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Love Gov: From First Date to Mandate
Andrew Breitbart famously said that “politics is downstream of culture.” Many of us on the center-right have enthusiastically spread this message without, you know, actually doing anything to change pop culture. Then when liberty-minded creatives produce “conservative” comedy, music or cinema, the same critics ridicule it as insufferably lame. (But let’s be honest: much of it is.)
A new series of videos created by the Oakland-based Independent Institute and Austin-based Emergent Order hits the sweet spot, delivering a solid message with great writing, acting and production. “Love Gov” turns the folly, cost, and intrusiveness of government into the character of Scott “Gov” Govinsky and his endless efforts to “help” the women in his life. Better still, it’s actually funny.
“Love Gov is a way to help anyone, especially Millennials, understand the federal government’s ever-expanding reach into personal lives,” says David J. Theroux, Founder and President of Independent Institute. “It’s a lighthearted approach to reach audiences on a personal level, and inspire them to learn more and take action.”
The YouTube series connects with a mobile app called MyGovCost, which enables users to estimate their lifetime federal tax liability and amounts that users would have earned had their federal taxes been instead privately invested and earned a modest six percent return. But viewers don’t have to punch numbers into an app. Laughing along with the videos will provide the limited government message they need to hear.
Here’s episode one; give it a spin.
Published in Culture, Entertainment
Thanks for pointing this out, Jon!
Sweet! Good post. Very funny.
@LoveGov was Bill Clinton’s original Twitter handle.
We have four kids in higher education right now (yikes!). Fortunately, they are on to the “free money” con, and are trying to avoid the temptation as much as possible.
This episode is great, Jon! I’m off to watch the others.
Excellent! Pitch perfect!
We need to out create them and quit complaining. Remy does a great job at Reason.
Oh that’s terrific!
And I completely agree, most stuff we get is pretty lame but this hits the spot.
I have often thought it would be fun and a lot of hard work to make a 10 minute Conservative podcast skit/drama/sitcom. The key would be to have interesting characters and not be heavy handed with the politics. Also to leave each episode with a cliff hanger. How does one get the writing and the voices? Oh, and the coffee cups?
Conservatives in Austin? That’s as rare as shaved legs in Book People on 6th and Lamar.
Very good. Thanks for letting us know. Mine is the 100th like on #2.
Great job.
I’d be done watching them already, except in #5 there is this exchange:
“I’m just scanning them — for keywords.”
“What keywords?”
“Well, here’s a list of them.”
OK, maybe I’m done laughing now and can finish.
I just watched the first episode; unbelievably good. It’s like the very best Saturday night live skits only tethered to reality.
One reason SNL is no longer funny is that it refused to poke fun of one of the great sources of absurdist humor in this world: liberalism. Everything is fodder for the liberal humor machine except liberalism.
BTW, those clips are awfully white. That’s OK if you’re trying to appeal to the people of Vermont, I suppose.