College Politics

Non conformists withdraw support from Obama

White House Pollsters have been in a flurry this week as a disturbing new trend threatens to undermine President Obama’s appeal to the youth of the nation. Over the past month, and more markedly within the last week, Obama’s staff noticed a sharp decline in Hipster support for Obama. At first, the pollsters didn’t know how to interpret the data. Undergrad Rag spoke with polling coordinator Rod Rexely about the anomalies.

“Well at first we didn’t know how to look at the data, we couldn’t imagine we were losing the youth market,” said Rexely. “So we went back to the source and tried to figure out where it was coming from.”

After Rexely and staff looked at where the drop in support was geographically they noticed a few common threads.

“We couldn’t help but notice that a lot of the negative polling came from establishments that hosted amateur poetry nights, areas where most if not all of the residents ride road bikes, and where sarcastic and ironic t-shirts were sold in bulk,” Rexely said. “It was amazing to note that the tighter the average person’s jeans were, the more sour the feedback became.”

It wasn’t long before Rexely derived a conclusion and realized Hipsters were the cause of dipping support. Analysts everywhere were baffled at the decline though considering the massive swell of support shown by Hipsters during the election. Virtually no other demographic could be counted on to so consistently volunteer for canvassing, to put stickers on every conceivable object, or obnoxiously impose their views on non-believers. Former campus campaign coordinator Todd Whitehead also expressed disbelief at the sudden drop in Hipster support.

“I mean, these people were Obama machines. They didn’t just support Obama, they despised everyone else. I can’t be certain but I think I walked into a group of them burning an effigy of Palin. Without them, we wouldn’t have been able find the necessary amount of people to stand at every college campus, shamelessly soliciting support for Barack and dismissing the views of others.”

Knowing it was the Hipsters was only half the battle though, the real question was why. Rexely and his staff formulated their own theory.

“We call it the ‘Non-Conformist effect’ and it revolves around the Hipsters’ illusion that they must always be on the cutting edge of what’s popular,” said Rexely. “It works on a simple ratio system. For every two people in the general public that like something, there is at least one Hipster who is required to hate that thing. For example, let’s say a band is on the indie scene and 100 Hipsters buy the CD. When the band gets picked up by a record label and starts to actually make money, 100 members of the general public buy their CD. Now, only about 50 of the original 100 Hipsters will find it socially acceptable to like that band anymore.”
As Rexely explains, Obama’s decline in support can be attributed to the fact that so many more people like him now. Knowing the problem, the solution is to make Obama less popular than he once was.

“Obama is too widely accepted for Hipsters, so we have to give him more of an edge. He has to be reviled by all other aspects of society. Additionally, he needs to loath Hipsters themselves to get back in their good graces. It’s a sickening cycle of pretension and disingenuousness that literally makes me want to vomit.”