[vimeo http://vimeo.com/193365646]

There have been three very memorable election nights for me – 2008, 2012, and 2016. In 2008, I voted for the first time and I got to witness something truly incredible in my first year of college alongside my new friends. In 2012, I did it again, but this time the celebration was toned down because – you know, we graduated from college already and we were comfortable. In 2016, we got over confident. I almost didn’t vote because I was not registered in the state of California to do so. Tommy made sure that we were going to make that happen though. He accompanied me to the polls (my first time ever!) and he watched me finish casting my ballot in less than a minute (something that I was proud of and that I had prepped for!) Internally, I thought I wouldn’t have anything to worry about. When I got home after work that day, I thought I would be feeling the way I did in 2012 – relaxing on my couch, watching the results, and hopefully having a silent celebration by myself. I felt like I had that “500 Days of Summer” Reality vs. Expectations moment and it broke me. I will never forget how I felt that evening of the election and the sinking feeling I had the next morning when I dragged myself into work.

It was hard to watch this short film by Ryan Scafuro documenting a group of people watching the election results come in. I didn’t want to relive this day again, but it brought me solace knowing that there were people – like me – feeling the way that I did watching the results. Not all of these feelings though resonated with me. There are people in this film that disagreed with my views and I remember watching this and trying my hardest to just understand. I was left with one question. Why do we root for humor or for something that is considered a joke in serious matters like this one? There’s a difference between that and rooting for the underdog that I think people get confused by.

Thank you Herman for sharing this!