John McAfee -- the cybersecurity legend and now Libertarian party candidate -- has released a video ad on YouTube which encourages Americans to ‘Vote Different’.
McAfee’s video is strikingly similar to an unreleased 1997 ‘Think Different’ ad from
The Apple ad -- which achieved cult status -- has clips of humanitarians and beloved people including Albert Einstein, Bob Dylan, Martin Luther King, John Lennon, Muhammad Ali, Mahatma Gandhi, Jim Henson, and Amelia Earhart.
In McAfee’s video, he echoes Jobs by saying “People who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do”. The video -- which promotes McAfee’s candidacy -- features clips of famous entrepreneurs including Elon Musk, Richard Branson, John Mackey, and Peter Thiel... but diverges with footage of people smoking marijuana, a photo of Eric Snowden, and clips of controversial figures Ron Paul, Aaron Swartz, and Jeffrey Tucker.
Both videos target “the crazy ones, misfits, rebels, troublemakers, round pegs in square holes, the ones who see things differently.” Jobs wanted to sell them technology. McAfee wants their votes.
“Steve Jobs would have wanted his words to change not just technology, but politics itself” said John McAfee, in an email exchange today. “I hope he would have seen this for what it is. In some small way, Steve Jobs has changed the face of campaign videos, through me. I loved him.”
When asked about the Apple ad, McAfee replied “Steve Jobs was a friend and mentor whom I miss more than I can say. His exquisitely beautiful soliloquy - to the crazy ones - touched my heart when I first heard it, and now, years later it's meaning is deeper and more profound. I chose it as the theme for my campaign video, hoping that if Steve were still alive he would approve of his words being used to address the disaffected of this great nation, in the hopes of galvanizing the public behind the sentiments that Jobs so eloquently expressed - Liberty, individuality and human dignity.”
McAfee -- touching on his personal relationship with Jobs -- said “We met at social functions at first then began spending short periods together outside of the social circuit. We spoke on the phone frequently - about tech, society, the impact of change on the world of adults and children. We spoke of creating windows through which data could be viewed in a manner which created created sense and order out of apparent chaos.”
The internet is the most powerful medium for building a user base -- be it selling technology or calling out to voters -- and McAfee is a master of it. He built one of the world’s first pure-Internet companies in the early 1990’s before most people knew what the internet was -- and sold millions of copies of his namesake anti-virus software. McAfee’s company went public and was eventually sold to Intel for more than $7.6 billion in 2010 (after McAfee departed), according to a New York Times story. In 2013 McAfee published a YouTube video titled “How To Uninstall McAfee Anti-Virus”, which has more than 6 million views.
Jobs said ‘Think Different’ and people bought. McAfee says ‘Vote Different’ and hopes voters will. As a longshot Libertarian candidate, he’ll need millions of them to watch his video. ‘Vote Different’ was Released on YouTube last night and so far it has 1,960 views.
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