Filed at 6:11 a.m. ET
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- From YouTube to Flickr, from Facebook to Twitter, images and sentiments from celebrations across the nation flooded
into the Internet's media-sharing sites, just moments after Barack
Obama clinched the presidential election.
Some were simple photos of TV screens claiming the Democrat's win. Others
were unfiltered images of jubilant celebrations captured immediately after polls
closed Tuesday on the West Coast, when Obama was declared the
president-elect.
And while crowds gathered at public rallies and millions of others simply
glued themselves to television news coverage, many spent election night online
-- and they had plenty of company. Students at Navarro College posted a video of
themselves reacting -- screaming, jumping up and down, more screaming -- to
Obama's win. Another YouTuber uploaded his toast to Obama: He gulped a 2-liter
bottle of soda.
Others used the moment to joke. One wig-clad man posted a YouTube video
reminiscent of Chris Crocker's infamous Britney
Spears rant, instead shouting ''Leave McCain alone!'' in front of a sheet.
Some shared impromptu songs about the election's outcome. One man at a piano
sang: ''You all wanted change/And that's what you're gonna get/But the change
that you will see/You will most likely regret.''
Elsewhere, dozens of Obama supporters clapped, danced and cheered inside the
behemoth virtual world Second Life immediately after the Democratic nominee
seized the electoral votes. Many avatars were left out of the virtual
celebration in Obama's unofficial Second Life headquarters because the digital
enclave had reached maximum capacity Tuesday.
''The long nightmare is OVER!'' an avatar named Jordanna Beaumont
exclaimed.
The Straight Talk Cafe, a Second Life space supporting John
McCain, was nearly a ghost town after McCain conceded the race. Volunteers
for both campaigns had unofficially stumped for months inside the virtual world
for the presidential and vice presidential candidates -- collecting donations,
registering voters, building monuments and handing out virtual hats and
T-shirts.
Throughout the election, the nonpartisan site TwitterVoteReport.com aggregated micro-blog Twitter.com posts -- called tweets -- to monitor polling places and estimate voting wait
times across the country. Into the evening, many people tweeted
140-characters-or-less dispatches from rallies, election parties and their
living rooms using their cell phones and the Web.
''There were news people from all over the world at the Biltmore tonight,''
posted luv2shoppe in Phoenix, where McCain's camp was watching the returns. ''It
was quite an experience, even if the results were disappointing.''
''Four blocks from Grant Park in Chicago,'' posted jordanlevy. ''It's crazy
down here.''
Even Obama himself, whose campaign embraced the power of online networking
going back to his primary race against Hillary
Clinton, nodded to his tech-savvy supporters in the very moments before he
took the stage in Chicago for his acceptance speech: Supporters who had signed
up on his campaign Web site received an e-mail thanking them.
Those who were logged on at that moment got this message: ''I'm about to head
to Grant Park to talk to everyone gathered there, but I wanted to write to you
first. We just made history. And I don't want you to forget how we did it. You
made history every single day during this campaign -- every day you knocked on
doors, made a donation, or talked to your family, friends and neighbors about
why you believe it's time for change.''
Bloggers who had been posting about the election results in real time kept
their comments brief after Obama's win. Liberal blogger Sara K. Smith at Wonkette.com, who kept a snarky eye on
the proceedings, instructed readers to ''raise a glass to your Republican
friends because it was not so long ago that you (liberals) were precisely in
their position, and remember how much it sucked.''
Conservative bloggers also kept their reactions concise and polite. Carol
Platt Liebau at Townhall.com posted:
''We are Americans first, and therefore I wish the Obamas health and happiness.
It's even possible to wish them success -- so long as it is in keeping with the
best traditions of American liberty, virtue and prosperity.''
Not everyone was as cordial. At some point Tuesday night on John McCain's Wikipedia page, a racial slur was joined with an expletive and splashed across the screen
in giant red letters. The word was quickly removed from the page and no longer
appeared Wednesday morning.
And while Sarah
Palin may not have won the vice presidential spot, she was popular as a
doll. Out of the four one-of-kind Cabbage Patch Dolls crafted to look like the
presidential and vice presidential candidates, her doll nabbed a $19,000 bid
when the online auction closed Tuesday. The lil' Obama, McCain and Biden
impersonators only earned offers of $8,400, $6,000 and $3,500, respectively.
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