Social media has undoubtedly played an important role in both presidential campaigns this election cycle. Aiming to target younger voters on platforms such as Instagram and TikTok, our feeds and lives are now being ridiculed by each campaign’s childish ploys.
This election, and social media campaign marketing in general, will lead to a deficit in our generation’s ability to form opinions of our own. Instead, our political beliefs will be susceptible to presidential marketing as we are unknowingly exposed to and misled through social media platforms.
Hoping to achieve greater voter turnout, Trump and Harris are using social media to better connect with this generation’s voters. With an increase of endorsements from influencers and celebrities online, Harris is winning the battle and receiving more support from younger individuals.
In July, Charli XCX tweeted on X, “kamala IS brat,” leading to a rapid surge of memes and references on various platforms starting Kamala’s social media entrance with a bang. But, there are major consequences to this pop-culture and political crossover.
In a Washington Post article, young voters are embracing their support for Kamala under the premise of her social media presence. They’re going as far as to saying that her values align with Charli XCX’s brat era. People are basing their political opinions on a candidate’s social media popularity. Whether viewing on TikTok or on our Instagram feeds, most of our engagement with these posts prompt us towards receiving more political content surrounding that candidate. Although people are looking up information on the election themselves, most are relying on social media to research for them. Subsequently, our abilities to search and format our own knowledge on this election is being hindered.
Subsequently, Harris campaign slogans have led to more voter engagement as she presents herself positively in the media. She is even reaching voters on important topics that the Republican Party chooses to look over. In a CBS News poll, younger voters are worried that they’ll inherit more challenges regarding environmental and social issues. While the Democratic party plans to champion these concerns, the marketing seen in our feeds can be manipulative and fear-provoking as they intend to scare voters, instead of encouraging them to consider political issues..
For Trump, he’s no stranger to social media. He’s been a major political figure on Twitter, now called X, since the 2016 presidential election. Being both active on and banned from the platform, Trump has steadily stayed present in the media. However, his portrayal is rather negative on major news outlets and with younger voters. In a survey conducted by the Hill, he isn’t the preferred presidential pick by this generation. Especially as he’s facing a major discrepancy between female and male voters.
Instead of receiving support from celebrities, Trump has gone towards conservative influencers in order to advance his campaign. Just this past week, he was a guest on Joe Rogan’s podcast to discuss his campaign and answer further questions. Mainly catered towards male voters, this interview probably isn’t helping Trump with the female vote.
Now, you may be asking, “How does this pertain to me?” Well, let’s consider how each candidate’s social media presence has affected your feeds and personal uses of the internet.
As a college student myself, I understand that we enjoy going on social media to look at influencers promoting their brands and making content suited towards our interests. But when their accounts become political, it takes away from the very essence as to why they’re glorified by us.
While using your platform to bring awareness to issues is important, many of these content creators lack the credibility and knowledge to be infringing on our political views. For example, what gives Alex Cooper, host of the popular podcast Call Her Daddy, the proper background to interview Kamala Harris? Not much.
Influencers and content creators are having more of a presence in the political climate of this country than ever before. While they may find this gratifying, they’re being manipulated and taken advantage of by the campaigns. This doesn’t boost their own media images. Instead it gets them short term views while Trump and Harris can use the influencer’s platform to persuade voters.
Social media campaigning and advertising may be helping to elect each candidate, however, it leads to harassment and misinformation for today’s voters. For many of us, we’re struggling to decide who to vote for. These ads and videos seen in our feeds only fuel the fire, they aren’t constructive or beneficial.
Politicians can easily lie and scare us as they bash other candidates. This isn’t even a matter of informing the nation anymore, it’s a matter of inciting fear and provoking us to swing towards their campaign.
Influence from content creators may not always cause us to vote for one candidate over the other, but it can affect our overall opinions and views towards the individual that we turn to for enjoyment and content.
It is great that influencers want to embrace their opinions and beliefs on this current election, but honestly that isn’t the reason why they’re famous. Most of these influencers are famous for how they dress or the content they create. They didn’t start their accounts as political commentators nor should they pretend to be because they vote for a certain political party.
The problem that lies beneath the surface is that our feeds are being taken advantage of because of desperate political pursuits. Although it’s quite genius to market this way, social media platforms have become toxic and relentless realms of political destruction. I can’t even go onto TikTok without seeing something about the election. Politics are important; they’re the very root of our democratic system. But, being constantly bombarded with posts centered on this election is out-of-hand.
To all the young voters out there, don’t fall into these political schemes. Make your own opinions. Don’t let your social media platforms or content creators sway your opinions. We want to be able to understand and make an impact in this election, not have the internet tell us what to think politically.