Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/12/13/biden-harris-coronavirus-psa-wearing-a-mask-isnt-about-politics-its-science.html
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Yeah but the people they’re trying to reach with the PSAs would burn their own hands if Trump asked them to touch the bright, glowy spirals on the stove.
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I hear them bright, swirly spirals work best if you lick them 
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Well intended, but the MAGAts will take it as proof positive that masks are a socialist liberal commie plot to emasculated the white male race or something like that. I am not sure there is a way to reach them.
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I feel like for most anti-maskers, the association with SCIENCE will turn them off just as much. But this is the sort of message that needs to be ingrained into every corner of our society so we can, in some distant future, regain a baseline level of human common sense. Maybe. I feel like “Nazis bad” has been pretty reliably ingrained for generations, but it didn’t seem to help in that instance.
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This PSA would resonate well… with members of the Biden-Harris transition team. Because every one of them looks like they could be on the transition team: serious-looking professionals in suits, alone, basically just talking heads. It is not designed to reach out to the people they need to convince, or to convince them once they’ve got their attention.
They bury the lede, which is that you’re not trying to protect yourself – people think they’re already qualified to take care of themselves – but to protect vulnerable loved ones. They should have shots that show people you will care about and care for – teens, the elderly, people with disabilities – and show them with their masked families and friends.
The meat of the the message here was, “It’s not politics. It’s science.” If one of those didn’t shut down the skeptic, the other did.
First, the people we’re trying to convince are the people who believe it is political. That’s the nature of politics: if people believe it, it’s political. So now they also believe the question of whether or not masks are political is political. Good job. You do not win a debate by opening with “well, there’s no debate here”, even if it’s true. The fact that the people saying “it’s not political” have long established themselves as firmly on the other side of the political divide suggests the exact opposite message.
And saying “it’s science” like a priest laying down the law will not convince them. The lay man doesn’t understand how the sausage is made any better than he did before the pandemic; nine months of science in real time, warts and all has not helped win him over. I’m reminded of a cartoon my daughter watched recently: “do you want to be right, or do you want your friends to play with you? No, you can’t have both.”
A PSA which reaches only those who already know is a waste. Rather than rehashing the same message that has already failed, they should be trying things like,
- “Be kind. your neighbor is scared. Wear your mask. Be polite.”
- “Going to see Grandma? Keep her safe!”
- “We need to get eryone back to work. Wear a mask so you can go out and jumpstart the economy.”
- Literally anything that shows people why they care, not that you told them so.
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For the healing infrared to reach every part of your body, it’s best applied anally.
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Agreed. To convince people, you need spokespersons who look like them: maybe a little overweight, a little pasty, with a gun in one hand & a mask in the other. And celebrities/social media personalities that they will listen to. Reality TV stars? Country music singers? Colonel Sanders? How about a Pepe the Frog PSA?
ETA: And/or use humour, like that German PSA about becoming a national hero by staying home on the couch.
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No it is not. Like many folks say here in the thread this is echo chamber choir preaching .
Unfortunately, today, science = politics.
Convince them that covid makes their dicks fall off.
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I like this one from Canada.
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BB covered this in July seems to tick the boxes. And folks usually like looking at fire.
The act of putting a mask on is science, sure. But the act of “forgetting” a mask, or deliberately misusing a mask…
That is very much political. They’d have more luck giving them some kind of substitute symbol of rebellion, like making it a maga mask, or a confederate mask, or a swastika mask. Trumpsters should be able to make whatever whackadoodle point they want, without having to endanger others with covid.
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the fun part is after when we say nope, now masks are good, never not wearing one in public. time to push back on the cyberpunk present by covering our faces in the name of public health
Another way to depoliticize the science:
Circumvent regional biases (especially given that we just had an election). Present differences in communities with different levels of mask use, but do not say where those communities are. So it’s blind. So you don’t know who’s mayor, governor or senator or whether your friends live there.
City W - population density X - mask use (consistently measured) Y - Coronavirus Impact Z
City H - etc etc
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