This is brought to you by entitled Taylor Lorenz at the Washington Post
Gen Z influencers who supported Biden in 2020 turn against him
The Gaza war, lack of progress on climate change and a potential TikTok ban are spawning anti-Biden content — even among former supporters.
In 2020, hundreds of top TikTok content creators banded together in service of a single goal: get Joe Biden elected. They posted videos, hosted online events and spent hours educating followers to help Biden defeat Donald Trump.
Yup, people who did cringe dances made videos
Four years later, the coalition once known as TikTok for Biden is now called Gen-Z for Change — and so far, it has not endorsed Biden’s reelection.
“Biden is out of step with young people on a number of key issues,” said the coalition’s founder, Aidan Kohn-Murphy, 20, who called “the frustrations of young progressive leaders a barometer of widespread dissatisfaction among Gen Z voters.”
Across TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and Twitch, anger and resentment toward Biden are boiling among Gen Z content creators who say they feel disaffected and betrayed by Biden’s positions on an array of issues, including the war in Gaza, the climate crisis and the president’s decision to support a potential TikTok ban. The rift has been exacerbated by the White House’s evolving strategy of courting friendly influencers while shutting out others who have been critical of the administration.
Interesting: Jew haters are abandoning Biden. Kiddies using vast amounts of energy and fossil fuels to make stupid videos – and don’t forget all the fast fashion and ordering delivery – are abandoning Biden. Idiots who are giving all their info to China are abandoning Biden.
When Biden took office in 2021, the White House sought to fortify its relationships with Gen Z content creators, working with them to promote the rollout of the coronavirus vaccine and briefing them on key issues. At one such briefing on the war in Ukraine in 2022, press secretary Jen Psaki and Matt Miller, special adviser for communications at the White House National Security Council, told influencers that Biden viewed them as the “new media” and would strive to keep them informed.
Lately, however, the influencer strategy seems to have shifted, both at the White House and within the Biden campaign, influencers say.
I guess when you realize these people are despised and aren’t helping you ignore them.
“I have noticed that there have been a lot more events with creators, but the creators that are getting invited are the creators who are very pro Biden and just parroting talking points or sharing photo ops of them smiling with the President. Not the creators who have been critical,” said Kahlil Greene, a history content creator and education advocate in Washington who said he hasn’t been invited to the White House since he criticized the administration over the TikTok ban and the war in Gaza.
That’s kind of the way it works, you entitled little wacko.
Annie Wu Henry, a political influencer and digital strategist who has worked on Democratic campaigns, agreed. While the White House once treated creators as independent media, she said, they now seem to be playing favorites.
Biden’s team “is trying to say that they’re handling influencers like the press. But the thing is, the press briefing room has to have Fox News no matter what. They have to allow all of the media in,” Henry said. “When it comes to influencers, they only let in people who agree, and anyone who gives even a little bit of pushback is not welcome.”
You aren’t the press, and almost no one has ever heard of you. Just cause you tweet and Instagram doesn’t make you a political influencer.
Much of the anti-Biden content is being posted by young, non-White liberals with “shared ideology that the U.S. Government, and specifically Joe Biden, want to stop the flow of free speech and information,” CredoIQ found. “This perceived assault on free speech is enabling anti-Biden sentiment to leap from a smaller demographic of pro-Palestine young progressives” — who are outraged by Biden’s support for Israel as it wages a brutal war in Gaza — “to a potentially market-moving bloc of unenthusiastic young voters that are upset with the TikTok ban.”
Got that? Because Biden isn’t using them it is an assault on free speech. These people. Sigh. I wonder how many of them own EVs and how many own fossil fueled vehicles?
Read: Gen Z “Influencers” Abandoning Biden Over Hotcoldwetdry, Israel Support »