretty thick, but then again, these days on FR you never can be too sure ;)
What will come up as a related video? Comfortably Numb? Or Purple Haze? This could be trouble....
A waste of taxpayer money.
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