Two million eyes, one million laughs – all at Stephen Harper’s expense.
A hilarious website with video spoofs, featuring the hardened Conservative warrior wearing a fuzzy sweater and snuggling an adorable kitten, launched and crashed Wednesday within hours due to overwhelming popularity.
The incongruous image – originally a photograph arguably crafted with keen attention to political optics – served as inspiration for a crew of Vancouver comedians and digital artists who launched www.shitharperdid.com that reached the viral milestone of one million hits.
“It was a half-cooked way to become relatable to this entire nation,” said site programmer Cam Dales, a new Vancouverite whose parents live in Harper’s Calgary riding. “It was just so crazy to see this photo (of Harper snuggling a kitten). We figured we would draw that thing and stick it up.”
The site also features videos of hipsters encouraging young people to not only vote, but to vote against Harper.
The message resonated with the online community as sarcastic cracks on Harper’s record were backed by links to news websites as proof of each dig.
The barbs spread like wildfire on social networking sites generating 14,000 Facebook ‘likes’ in a span of eight hours.
For Dales and his creative partner, Sean Devlin, the website serves as a counter to Harper’s own foray into the online world, which includes a staged duet with a young Winnipeg girl whose Lady Gaga tribute video attracted more than 29 million views.
“It freaks me out,” Devlin said of the YoutTube video “These young people can’t vote but somehow it’s acceptable to use them for political gain.”
Dales claims he’s non-partisan and an undecided voter while Devlin admits he once held membership for the NDP.
With four videos already online and on YouTube, the pair plan to release eight more anti-Harper messages during the final weeks of the federal campaign.
Is there chance for a site targeting an opposition leader?
“If it’s warranted, it should appear,” Dales said. “People in political office should be held accountable.”
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Sketch
- Reporter
- Dharm Makwana currently serves as a web editor at The Province, British Columbia's best read daily newspaper. For more than four years he wrote on issues affecting the Lower Mainland for the province's third largest daily newspaper Vancouver 24 hours. Before arriving in Vancouver in January 2007, Dharm won the John Lott Scholarship for outstanding journalism at Centennial College. Since then Dharm has developed an interest in municipal and provincial politics, crime and policing and social issues including immigration, prostitution and trafficking. He is currently working on a series of stories involving Vancouver's sex workers.
Wisdom
I don't want to be that guy mumbling into his drink at a bar.
-Bill Murray
-Bill Murray