I’m a Democrat, I support John Kerry, and I support the concept of P.Diddy’s “Vote or Die” campaign. Nevertheless, I feel that the event on Wednesday night was an absolute disastrous waste of 3 hours of time and 3 days of hype.
For 2 1/2 hours, we sat, and many people stood, waiting for P.Diddy, Mary J. Blige, and Leonardo DiCaprio to come on stage. Instead, we sat and listened to a pompous Will Mega tell us that Snoop Dogg and Will Smith are coming. Of course, we soon found out he was playing a cruel joke, and then dealt with him giving out arbitrary awards to random politicians and community leaders.
We then had to deal with a bunch of different musical artists, some local, trying to get their 15 minutes of fame on our precious college student time. Eventually we tried to have our voice heard, which ironically was the whole point of the event, by booing the announcers every time they told us “our next act is…”
Instead of listening to our pleas, Will Mega decided to lecture us as if we were kindergarteners, “Someone told me he’s not going to come out on stage if you continue booing.”
Eventually, I noticed that the media began to leave. NBC and CBS both had anchors reporting from the press area, but after two hours of bullshit, they left. Several of the people sitting around me followed suit by leaving.
So when Diddy actually arrived, the beginning of “I’ll be missing you” started to play, and we figured he would come out and do a short performance for us. But for some reason, Will Mega decided to have the house lights come on. The song stopped, and out walked P.Diddy. He gave a short speech, which was OK. Then Mary J. Blige gave her speech, for which she couldn’t pronounce half the words. Diddy then ended it by giving another speech, and then walked out.
Oh, and Leonardo DiCaprio was a no-show.
Vote or Die makes me want to stay home on election day and cry about how inconsiderate and self-aggrandizing entertainers are today. Not really, but I can understand why “limousine liberals” get such a bad rap.
Scott Schmidt, Public Communications Major
scott.schmidt@temple.edu
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