Imagine this, but in a video game where literally every single person has a gun. Scott Olson / Staff

It is a deeply relatable scene, one that I imagine is similar to what happened recently inside the Joe Biden 2020 campaign.

Here's what we know: in an interview with Politico, ex-Buttigieg-advisor Lis Smith casually mentioned that the Biden campaign is looking for ways to creatively shake up the traditional campaign stop. According to Lis, ex-Buttigieg-digital-guy Stefan Smith mentioned how musician Travis Scott recently staged a virtual concert inside the game Fortnite, and then spitballed:

"If we could do that with Joe Biden, you know Joe Biden projected against the Grand Canyon. That might be a little bit ambitious. But we could have exclusive musical content from some of the biggest musical artists in the game at these, driving eyeballs to the convention so that people watch them. It doesnt just have to be these speeches."

Okay. Wait. What? You want to put Joe Biden ... as a giant projection ... against the Grand Canyon ... in Fortnite? Jeeeesus, the Democratic Party really will do anything to appeal to the youth except have an actual good platform.

"Universal health care? Ah, no, we can't do that, but how about we give out slap bracelets featuring inspirational quotes by Michael Dukakis."

"You want free college? Lol hahaha yeah right, here's another gif of Nancy Pelosi clapping weird."

"Haha this kid thinks that every millionaire is a policy failure, isn't that cute, anyway I'm off to another fundraiser in a mansion with 84 tennis courts."

Let's set aside the obvious smooth-brain genius of putting your presidential candidate into an environment where literally every single person has a gun. It sounds like they didn't spend all that much bandwidth planning a Fortnite appearance by Biden (jk haha ... unless...?) but what are we to make of this "exclusive musical content from some of the biggest musical artists in the game, driving eyeballs to the convention so that people watch them"??????

I'm sorry about the number of questions marks I ended that graf with but I'm going on a consternation journey right now, DEAL WITH IT.

So like ... first of all ... yes, there are tracks from famous musicians in Fortnite, and musicians do hang out there and use the platform for concerts and whatnot in the Party Royale hub. But how are you going to convince, I don't know, Deadmau5 or whoever to give you new music, with exclusive streaming rights (!!!!!) as a way to market a political convention????? Oh God here come the question marks again.

And and and and and, on the off chance that Steve Aoki is like "yeah, sure, you can use this track, I was never planning to release it anyway because it's so shitty," in a million years how is that going to drive eyeballs to the convention? Like, what??? "Hello fellow youths, if you like dancing to sick beats, perhaps you would enjoy the sickest beat of all: the allocation of delegates chosen in a ratfucked staggered voting contest that primarily favors corn farmers of the midwest."

Around half of Fortnite players are too young to vote, so there's also that.

Anyway, this is all to say that I am deeply, deeply sympathetic to the mid-level campaign staff who were in that meeting at Biden HQ. Many a time have I found myself in meetings where some consultant from nowhere bent the boss's ear about technology of the future in a way that seems 100% clear that they have no idea what they're talking about, only for the boss to turn to the staff and say, "okay, so, where are we on that?"

Today, we are all the middle manager trying to placidly sip coffee while listening to a supervillain from space convince our boss that we are now in the Highlander-finding business, knowing perfectly well that our doom is inevitable and inescapable.

For more up-to-date news about the Biden campaign, Highlander II: The Quickening is available for streaming on Amazon.

Read more:
I Wish I Was Making It Up That Democrats Thought About Putting Joe Biden in Fortnite - TheStranger.com