Politics
In The Community
In 2024, voting campaigns have evolved greatly, to say the least. Creativity is now the name of the game and tongue-in-cheek humor is expertly leveraged to drive action. One example of that is Bop the Bigot, a revival of a viral game created in 2016 by Bazta Arpaio, an Arizona activist group, as part of a campaign to unseat Maricopa County’s Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Arpaio lost his re-election to Paul Penzone that year.
The game has now been updated for the current election cycle and relaunched by On Point Studios, with new features added to enable players to find out what’s on their ballot, confirm voter status, and register to vote.
Much like its former 2016 version, the game allows users to take out their political frustrations by virtually “bopping” GOP candidates in the head. It’s very similar to whack-a-mole, except the mole is replaced by former President Donald Trump, Ohio’s Senator J. D. Vance, and Kevin Roberts, President of the Heritage Foundation, which is spearheading Project 2025.
Promotional image provided by On Point Studios.
B. Loewe, Director of On Point Studios, came up with the concept for this game when working as the Communications Director at Bazta Arpaio in 2016, and is the executive producer of this revamped version. In the first version of the game, Bop the Bigot players used a chancla (flip flop) to “bop” the characters, tapping into Latino culture by leaning on the childhood experience of being set right by a flying chancla from a fed-up mother or grandmother.
This year, the chancla is replaced by a more current element, a green coconut, referencing Kamala Harris’ coconut tree meme. There are also side characters like “the couch,” cat ladies, and more coconuts. All references to jokes about Vice-Presidential candidate Vance, or insults Vance has made about women on the campaign trail.
Another new addition is that Harris’ laugh is immortalized as the game-over sound effect, an unexpected detail that adds even more humor and levity to the game.
Promotional image provided by On Point Studios.
Bop the Bigot, which is playable on desktop and mobile, is intended not just as a way to vent political frustrations, but also as a tool for activism and securing voter engagement.
For example, the game supports the work of Mexican Neidi Dominguez Zamorano, Founding Executive Director of the non-profit organization Organized Power in Numbers by using the “game over” screen to prompt players to donate to it and support their efforts.
Organized Power in Numbers is focused on empowering workers in the South and Southwest of the U.S. through collective action and comprehensive campaigns. Their mission is to create a large-scale movement that challenges the status quo and advocates for workers' rights, and racial and economic justice.
Currently, Dominguez Zamorano is leading worker outreach to 2 million working-class voters in the South and Southwest through doorknocking, texting, and calls with the help of local groups in North Carolina, Arizona, New Mexico, and more.
“We have been blown away by the enthusiastic reception for the video game. We knew we wanted to be part of its creative approach because our movement needs more fun and laughter. We need more ways to connect with nuestra gente so we can feel joy among all the absurdity we witness every day,” Dominguez Zamorano shared with Luz Media via email.
“Our people are gente trabajadora and we deserve to feel uplifted even in our toughest moments. We are deeply involved in the South and Southwest so we know what’s at stake in this election and we’re happy this can be a resource to mobilize, raise spirits, and get out the vote," she concluded.
Dominguez Zamorano is a committed activist for immigrants and workers' rights, known for her strategist skills and expertise. She played a key role in the campaign to win DACA and has also held roles in major campaigns, including as Deputy National States Director for Bernie Sanders' 2020 presidential campaign. In addition to her work with Organized Power in Numbers, Dominguez Zamorano is serving as a Senior Advisor to Mijente’s Fuera Trump Initiative.
Grassroots efforts like these have taken on new life in 2024, with Bop the Bigot adding to the larger, ongoing fight against political apathy and disinformation. Just as it did during the 2016 race, the video game uses humor to soften the serious task at hand—getting people to the polls.
"We want the game to be a fun and comical outlet for anyone who’s been insulted, frustrated, or harmed by Trump in the past and everyone who is ready to move forward as a country after election day," explained Loewe in a press release. "The proposals in Project 2025 and the beliefs of Trump and Vance aren’t just weird, they’re truly harmful. We wanted to give people a humorous and peaceful way to smack down their racism and sexism. We hope it makes people laugh and also feel empowered and motivated to get to the polls on or before election day."
With a mix of satire, sharp political critique, and nostalgia, the game is a call to action. The upcoming election, which is getting closer by the minute, has sparked fierce activism and creative yet grounded initiatives like these aim to ensure voters are engaged, especially young Latinos and disenfranchised groups.
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I am a big fan of the Pew Research Center, especially its work covering U.S. Latino communities with yummy data reports. If you know my work over the years, I tend to share a lot of Pew reports.
This morning, the Pew team is back at it with a new analysis regarding Latino identity and the labels we use and are imposed on us as a community.
Here is part of the study’s lede:
After years of public use by celebrities, leaders, media, academics and others, awareness of Latinx has grown among U.S. Latinos. Nearly half (47%) say they have heard of Latinx, up from 23% who said the same in 2019. Notably, awareness of Latinx has grown across nearly all major demographic subgroups of U.S. Latinos.
Still, about half of the population that Latinx is meant to describe has never heard of the term.
While awareness of the term has grown, the share who use Latinx to describe themselves is statistically unchanged: 4% of Latino adults say they have used Latinx to describe themselves, little changed from the 3% who said the same in 2019.
Here are some other findings from that study (the full report is here):
- 13% of lesbian, gay or bisexual Latinos say they have used Latinx to describe themselves.
- 9% of Afro-Latinos say they use Latinx
- 18% of Hispanic adults have heard of the term Latine, while 79% say they have not.
- A large majority of U.S. adults who trace their roots to Spain and Latin America continue to prefer the terms Hispanic or Latino when choosing a pan-ethnic term to describe themselves as a group (81%). Meanwhile, 15% have no preference and only 3% prefer Latinx or Latine. Yet about one-in-four who have used Latinx to describe themselves personally (24%) prefer Latinx or Latine to describe the Hispanic or Latino population overall.
This week I reached out to Mark Hugo Lopez, Pew’s director of race and ethnicity research at Pew Research Center. I asked Mark the following questions via email: “Why do this survey again? Aren't we past the labeling debate? What is the best case for repeating this survey this year after the last one?”
Here is the response Mark sent back to me (by the way, I am also a big fan of Mark’s):
“There are many reasons to repeat our survey. First, Latinx is used by almost 2 million people with Latino/Hispanic ancestry. While that is a small share of the Latino adult population, it is still a notable number of people. Second, Latinx continues to be a target of criticism—some even high profile. And it continues to have strong support from others,” Mark wrote.
“As you might expect, in an environment like that, awareness is up, though still nowhere near the levels for Hispanic and Latino. And despite this, the share of adult Latinos who use it is little changed. Third, we wanted to measure where awareness is for a recently emerged alternative—Latine. There, awareness is low—for now. Finally, labels and identity terms rise and fall as the way the public seeks to describe its changes. Look at how the Census Bureau’s use of racial identity terms has evolved over the nation’s history (link). And among Latinos, the debate about ‘Hispanic’ or ‘Latino/a’ hasn’t really gone away.”
What are your thoughts? Let me know by replying to this post.
