In June, When the Biden campaign was still in full swing, the president visited Los Angeles for what turned out to be a record-breaking fundraiser with Hollywood stars like Julia Roberts. But the day before the star-studded main event, the campaign was busy courting a lesser-known, and perhaps more important, group: social media influencers. As part of its Creators Who Vote initiative, the Biden team invited 50 podcasters, creators, and micro-influencers (those with between 1,000 and 100,000 followers) to a cocktail hour to drum up excitement about the president’s candidacy and platform. The cocktail party even included a surprise special guest — not Biden, but former President Barack Obama.
Many of the creatives who attended the rally that day at Sendero Steakhouse at the Ritz-Carlton in downtown Los Angeles were lukewarm about Biden, saying Rolling Stone They kind of gave in to voting for him. It took Obama’s star power to convince them of the Democratic cause. As fashion and beauty influencer Chazlyn Yvonne said at the time: “I think what Barack Obama was there for was… to put it in a way that it’s not about one person or another, it’s really about choosing what’s right.”
But since Biden dropped out of the race on July 21, and Kamala Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee, there has been a distinct shift in the creative community and their Gen Z audience: you might even call it excitement.
“Before, we had to work with what we had,” Yvonne says. “Now it’s more exciting. I’ve felt a shift in engaging with people I know online and who I have connections with. I’ve seen a lot of people really come together about this because everyone is so excited to have a woman and a black woman in the race. … It’s just a little bit of hope.”
Yvonne, 22, doesn’t typically post about social or political issues on her platforms. Her frequency and motivation to talk about politics with her 90,000 followers has increased with the turbulent news cycle. After the attempted assassination of Donald Trump at a rally in late July, she says she was dismayed by the political climate and how divided people were. But the news that Harris would replace Biden on the Democratic ticket has re-energized her.
“I think Kamala really speaks to Gen Z more than her opponent, and the more people get excited about her online, the more she literally has the power to get people to go to the polls,” she says.
The internet has largely embraced Harris, with young people sharing memes and jokes on social media with the vice president at the center. Many are new remixes of old viral clips, like Harris’ comments about the coconut tree or her call to Biden, “We did it, Joe,” when they defeated Trump in 2020. Fashion influencer Nava Rose, 33, who also was a guest at Biden’s Creators Who Vote event in June, cites Harris’s popular voiceovers used by creators on TikTok, specifically the one where she asks former Vice President Mike Pence to stop interrupting her during a 2020 debate between the then-candidates.
Influencers at the LA Creators Who Vote event with Barack Obama (center) on June 15.
Thanks to the Biden-Harris campaign
On the day Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed Harris, she took the ultimate online endorsement crown when she Charli XCX tweeted“Kamala is a bad girl,” Rose says, referring to the major cultural moment among Gen Z around the pop star’s latest album. The public support and co-signing of Harris by the bad girl queen herself was effective and not at all embarrassing.
“I don’t know if we’ve ever had a candidate who fits the mold of ‘spoiled brat’ before, but Kamala being a spoiled brat is absolutely successful,” Rose says. Rolling Stone“Some of the clips that have gone viral where you make fun of the people you're discussing, people really like them. I'm from the happy, 'childish' side of the internet and we enjoy that.”
She adds that this authentic viral moment makes it easy for her to get in on the fun. “It’s part of my identity and who I am as a creator, so I feel like I’m able to lean more into posting with that theme or that kind of tone,” Rose explains. “I don’t know how I could have really sat in on that theme and tone if I was posting for Biden.”
In addition to incorporating her into the most popular memes of the year, creators believe Harris’s campaign is taking smart steps to incorporate pop culture elements into the vice president’s image. Her team has made big moments out of using Beyoncé’s “Freedom” as her official campaign song, having Megan Thee Stallion perform at a rally, and producing camouflage hats that appear to be modeled after singer Chappelle Rowan’s merchandise, which sold out in minutes. (The artist’s song “Femininomenon” has also been a popular soundtrack for pro-Kamala TikTok videos.) These are smart moves, according to Mal Glowinki, host of “The Voice.” I succeededa podcast that addresses issues affecting the LGBT community.
“It’s a really brilliant way to engage young voters and engage Gen Z,” Gloinke says. “I think it’s really working. I don’t know if we can actually get them to the polls, but I think we’ve managed to engage a lot of people in a conversation that they haven’t been in before.”
For many influencers, the mission now with Harris is the same as it was with Biden: educate followers on the issues, raise awareness, and encourage them to vote. But there’s an extra layer of excitement when it comes to Harris as a candidate. As Glowinke put it, the vice president has brought “a return of hope” to young Democratic voters.
Harris’s candidacy has allowed some influencers to “not play it safe” this election cycle, Rose says. When Biden was running, she planned to share content from the Creators Who Vote account and encourage her followers to vote without focusing too much on Biden himself. But now she says she won’t shy away from explicitly posting about Harris as a candidate.
Nava Rose with Harris
Courtesy of Nava Rose
“There was definitely some hesitation with Biden,” Rose says, explaining that the president was not universally popular online with young people because of his stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. According to Rose, people also felt he was out of touch with young people in general. “Whoever you vote for, I think you can’t agree with everything he’s done,” Rose says, citing the vice president’s focus on sustainability and environmental issues. “But Kamala has done a lot of work on things that I’m passionate about.”
“I was a fan of Kamala and became an even bigger fan when I met her. [at an event in May] “I saw her passion for the country and what she was fighting for,” Rose adds. “I relate to her in a way. There are some similarities between me and her: she’s fighting for climate change, she’s a woman, she’s part of the Asian American community. I think there are new aspects of her that I’m very excited to see as a presidential candidate.”“
While creatives who originally backed Biden are excited about Harris’s campaign, they remain concerned that the presidential race between the vice president and former President Trump will be close. A recent national poll by SurveyUSA conducted Aug. 2-4 found Trump leading voters ages 18 to 34 by four points; 50 percent of the group, which is made up mostly of Gen Z and younger millennials, support Trump while 46 percent say they plan to support Harris. Four percent of voters in that age group say they are still unsure.
“That’s why I’m trying to encourage people to vote,” Rose says. “I know we’re feeling a lot of excitement right now, but it’s still going to be a close race. There’s been a lot of ups and downs, and if she gets elected, I think it would be really helpful for us to come together, because then it would be like we’re going to get this done.”
It's no secret to creatives working to optimize social media into their daily lives that “digital is king,” Glowinke said, and influencers have the opportunity to reach young voters if they choose to engage in this moment.
“I think it's kind of an Obama-like energy.”[‘s election]“I've never seen this kind of thing before,” says Gloinke. [political] “The excitement on TikTok or Instagram is where people consume news. That’s where people go and I think anyone who can grab people’s attention and hasn’t really used their platform to talk about these issues before but is using it now can make a difference.”
