99 bottles of beer on the wall 99 bottles of beer

— Drunk Diane Sawyer (@DrnkDianeSawyer) November 7, 2012

im not drunk u gusys r dunk — Drunk Diane Sawyer (@DrnkDianeSawyer) November 7, 2012

While tiredness rather than tippling likely caused Sawyer’s condition, the Twitter account provided a fun way to record a micro-meme that sprung up on election night. Sawyer wasn’t the only source of fun. Nate Silver, whose 538 blog overshadowed his employer The New York Times on election night, became a target too. Here’s how a satirist cleverly mocked the pollster’s portentousness and the public’s sudden fixation with data driven reporting:

Now is the nowcast of our forecasts, made glorious projection by this mean of polls.

— Nate Silver 2.0 (@fivethirtynate) November 6, 2012

I grasp from the beak of a silver dove a laurel wreath of finely-wrought permutations. The Signal has come at last.

— Nate Silver 2.0 (@fivethirtynate) November 7, 2012

Drunk Diane and fake Nate are fleeting by their nature — they cause a chuckle and then vanish in days or months. But one day they may also carry historical significance in the same way that newspaper cartoons serve as a vital tool for political scholars. Consider how well these spoof tweets sum up a central narrative of the 2012 election — the Republicans lost because they couldn’t broaden their demographic base:

We were going to retake the Senate, but Republicans have a way of shutting that whole process down. #Akin #Mourdock #election2012

— Willard Mitt Romney (@MlTTR0MNEY) November 7, 2012

Wait! Wait! Stop everything! We found the Whitey Tape!! #4moreyears

— Willard Mitt Romney (@MlTTR0MNEY) November 7, 2012

(Image by  jbor via Shutterstock)

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Survey: How apps can solve photo management
• Sector RoadMap: Social customer service in 2013
• Sector RoadMap: Content personalization in 2013

In a case filed in Florida federal court, the maker of a “Joustin Beaver” app wants the court to declare it has the free speech right to sell its beaver game in the iPhone store.

The game in question sells for 99 cents on iTunes and features a mop-topped beaver who navigates river obstacles. The critter in question has a similar name and vague physical likeness to the “Baby, Baby” singer:

Last week, reports surfaced that Justin Bieber’s managers were threatening to sue the app makers for using his likeness without permission. App maker RC3 appears to have sued first in an attempt to get the court to declare that its free speech rights trump Bieber’s trademark rights. Here are some excerpts from the suit:

The beaver knocks “Phot-Hogs” that are attempting to take his photograph into the river with his lance. The beaver also signs “Otter-Graphs.” The beaver must also dodge the “whirlpool of success” which will lead beaver out of control

…multiple conversations took place during February of 2012. [RC3] attempted to explain .. that the App was protected under the FIrst Amendment of the Constitution of the United States

Ordinarily, celebrities and famous brands can exercise strong control over how their names are used. But there is an exception in the case of an obvious parody where there is no risk that consumers will be confused. Facebook, for instance, sued a site called Lamebook but then quietly settled the case after Lamebook argued free speech.

These type of questions give rise to questions of whether the defendants are clever parody artists or simply people looking to make a quick buck when a celebrity conflict gives them a wave of publicity.

Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) doesn’t say how times a given app has been downloaded, but the iPhone version “Joustin Beaver” had been rated 86 times as of Monday. The app is also available on the iPad.

As for Justin Bieber’s other legal troubles, those appear to have been cleared up after the troubled 20-year-old who claimed to have taken his virginity had her paternity suit thrown out of court.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Why mobile must be part of the shopping experience
• What to watch in mobile in 2013
• Mobile 2012 and beyond

The Mapple Store bears an uncanny resemblance to the 5th Avenue Apple Store, with the exception of being in Springfield’s Mall and not New York City. Lisa is amazed at the MyPods, MyPhones, and the Braniac Bar, where smug customer service representatives deal with Comic Book Guy’s complaints about the latest Mapple OS. Homer is intrigued by the dream-fueled, imagination-powered MyCube, whose function isn’t entirely clear, and which glows to show you that it’s not on.

The brief Mapple segment manages to deal pretty harshly with the Apple faithful, positioning the company’s customers as a slavish bunch who’re willing to go to any lengths to support and defend their favorite fruit-logoed institution. The Mapple store clientele quickly gathers to hear the words of their precious leader, Chief Imaginative Officer Steve Mobs, when it’s announced that he has an amazing surprise to unveil. Bart intervenes here, using the store’s P.A. system to alter the C.I.O’s message. According to Bart-as-Mobs, each Myphone costs $8 to make and is sold for $500, and the false rivalry between Microsoft and Apple is just a clever ruse to encourage adamant, lucrative partisan fanboy-ism.

I haven’t gone into explicit detail, since I think it’s worth checking out for yourselves. Of course, since it’s The Simpsons, things are exaggerated for the sake of humor, but there’s definitely a kernel of truth underlying all that cynicism. I had a special, “guilty-as-charged” moment when Mapple customers simultaneously opened their wallets at the mere mention by Mobs of a “life-changing” announcement. If I catch so much as a whiff of a new Apple product, I get out the budget and start making some room.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• The Internet of Things: What It Is, Why It Matters
• Why iPad 2 Will Lead Consumers Into the Post-PC Era
• Connected consumer first-quarter 2013: Analysis and outlook

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Survey: How apps can solve photo management
• Social networks will displace business processes, not socialize them
• Sector RoadMap: Social customer service in 2013

Show me a circa-2008 satiric political web video, and I’ll show you well-meaning liberal media makers who, more likely than not, haven’t had much contact with real people (as in, not TV talking heads or vitriolic blog commenters) who represent the opposite side of the political spectrum and almost certainly have never seriously considered even a moderate Republican point of view as potentially legitimate.

