3 things we learned from the 1st night of the all-remote DNC

The first night of the first all-remote Democratic National Convention is over. It was a deeply strange event, but there were a few initial lessons to be had.

1) In spite of themselves, people still watched this thing. Though there are no official ratings data on the convention yet, political media was all over it, and Michelle Obama's necklace was the top-searched thing on Google during the last hour of the event. It seems people are desperate for any kind of official step forward in the challenge to President Trump.

2) Keep it simple. The first hour and a half or so featured a rapid-fire sequence of different short speeches and gimmick videos. These came and went without making much of an impression — with the exception of one woman who spoke about how her father had trusted Trump's propaganda and died from COVID-19.

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3) Think documentaries. The best parts of the convention were the speeches from Bernie Sanders and Michelle Obama, because they were quite substantive and rhetorically skilled respectively, and had some time to breathe. It appeared as though the Democrats were attempting to recreate the experience of an in-person convention, but they are really just broadcasting a long documentary film. That is a different format than one featuring in-person speeches with a live audience. Hopefully they can learn and make the following days of the convention more unified and coherent.