Ace Watkins, described as a joker surfaced on Twitter earlier in the week and claimed that he is aspiring to be, as he describes it, “ the first gamer president” in the 2020 presidential race. A man who had over 2000 followers within after some time had a spike of up to 40000 followers. This number of followers is much greater than that of some of the actual candidates.
The video game humor site (Hard Drive) depicts the Watkins character played by actor and comedian Phil Jamesson. The editors of this site include; Andy Holt, Jeremy Kaplowitz, Kevin Flynn, Matt Saincome and M.J Amory. With the many candidates vying for this seat, the joker’s hunt seems vibrant at this particular moment when there is political tension.
Speaking with the media company, The Daily Dot, the Ace team feels like this is the right time for the character Ace despite the politics and gaming intersection. Andy Holt, one of the editors, explains the character Ace was created after they were shown that people love the satirical nature that comes with a politics and gaming mix. M.J Amory brings up the point that with this satirical political joke, Trump wasn’t in any of it but at least it exists under Donald Trump’s administration.
Ace reminds people of how Washington treats gamers as second options and ignoring their special skills since more white male candidates who were featured in the first round debate made ridiculous identity claims and Ace wanted to put a stop to it. Efforts of both Rep Eric Swalwell and Mayor Pete Buttigieg to get a youth vote have been unsuccessful as both their arguments do not seem to appeal to anyone.
Ace seems to have strikingly appealing strategies in winning the big seat. In what can be considered the easiest ways to understand this, Ace seems to have plans and strategies that appeal more to the voter, as they can be considered quite friendly and involving of the general public in the major decision-making processes of government.
Remember Andrew Yang? We all do. He is the young billionaire philanthropist who offered $,1,000 for twelve months to a random twitter follower, in a bid to describe to the voters what it would be like to have the Universal Basic Income strategy applied to every single adult. Well, Andrew Yang seems to share in this intriguing way of amassing the voter numbers in more ways than one, and so does the first-ever gamer candidate; Ace Watkins, even though Andrew Yang is thought to be great at memes more than at games.
Even though he has some similarities with other candidates in the race, Ace seems to have a striking resemblance to the candidate, Andrew Yang. Both want to make video games legal and institute UBV. Both their proposals too like the American Mall Act and empowering MMA fighters feel gamer-friendly.
Ace’s team though claims that Ace is not comparable to any other candidate and that he barely contrasts himself with the others since his league is way up according to Flynn. Jamesson is keen to point out about Yang being good at memes rather than games.
In Silicon Valley, there is trending skeptical freedom among males that has become a culture among gamers and has grown in recent years. We have Yang, Gawker, and Palantir just to name a few who are all incarnations of this stance. Ace editors refuse to be associated with this arguing that this ideology is more of a decree. The community perceives video game fans as bad elements according to Flynn and that the dominant mental associations with gaming are because the groups that take gaming as a hobby and the problematic ones are overlapping.
Today’s generation has more ways through which people can attract their attention. First, free giveaways seem to work the magic. We all tend to be drawn to free things, free money, and generally free stuff. Secondly, any kinds of the game seem to attract larger crowds than before. Even if it is considered a waste of loads of time, many people look at gaming as a way of relaxing and releasing stress. So, as much as the Ace team thinks Ace can never be comparable to Andrew Yang, they both advocate for things that appeal to large crowds of voters.
Video games have become a new way for troublesome political groups to capture attention more as compared to impacting politics as Holt believes and that Ace together with Hard Drive could be the solution.
Armory thinks that gaming should not be only exclusive to the supporters who got to it first because politics can get attached to any medium. It will, then, not come as a surprise, that voters of both Andrew Yang and Ace Watkins be spoilt for a choice for their candidate.
The progressives and socialists, competing to gain the loyalty of the still-standing young gamers have seen Twitch politics on the left wing to rise. Podcasts have launched streams and the famous people on Twitch are gaining more followers and launching streams. Holt believes that the Hard Drive team only needs the right platform since they have the numbers and since they are left-leaning, Twitch could be the place where leftist gaming culture could start since it is open.
Twitch is the basis of comedy and since they have the audience, many comedians will flow in and therefore Hard Drive with the Chapo and Struggle Session and Dough Boys are headed for Twitch. As it feels, Ace is closer to reality and therefore jokes on gamers politics is important and as Ace jokes about how predestined a gamer president is.
This is one of the most interesting presidential strategies ever to be undertaken. It may have attracted a lot of criticism, but at least it has caught the waves of the media, and that alone is enough possibility that it will be considered as people head out to vote at the right time.