Student Soapbox: Flyers, flyers, everywhere

**Literally thousands of one penny chews with your initials written on them in biro. A well designed banner or two with enough space for a reasoned argument as to why people should vote for you on it. A small bribe to some of the largest societies on campus. **

A space hopper on which you could tour all of the kitchens in Rootes, just to stand out from the crowd. Party poppers to release in lectures – you’re going to be interrupting them anyway. Or some cardboard, some scissors, and some spray paint.

What is it about that last combination that makes all potential SU candidates go wild? If I have to see one more flyer telling me to ‘Vote Jorge for Fab Sab’ on every third tree from Westwood to the middle of Birmingham, I will actually kill a man. Ok, not actually. I’ll write an angry article, and probably publish it in the Boar.

Oh. There’s one. Here we are, then.

What frustrates me so deeply about these ‘posters’ (to use a generous term for what is, generally, black, red or blue type face against white or black background) is that, by their multitude, they feasibly cannot work.

If I decide, after seeing a flyer on the non-existent point of the Koan, that I do want to vote for that candidate, I then need to find a computer. I can’t physically get to a computer without seeing 20 equally compelling flyers for the other 17 candidates for that that very same role, and being back to where I started.

{{ quote If your policies are good (or bad, for that matter) people will be talking about you anyway. }}

They don’t even increase awareness of who you are on campus. If your policies are good (or bad, for that matter) people will be talking about you anyway. People don’t talk about the flyers, unless they’re talking about how annoying it is that you can’t get within a three mile radius of the arts’ centre without being visually assaulted by them.

What does increase your account on campus is a solid manifesto, a good campaign video, and people on Facebook spamming newsfeeds. Sure, that’s annoying too, but I can click off of Facebook if I want to – I can’t feasibly not go onto campus – or, even better, I can click from Facebook onto the SU website and actually find out WHY to vote for you, not just that I should.

Honestly, candidates that spent their money on more than just black-and-white flyers printed on colour paper, cardboard, stencils and spray paint were far more likely to get my vote, and will continue to for the rest of my time here at university.

I don’t understand why, with the diversity of candidate, there seems to be only one campaign tactic.