Former Vice President Joe Biden's virtual happy hour Thursday night designed to attract young voters didn't quite pan out like the campaign hoped it would as the livestream drew just a meager 2,800 simultaneous viewers — many of them not even supporters of the candidate.
The event, which aired live from the "recreation room" in Biden's Delaware home, was promoted by the campaign as an informal roundtable with the 77-year-old candidate on issues that young Americans care about.
Initially, viewers were allowed to comment to the stream, the whole point of a livestream campaign event being interaction between the candidate and the viewers. But before long, the campaign opted to disable the commenting feature evidently due to an influx of negative comments trolling the event.
@BoKnowsNews @JoeBiden They had to disable the comments because most people were not in fact ridin with Biden https://t.co/kLgbNte3er— Lorraine (@Lorraine) 1585181116.0
For some reason, Bo Erickson, a CBS News reporter following the 2020 Biden campaign, called the event "lit" on Twitter after reporting the embarrassing livestream numbers. Others quickly piled on.
"I have more cats staring at me right now," one social media user joked.
"2,800 is nothing. Does ['lit'] mean it's a dumpster fire?" another added.
"This whole thing is cringeworthy," a viewer on YouTube said.
Then, of course, no Biden event is complete without a gaffe of some sort. Like this one, where Biden completely mixed up the details surrounding his honorary professorship at the University of Pennsylvania.
Joe Biden says "when I left the United States Senate, I became a professor at the University of Pennsylvania." a)… https://t.co/OvT9YBk1S5— Daily Caller (@Daily Caller) 1585159594.0
Biden has been
struggling to insert himself into the national spotlight ever since the Democratic primary campaign was placed on the back burner amid the COVID-19 pandemic several weeks ago.
First, he announced he would hold " shadow briefings" from his home in order to counter President Trump's handling of the coronavirus outbreak. But that plan got off to a rough start and so far has failed to course correct. Then, his campaign announced a series of scheduled virtual happy hours. But after Thursday night's results, it remains to be seen whether the campaign forges on with the rest.
Lately, it seems the only national attention that Biden is getting is the unwanted kind — on Wednesday, a former Biden staffer accused him of sexual assault.
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