Lauryn Chavez | staff writer
On October 21 recognized congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, played the popular “Among Us” game on “Twitch” (a video live streaming service) to promote voting in this year’s 2020 election.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, also known as “AOC” is the youngest woman to ever serve in congress, taking office at 29. Running against the 10-term incumbent Joe Crowley and sending him out in 2018. She is now the congresswoman for New York’s 14th congressional district. She has gained popularity not only due to the great upset against Crowley, but because of her far left views and her advocacy for the working class.
The three and a half hour livestream included voting advice for this election, what resources are accessible if you need help with voting, and naturally the congresswoman playing the “Among Us” game with other popular streamers.
Although she only had a day to prepare for her stream, she and her team quickly acquired the needed equipment and were ready to stream at the promised time. Many popular “Among Us” streamers like Pokimane and Hasanabi reached out to AOC quickly through twitter and were thrilled about getting to stream with the congresswoman and supported her message to encourage everyone to vote. Promoting her live stream on twitter was a clever move by her considering her large following on that platform.
AOC began her stream with encouraging people to support the Biden-Harris ticket, and to vote blue. She definitely utilized her platform by sending this message since she primarily has younger supporters. And young people are notorious for not coming out to vote. She also emphasized the importance of having a voting plan. “What we’re seeing from data and what we’ve seen from past studies and past behavior is that if you actually sit down and make a plan to vote, people who do that are far far likelier to actually get their ballot cast,” Congresswoman AOC said. She encourages going to iwillvote.com because they help find your nearest polling location or drop-off, check if you’re registered, and provides other helpful information about voting this year.
This election year especially, we are seeing more young voters turn up to the polls. It’s estimated that 7 percent more of voting-eligible young people ages 18-29 came out to vote this year than in 2016. I believe AOC had some influence on this because her supporters fit the demographic and she’s been urging them all to vote, vote early, or vote by mail-in-ballot. In general a livestream with a popular game that appeal younger people is a clever and different way to promote voting. As social media and gaming becomes more popular with the world, politicians that are evolving and using these platforms to interact with their supporters generally benefit the candidates popularity with younger people that could vote now or in the near future.
As for the gaming part in the “Among Us” stream, this was one of AOC’s first times playing the popular game. But she is not unfamiliar with gaming as a whole, as she enjoys playing other games like “League of Legends” in her free time. She was fairly successful playing the “Among Us”, and caught on to the rules and the general works of the game quickly.
The game follows a crew of astronauts sent into outer space with the objective of trying to expose the “Imposter” crew mate while trying to finish their tasks around the spaceship. However the objective of the “Imposter” crewmate is to kill everyone on the ship before they complete their tasks. Congresswoman AOC and the other streamers enjoyed playing this investigative game with each other as they tried to detect the imposters in each round.
At the end of the stream AOC thanked the streamers she played with, and encouraged them to vote as well. All the streamers were eager to play with AOC again and were grateful for the opportunity to play with her. She concluded the stream by reiterating the importance of having a voting plan and making sure the people around you have a voting plan as well.
