There are lots of things you can’t talk about in the office.
But this Malaysian movement wants to blow taboos wide open. And not just in the workplace either.
“We wanted to have people share about themselves on a T-shirt or a sticker to get people talking or just creating conversation. i.e. hey I didn’t know you like this or that.”
“Your vote is usually a taboo topic, but we thought, it will be cool to get people to share what they would vote for, be it at elections or not,” said a spokesperson for #willvotefor.
And they’re not going in by halves. Some of the efforts they’ve put into the movement include: a website with their vision and mission, a fully-fledged merch page for items to support the movement, and an Instagram account that showcases all of the things people will vote for.
Does that sound like they’re casting a wide net? We thought so too, until the team informed us that this was all by design.
Without imposing a certain topic to talk about, the #willvotefor hashtag can easily slip into any currently trending topic, from who to vote for in the next singing competition, to topics such as their spirituality or sexuality—by putting a human face behind hot-button issues.
“For example, we may view refugees positively or negatively. And in the media, we see the issues as debates, people taking sides. But if we gave these refugees a chance to share about what they want, I’m sure we could all relate to it better,” said the team.
The reason you haven’t really seen them around much? #willvotefor hasn’t been kicked off fully yet.
“But so far we think it is cool to just see what people come up with; some of the responses can be really unexpected, some are heartwarming, some funny and some are downright naughty,” said the team about the approximately 50 submissions they have so far.
And they’ve taken the movement international.
“We initially wanted to keep it local, but we then thought: why? ‘Cause we’d love to hear what people in Germany, Japan, New Zealand are voting for.”
To that end, all of the merchandise produced by #willvotefor is sold in USD. The movement also reports that at least half of their submissions come from outside of Malaysia.
While #willvotefor likes that the movement is seen as local as it is international, they chose to step back on the Malaysian branding to ensure that the movement does leave our shores.
“But we hope, we can localise the message later to take on different languages as well.
Since they’re playing fast and loose with the concept of ‘voting’, we wondered if there was a way that the #willvotefor team measured how successful their movement is, and this is what the #willvotefor had to say:
“We see it successful when more and more people share, wear, stick a sticker or openly talk about what they would vote for primarily, and of course having it on our merchandise would be cool too!”
But of course #willvotefor does not end at merchandise, and their Instagram page shares submissions that write it on paper, stuck on parking meters, mugs—anywhere you can think of.
In fact, #willvotefor’s website offers an option for users to generate an image for free.
Once the movement expands, then #willvotefor might take a more active approach.
“We haven’t looked into charities yet, maybe later if it does take off, that would be a great thing to do to tie up with different communities that could find this beneficial,” said the #willvotefor team.
“We are very proud that a campaign like this originated from Malaysia and that people are having fun locally and overseas with this platform, sharing sharing what they believe in with the world, be it serious or not.”
To top it off, there aren’t any prerequisites for joining. While many of the submissions does feature some sort of merchandise bought from the store, #willvotefor at its core is a hashtag movement. And in the end, the creators simply want its users to have fun with it.
- #willvotefor is a website and hashtag movement to get people to share about anything they’d vote for—and it doesn’t even have to be politics.
- It’s a fun movement that wants to put an actual human face behind hot-button issues e.g. refugees in Malaysia.
- The movement offers dedicated merchandise for users to flaunt loud and proud about what they’d vote for. But anything can be a part of the movement;written on a piece of paper, drawn as digital art, anything goes.
- While it originated in Malaysia, the #willvotefor movement is international, with submissions coming from all over the globe.
