By VinnieF
I could sum up my review of the Sarah Palin Channel by the following:
- This is just another cheap grifting attempt of Sarah's.
- The content is low-level meat for her Tea Party-loving fans.
- There are some rather crazy people who think Sarah is America's finest leader.
In writing about Sarah I find myself wanting to say "I find it incredibly narcissistic that ...". This is certainly no exception. The fact that she thinks people should have to pay ten bucks a month to hear her ramblings is incredibly narcissistic. The fact that she thinks people should hear all about the boring details of her family is incredibly narcissistic. The fact that she still presents herself as some major political player is incredibly narcissistic. I think you get the point.
Simply Another Grifting Endeavor
Fortunately, Sarah's grifting power has significantly faded. Her last book was a flop. Her Fox News appearances are getting rarer and rarer. While "Amazing America" will continue, her role is rather minor and not the lucrative deal that Sarah Palin's Alaska was.
So, welcome to the Sarah Palin 'Channel' where you spend ten bucks a month to hear about everything Palin. Obviously, her reach is dwindling. The only people who will pay for this are her truly devoted fans.
Sarah's opening video talks about how this new site will finally allow all of the Palinbots to join together in some new found, Sarah-driven community. Of course, she could do all of this without them having to pay. But no, if you want Sarah to pretend to care about you and your views, you'll have to pay her for the privilege.
It's All About Sarah
The opening video also brags about how this is supposed to be some innovative, interactive site where you, the Palin devotee, gets to be a real part of it. However, it's very clear that the site is all about Sarah, her family and her thoughts on things. There are no investigative reporters of any kind. The initial video talked about 'special guests' but after several weeks there have been none. Many of the videos brag heavily about her former accomplishments. For example, the one that portends to talk about how her PAC selects candidates to endorse, brags profusely about the PAC's supposed successes and is effectively an advertisement for her PAC.
She has had a few videos where she actually answers questions from the website trying to give the impression that one can participate. Oh what a thrill it would be to have Sarah read your question out loud in one of her videos. Not surprisingly, the selected questions are all softballs and most of them are ones about her favorite subject - Sarah. The first question of all is whether she's going to run for President. (She gives the "won't close any doors" answer. More on this below.) There are some truly inane questions such as why Piper wears number 22 when playing basketball and does she prefer Eddie Van Halen or Sammy Hagar. Seriously! Recently, a block was added near the top of the page with links to all of her books just in case you haven't bought them all yet.
For at least a week now she's had a link up asking users to submit their own videos. None of these have yet been published. Knowing who her fans are, my guess is they simply haven't received any that don't reveal the true craziness of her fans.
Her family also figures prominently as if they matter at all. Mom contributes deep thought with "Sally's Word of the Day" (which doesn't even come every day). A link to Bristol's blog gets prime placement every day. She's included Trig in a number of videos. In some he's sitting besides her while she talks to the camera. In a video about little league star Mo'ne Davis, Sarah ends up talking more about her own kids sports endeavors than she talks about Mo'ne.
It appears that part of the appeal to her fans is that you actually get an inside look at her family. You can filter her videos on the following four categories: America, Obama, Immigration and "Palin Family". There are already 14 videos in this last category. It really reeks of typical celebrity adulation as opposed to any serious political thinking.
There's a video (the "First Video") of her playing with their new dog. The poor quality of the video makes it hard to hear what little she's saying. For the most part she's just playing with the dog and showing it can respond to some basic commands. While the dog is supposed to be for Trig, we don't see him playing with it at all. While I'm a huge Obama fan, I have absolutely no interest in watching him or his family members playing with their dog.
A Lazy Effort
I'm convinced that Sarah is rather lazy by nature. Remember that she hired a City Manager in Wasilla to do much of the work Sarah was supposed to do as Mayor. Remember the "Where's Sarah" buttons were made before she was selected as McCain's VP nominee as people wondered where their governor was.
For this effort, she knows that she's appealing to her base so there's no need to excel. And indeed she doesn't.
The sheer amount of content is pretty small considering this is a 'channel'. For the two week period ending Thursday, August 28, only 19 videos were made. The total amount of published video footage averages 7 minutes and 30 seconds per day. The videos are getting shorter and shorter with the five videos from the week of August 25 averaging only 2 minutes and 28 seconds each. Sorry, the Word or Image of the day doesn't count as 'content'. By comparison, the Blaze, another pay site, had 40 stories published on Tuesday, August 27 alone. They have also had over 17 videos for the week of August 25.
