Tonight marks the first anniversary of our diary series, Kossacks Under 35!
Join us below for an overview of what we’ve discussed so far, and tell us where you think we should go in the future.
Kossacks Under 35 is a weekly diary series designed to create a community within DailyKos that focuses on young people. Our overall goals are to work on increasing young voters' Democratic majority, and to raise awareness about issues that particularly affect young people, with a potential eye to policy solutions. Kossacks of all ages are welcome to participate (and do!), but the overall framework of each diary will likely be on or from a younger person's perspective. If you would like more information or want to contribute a diary, please email kath25 at kossacksunder35 (at) gmail dot com
We're also on Facebook.
Kossacks Under 35 By the Numbers!
Not bad. We’ve covered a wide variety of topics, from our experiences working on specific electoral campaigns to wider political issues such as the environment, student loans, reproductive health, and education. We’ve had a cluster of diaries dealing with the many sides of how to get a job and how to find a place to live. We’ve also had several diaries dealing with our specific stated aim, on topics such as progressive infrastructure, voter registration, an appealing to young voters. Finally, many of our diaries have perhaps hewn to the notion that the personal is political, touching on issues such as travel, family, loneliness, volunteering, dating, and personal finance.
In fact, one of the more interesting aspects of this series—I think—is the way in which we veer back and forth between larger policy-oriented discussions to incredibly personal conversations. We can see this in our most-active diaries over the past year, as based on the sheer number of comments each received:
Kossacks Under 35 : Saving Money by kath25 – 435 Comments
Kossacks Under 35 : Strapped by hekebolos - 384 Comments
Kossacks Under 35 : How to Flirt by tryptamine – 337 Comments
Kossacks Under 35 : Graduate School by kath25 – 326 Comments
Kossacks Under 35 : Writing Your Resume by clonecone – 312 Comments
Kossacks Under 35 : Beating the "Experience" Catch-22 To Get a Job by theKK – 310 Comments
Kossacks Under 35 : Student Debt by kath25 – 288 Comments
Kossacks Under 35 : Wardrobe Edition by noweasels - 281 Comments
Kossacks Under 35 : We Have to Talk by kath25 – 236 Comments
Kossacks Under 35 : Real Estate by theKK - 233 Comments
Kossacks Under 35 : Travel Tips by OrangeClouds115 – 226 Comments
Kossacks Under 35 : Energy Efficiency for Renters by thereisnospoon – 221 Comments
Kossacks Under 35 : Birthin’ Babies by ablington – 218 Comments
It kind of makes an interesting snapshot of life under the age of 35. We’re broke, we're trying to get our lives together professionally, academically, and personally, and we're concerned about how larger political issues impact our daily lives. Also, each of these diaries has drawn a larger crowd than just Under-35 Kossacks and our usual participants of, ah, other age ranges, which is good. Again, our stated purpose is to discuss young voters' issues, but we've never turned away any insight from our, ah, wiser fellow Kossacks.
But this begs two questions. First off, is there room for more nitty-gritty discussions of political issues here? Often, some of our most significant diaries in terms of sheer political relevance and political practice do not garner much attention. (Cf. every diary written on voting, registration, or campaign work). Frankly, this bothers me to a certain degree, and I wonder why this is so. Is it because less of us have experience to talk about in terms of political activism, but everyone can talk about trying to get a job or find a place to live? Perhaps this should encourage more of us to get involved more extensively offline, and then return to blog about it. I don't want to discourage anyone from blogging about their lives, but rather would happily see even more participation about actual political work.
Second, what do you want to see discussed going forward? We have some new and exciting diarists coming up to cover new topics, and will be working more closely with some other groups that focus on online young-voter activism. Since the last time I asked you all for potential topics we've covered many of them, and some with multiple diaries. What else? And would you like to contribute to the series?
Finally, I'd like to note that I've really enjoying watching these conversations develop over the past year, and that it has been great to meet new Kossacks in these diaries, particularly those who might not participate too much elsewhere. That was part of the point in starting all of this, and I'm happy to see it come to fruition, to some degree or another.