Where Was My Pandering?

This past election season is just that: past. So I hate to dredge it up again, especially since I was so looking forward to it finally being over, but something really stood out from the past year’s election cycle other than the billions of dollars spent campaigning. To me it was the way percentages were used to describe so much of the population. Not the percentage in favor of Obama or Romney, or the percentage of women likely to vote one way compared to the percentage of Hispanics likely to vote the other way. We get those statistics every voting year. I’m talking about the way that percentages were used in place of words to describe who we are and how we live our lives.

The 1%, the 99%, the 47%, etc…

Even though mathematically speaking I have to be in there somewhere, I don’t feel like anybody was talking about me when they threw these figures around. I don’t feel like pundits are really speaking about me when they talk about white males, even though that’s what I am. I don’t feel addressed when they narrow it down to my specific age rage or income level or family size or really any demographic yet to be discussed during a typical election year.

That’s probably because I’m of a generation where we all feel like our specific wants and needs should be catered to personally. Or because I and the rest of my peers know that it’s lazy to think that people of the same race, age, family size and income level are going to necessarily think the same. (Lazy like the way I say my entire generation thinks that its needs should be catered to personally.  See what I did there? J)

Selfish or unselfish as my reasons may be, I don’t care. I only care about how it would feel to be personally pandered to in the press. I also wonder what kind of percentages would have to be used before I felt the pandering. Weirdly specific ones, no doubt.

“With the presidential race appearing so close in the polls, both candidates know that in the coming months they’ll need to gain a foothold among…

“The 13% who routinely injure themselves sleeping.”
“The 37% who have physically accosted someone for using the middle stall in a public restroom. (You expect me to use one right next to you, jackass?!)”
“The 89% that can’t believe there are people still not on Facebook.”
“The 20% of that 89% who hate everyone on Facebook.”
“The 4% that doesn’t think college athletes should be forced to play games that start at 9 p.m. or later because that’s too late for them to stay up.”
“The 45% that have texted at least three photos of their genitals.”
“The 10% of men who can’t grow a mustache quite as well as the rest of their beard.”
“The 16% who, during a story, ask questions that aren’t pertinent to the story.”
“The 27% who, despite their best efforts, are terrible at hiding the fact that they can’t remember your name.”
“The 12% who apply sunscreen just to check the mail.”
“The 42% who believe Apple wants to see the end of all human-to-human contact and convince us to use our electronic devices to fill the emotional, and probably even sexual, gaps in our lives.”
“The 2% who don’t play fantasy sports but still listen to fantasy sports-related podcasts.”
“The 6% who are confused by the notion that using our phones to type somehow makes our lives simpler and more convenient.”
“The 72% who’ve used the baggy shirt of a stranger in the grocery store to wipe off a particularly stubborn booger from their finger.”

Actually, I think I do know what it would feel like if some of these percentages became the target audience of our candidates. It would feel awesome because then I would know I was being talked to directly.