There was once a time when “FarmVille” was the bane of every Facebook user’s existence.
The incredibly popular social networking game, first launched in 2009, allowed users to tend to crops on a virtual farm. It also allowed users to send repeated invitations to their friends to join the game, eventually leading to massive frustration among users.
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While FarmVille has fallen out of favour with today’s Facebook users, social media lit up with jokes about the game Tuesday ahead of the U.S. vice-presidential debate. Why? Because the debate is being held in a tiny town called Farmville in central Virginia.
The realization that there is indeed a town in the United States called Farmville has provided social media with a prime opportunity to make dozens of jokes about game invitations on Facebook.
Vice-presidential candidates Republican Mike Pence and Democrat Tim Kaine face will face off Tuesday at Farmville’s Longwood University in their only debate of the general election campaign.
The real Farmville is a rural town of about 8,000 people – but the community is steeped in tense racial history.
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According to the New York Times, in 1951 16-year-old African-American student Barbara Johns led a walkout from Farmville’s all-black schools in protest of their conditions. In light of lawsuits over the treatment of African-American students, local officials closed the county’s entire public school system to prevent white and black children from learning together. According to the report, an “all-white” academy was then built, but even some poor white students were denied an education.
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“When I heard that Farmvegas, as we used to call it, had been awarded the debate, I was thrilled. Not only would it be fun to cover a debate in a small town I knew so well, but the event would shine a light on a place that, unbeknown to many, was home to one of the most uplifting stories, and then one of the most tragic stories, in civil rights history,” wrote New York Times reporter Jonathan Martin, who attended college in Farmville.
“And if ever there was a campaign that needed historical perspective on race in America, it was this one.”
Global News contacted the Commission on Presidential Debates regarding why Farmville was chosen as the location for the vice-presidential debate. A request for comment was not immediately returned.
However, many have pointed out that Virginia is a swing state – once reliably Republican, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton now leads in the polls.
According to Reuters, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump also needs to rack up big vote totals in small-town America. Trump’s campaign is betting that his promise to rip up international trade deals and bring back jobs will resonate in places like Farmville where manufacturing jobs have been lost.
Globalnews.ca will live stream the presidential debate at 9 p.m. ET Tuesday (Oct. 4) as well as provide live coverage as Kaine and Pence spar over the issues.