This is something I think we all know about the current new media landscape, and so when confronting new works of political media art, much of the work of analysis is automatic. It’s a video about Obama? It’s probably an unquestioning celebration of style over substance. It’s a video about McCain? It’s probably kitsch-wrapped critique.

But there’s something that seems just a little bit more complex about Braxton Price: The Price of Freedom. Produced by Titan.tv and described as a “partly scripted/mostly improvised single-camera political comedy show,” Braxton stars creator Aaron Nauta as a young robo-Republican hired by the fictional National Federation of Young Republicans to host a web show-within-the show “that makes conservative ideals cool again — and also debunks loony liberal logic.”

So far two full episodes of Braxton Price have been posted; each is divided into four or five short segments, so there are ten clips in total. The series really gets interesting — and funny — in the second clip, in which Braxton holds auditions for a “liberal mole” who can get his one-man Republican propaganda outfit “in and out of hostile liberal neighborhoods safely.” As a character, Braxton is a total cartoon, but refreshingly, he’s not a right-wing bull in a sensible liberal china shop — the other side is usually painted as potentially just as ridiculous.

A one-off clip works best when it’s staccato, a series of punctuation marks hammering home the same joke in different ways, but for a series to remain engaging, even a comedy series, characters need to change. Beginning in the third clip, as he starts interacting regularly with both his “treasurer” Malkin and Jed the liberal, Braxton actually starts to show some character depth. I’m a bit worried the Braxton crew will run out of jokes, but at least they’re compensating for the limited scope of their material by creating semi-real-seeming relationships between characters.

It’s still fundamentally a liberally-minded jab at the Right’s seeming inability to play on the Left-dominated web video field. But at the very least, Braxton Price forces conflict between conservative stereotypes and liberal ones, and when that works the comic friction is unusual enough to cover for when the character comedy goes way, way too broad (see most of the most recent clip, particularly the “quit tasing me bro” retread).

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Tech companies have found their own SOPA box
• Report: The Connected TV Marketplace
• By The Numbers: Budget Analysis of a Web Series

I know the jury’s still out as to whether or not the Republican candidate has the pop cultural savvy to be our commander in chief (Was that whole “Heidi Montag is a talented actress” comment made out of utter cluelessness, or was it a knowing wink at the construction of her pseudo-reality show, The Hills?) but McCain seems smart enough to generally play away from his known weaknesses.

Plus, It’s Raining McCain simply looked too good. From the hundreds of little McCains that rained on the Girls to a green-screen gaffe caused by a certain costume, the video’s very badness had a rhythm to it that was clearly intentional. But if any doubt remains that McCain Girls is something between pure parody and Obama Girl-style, cable news-baiting performance art, the Girls’ latest video should clear that up.

Here Comes McCain Again, set to the tune of “Here Comes The Rain Again” by the Eurythmics, features the same three women who appeared in It’s Raining McCain, none of whom are credited by name. On the left, there’s the older white woman, who seems enthusiastic yet befuddled and who, in both clips, is the Girl most likely to fumble her lines or choreography. On the far right, there’s a sexy young thing who resembles Obama Girl, but OG’s winking eye twinkle is replaced by the vacant stare of Audrina Partridge. And in the middle is a largish black woman, indisputably the most confident and compelling of the McCain Girls (potentially even a break-out star?). It’s a model of demographic diversity — which, in the context of the McCain campaign, seems to be a joke in itself.

The biggest difference between the first video and the second — beyond the fact that the first could be found in YouTube’s “News and Politics” section, while the second was categorized as “Comedy” — is that in Here Comes McCain Again, the central figure steps away from the pack to become a protagonist, confronting the floating specter of a miniaturized McCain in a darkened countryside. Of the three actresses, she’s clearly the one who is the most in on/the most comprehending of the joke; last week, she appeared in this video, an ostensible response to McCain Girls haters, which seems more like an effort to maintain the illusion that McCain Girls is a “real” phenomenon, pushed by three genuinely passionate McCain supporters.

I hate to burst anyone’s bubble, but it’s not. Two weeks ago, I saw comedian Jon Benjamin at Brooklyn’s Union Hall, where he did an entire set about It’s Raining McCain, which he said he produced in conjunction with the Huffington Post’s 23/6 comedy site. Although Benjamin didn’t directly address why the video had been placed on YouTube instead of 23/6, I walked away from the show with the impression that it was done to maintain an ambiguity about where the video came from and whether or not the girls themselves were “real.” (For the record, Benjamin did say the “Girls” were found on Craig’s List, and indicated that, at least on the first clip, they were not given any sort of creative control).

This Washington Post blog entry debating the derivation of the clip is the only one I’ve seen pointing towards the 23/6 connection. Interestingly, that post also notes that the clip was virtually ignored on YouTube until the Huffington Post promoted it. That’s the funny thing about today’s YouTube climate: With the average viewer stunned into passive consumption by the sheer deluge of content, it’s fair to assume that if you’ve even heard of a video, a powerful entity has an interest in its promotion.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Frenemy mine: The pros and cons of social partnerships for online media companies
• How consumer media will change in 2013
• What the shift to the cloud means for the future EPG