The quality of her videos is quite amateur and getting worse. It's usually just Sarah rambling into a microphone, largely from a scenic location in her home along the lake. Her yapping face is interspersed with moving pictures that are inserted based on what she says. For example, if she mentions the Constitution they might show a rolling picture of the Constitution. My hunch is that she sends the raw footage off to some video editor who adds the pictures even though this is pretty basic video editing.
While some of the earlier videos appeared to have a somewhat cohesive script, that's changed in the last several weeks. The standard now appears to be that she just goes off with the word salad that we know so well. It's really embarrassing.
The Videos
Let's look at a few of the specific videos.
Richard Dawkins (link to video)
Of course, Sarah will use Trig as a political prop any time she can. So when a dreaded atheist makes a crass comment on Down's Syndrome babies, Sarah has to brag that she didn't abort Trig. This was her chance to make a profound statement on the subject. Instead we get this:
"Recently the world's most famous atheist, Richard Dawkins, he told a woman on Twitter that it was immoral to give birth to a baby with Down's syndrome. He said, and I quote 'Abort it and try again. It would be immoral to bring it into the world [if you have the choice].' The 'it' is a beautiful and innocent life that happens to have just one extra chromosome."
"Well, Mr. Dawkins, what a cold hard world you must live in to say such a thing. I truly feel sorry for you. Mr. Dawkins, I'd let you meet my son. If you promise to open your mind, your eyes, and your heart to a new kind of absolute (beauty?). But in my request for you to be tolerant, I'd have to warn Trig that you must be tolerant too (?) because he'd probably look at you as if you were kind of awkward. I'll make sure that he's polite though."
"And, Mr. atheist, my son and every child, every adult like him, they're winners. They do win! You see, they've got more chromosomes than you."
Yes, that's the sum total of what she had to say on this. Very deep!
Sarah's Ice Bucket Challenge (link to video)
This is supposed to be a joke. It's a copy of Patrick Stewart's challenge. She rambles on about how she's too old and 'prim and proper' to actually do the challenge the normal way. It's a slow and boring presentation. She then daintily prepares a glass with ice and a Diet Dr. Pepper, and proceeds to drink it as if that's her challenge.
She then challenges Hillary Clinton and John McCain. Odd that she would put the two in the same request. I'm sure Hillary really feels the need to respond. NOT!
Then, as if it's some big surprise, someone dumps a bucket from off camera. There was clearly no ice in the bucket. It was probably warm water. She then runs off screen not to be seen again. I guess she really is too 'prim and proper' to actually show herself after being dumped on. (Maybe a wig fell off. I don't know.)
Looking at Matt Damon's toilet water challenge and this one shows the contrast between a real political activist vs. a woman who's nothing but a grifter.
It's All the Same Jihad (link to video)
Time to discuss a really deep issue. Not surprisingly, her solution is simply to bomb ISIS.
"... It's all one and the same. They all have the same mission. Different name, same mission. Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Hamas. They're completely united in their hatred of Christians and Jews in their mission to kill us all, in their quest to destroy the countries that they hate, Israel, and the United States. We need to wake up. Come on, we can't reason with Jihadists. Come on Barack. We can't negotiate with them. We can only defeat them. And we must. Who can defeat them? The United States military."
Yes, Sarah is simply throwing red meat to her war-loving, Obama-hating base. They cheer along with their Fox-based ignorance in the comments:
"What needs to be exposed is the Obama's Admin. complicity - being in cahoots with the Muslim Brotherhood terrorists to help them accomplish the NWO goal here ..."
"You Know some said the the Weapons of Mass Destruction that weren't found in Iraq when Saddam was the leader were actually moved to Syria."
"I think so, too. He [Obama] is sold out to our enemies."
"B. Hussein is a Muslim sympathizer, and possibly even a closet Muslim."
"Obama is a Sunni & 100% with them"
"Hussein 0Zero is a Hater. A Hater of Israel AND! the United States of America. That's right!"
The Anniversary of Her Being Selected as the VP Nominee (link to video)
Remember what I said earlier about hitting new heights of narcisstic behavior. Yeah, this is one of those.
As noted, most of her recent videos are 2-3 minutes long. This one is over 22 minutes. You'd think one would say something new, something deep in that much time. Of course, you'd be wrong.
The first 15 minutes is a rather slow-paced recounting of the story of her getting the nomination. Obviously, this was the biggest event of her life. But we all know the story already and there's really nothing new here. Of course, there's a lengthy discussion of how the teleprompter failed as she was giving her big speech. So why spend so much time on this?
"It was the night that my life changed and I think it's safe to say much of the political landscape changed."
Really?! She's really saying that there was a significant change in the 'political landscape' as a result of her being nominated. Let's look at what actually took place in the country at the time. Obama was ahead in the polls, there was a McCain bump from the Palin selection, the bump faded within a couple of weeks, and Obama then took over even stronger than before. Obama won dominantly in 2008. Is she saying her nomination led to the 'landscape' of Obama winning the Presidency? Twice? If that's really the case, I guess we should thank her.
She then asks what's changed since then. She jumps into the "criticize Obama" section which can be found in most of her videos. For this one, she cherry picks some economic numbers to make it look like things have been horrible under Obama. It never hurts to throw in something about food stamps too for racist effect. Oddly, at one point the moving picture is of a stock market ticker. I guess mentioning the radical rise in the market during Obama's regime wouldn't be appropriate.
The things that haven't changed? Her core team hasn't changed. She mentions a few people but fails to mention just how the team is still together. That at least four of them now have full time wages working for Sarah PAC and many others get lavish 'consulting' fees.
Finally, she has to brag about her great family and how all of the attacks haven't fazed her at all. She says is too focused on other families with real hardships that makes her blind to 'sticks and stones'. Did I mention that I find all this self-adulation rather narcissistic?
How Much More Of This Do We Have To Take?!
I think most of us Po'Gaters have been groaning as Sarah's 15 minutes continues to linger on. We can take some solace in the fact that it's fading even if the pace is agonizingly slow. While I'm sure she'll be around much longer to some extent, I honestly believe this is her last hurrah.
First of all, this isn't much of a hurrah. The press related to the release of the channel was pretty harsh. Even conservatives aren't saying much about it. Judging by the number of comments, there aren't many people subscribing. Again, using the two week period from August 15th through August 28th, there were a total of 1,110 comments. This averages about 70 comments per article or 80 comments per day. (Oddly, three articles have no comments.) C4P, on the other hand averages over 500 comments per day. However, there is much less back and forth on the Sarah Palin Channel.
One key difference I see is that the C4P crowd is somewhat reluctant on the subject of Sarah running for President. Yes, there are definitely nuts there thinking she'll run but I've seen many argue a modicum of common sense on this issue. The C4P site even has a disclaimer saying that they're for Sarah as Sarah not because of her being a possible candidate. Believe it or not, the commenters on the Sarah Palin Channel are even more deluded in thinking that Sarah will run for President in 2016.
I've written before that Sarah uses her potential candidacy as a tease. I think this is now accepted as fact by most of us. For the rabid Palin fan, the thought of her running for President is all they got. Given the 2012 election timetable, Sarah will likely announce that she's not running in 2016 about September of 2015. My prediction is that the Sarah Palin Channel will die soon after that.
However, there's also a strong possibility that Sarah will grow tired of spewing her nonsense to her fans well before then. She is indeed a quitter. She'd end up blaming Obama for it.
Postscript
I'm trying to finish up this article and the crazy videos just keep coming. They are seriously getting worse by the week. It continues to devolve to the level of celebrity idolatry (i.e. come see what I eat for breakfast) or tired old talking points. I just have to comment on one of her latest ones. It's a "behind the scenes", seven minute video that says nothing. It's so unprofessional it isn't funny. The whole premise is that two tourists from New Jersey showed up at the house and Todd told them to come on in and meet Sarah. They become the stars of the video. (If this is her first 'special guest' they're certainly not very special.) I'm not clear if she's trying to tell her fans that they should just drop by and she might put them on their own video or what. Just plain weird.
Ugh! I'm sick to death of watching her videos. Objectively, they're truly nauseating and boring. To think that this woman was a VP nominee is shocking!
Also, too, there's now a new "Sarah Palin Channel" on YouTube. The channel consists of a seemingly random selection of several videos uploaded in the last few days. This is obviously another attempt to give away the product hoping people will actually like it. Given the small number of views, and the heretofore mentioned poor quality of the videos, I doubt it will work.
Bonus
In the description of one of her uploaded videos titled "Vote them out", it is explained that Sarah fights against "Democrats" as well as "Republicans", because both belong in her opinion to the "permanent political class in DC". Surely the GOP has taken note.
Screenshot:
