The Rise of the Gen Z Biden Stans
The Rise of the Gen Z Biden Stans
A burgeoning class of internet-savvy Democratic creators are building large audiences on Tiktok and YouTube by bashing MAGA
FWIW, this week’s newsletter is sponsored by Civic Shout
Democrats have always needed a political outrage machine of their own.
The Right has a myriad of personalities (think Ben Shapiro, Dan Bongino, Candace Owens) on social media with audiences in the millions, eager to tune in to hear their hyper-partisan hot takes on the political news of the day.
For Democrats, that need was filled for many years by massive Facebook pages like Occupy Democrats, Being Liberal, and The Other 98%, or O.G. YouTubers like The Young Turks. Then, the 2017-era #resistance was captivated by the Pod Save America guys who coupled insider snark with cathartic audio to build audiences in the millions. In 2020, The Lincoln Project arrived to feed the Democratic base with the red meat content and viral Twitter videos they craved. And now, ahead of this November’s election, I’ve watched a new type of liberal mega-influencer grow in prominence: Gen Z TikTok Biden Stans.
Taking stylistic notes from the Lincoln Project or Occupy Democrats before them, these (often white and male) creators like Harry Sisson, Chris Mowrey, Luke Beasley, and a handful of personalities associated with MeidasTouch have quickly amassed large audiences by yelling in blunt terms about the threat of Trump and just how great Joe Biden is.
I should note that there are obviously many pro-Biden content creators in spaces like TikTok, including many older creators and people of color, but what makes this cohort unique is their nearly identical aesthetic and willingness to use specific anti-MAGA engagement bait to build an audience.
Each has hundreds of thousands of followers across social platforms; for Sisson, that number is well over a million. Their captions are sometimes written in ALL CAPS for extra emphasis, and their favorite platforms are TikTok or YouTube, where they carefully optimize their thumbnails in the style of Mr. Beast. Notably, most aren’t active on Facebook.
“Republican Governor CALLED OUT for his hypocrisy,” one video starts. “JIMMY KIMMEL DESTROYS DONALD TRUMP FOR FALLING ASLEEP IN COURT” begins another.
Their genre of liberal content would probably be seen as too normie by Leftist internet people who read The Intercept or subscribe to Jacobin, and they’ve been disparagingly dismissed as “Blue MAGA” by trolls in the comments. But importantly, the rise of these more mainstream anti-MAGA creators shows something the media doesn’t cover that much: a specific subset of younger Democrats who really like Joe Biden and are excited to vote against Trump this November.
Many of these creators are maintaining a focus on the threat of Trump, at a time when team Biden continues to take a fair amount of heat from pro-Palestine progressive activists on the same platforms. A new report from CredoIQ this week looked at 1,000 top political accounts on TikTok over the past few months, finding that “23% of the top progressive creators [in that group] shared explicitly anti-Biden rhetoric.”
For their part, the White House and Biden campaign have recognized the value that some of these Biden-friendly creators can bring to their efforts to spread the word about their administration’s accomplishments. They’ve hosted several of them at briefings or events and have worked directly with most of them on social-first interviews and specific pieces of content.
Many political veterans will probably read this with a groan and say that these folks are just preaching to the choir. Besides, the Lincoln Project was often criticized in 2020, and a rival super PAC even put out its own report saying they found Lincoln’s content wasn’t persuasive among a select group of battleground state voters. But, especially on platforms where legacy political groups and PACs have failed to engage, there is an undeniable value in energizing the Democratic base with content they connect with on an emotional level.
FWIW, these types of content creators and similar energizing efforts could be even more important than they were in 2020, with many voters weary of their presidential choices, and Democrats running a slate of competent - but uninspiring - incumbents in must-win Senate races across the country.
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Digital ad spending, by the numbers:
FWIW, political advertisers spent just over $9.7 million on Facebook and Instagram ads last week. These were the top ten spenders nationwide:
Anti-abortion advocacy group SBA Pro-Life America is up with a new swing state ad blitz attacking “late-term abortion.” Meanwhile, third-party spoiler presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is up on Facebook with a pro-Second Amendment ad that plays to the GOP base, stating in all CAPS: “I WON’T TAKE YOUR GUNS AWAY.”
Meanwhile, political campaigns spent $3.2 million on Google and YouTube ads last week. Here were the top ten spenders nationwide:
Trump’s super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., significantly increased its spending on Google platforms last week. A large portion of that went to promoting this new highly-produced video ad, which features an actor playing a Biden campaign worker getting rejected by voters of color. We found they’re explicitly targeting Black Belt counties in Central Georgia with this one:
On Snapchat, political advertisers in the U.S. have spent $1.3 million on ads year to date. Here are the top spenders:
…and on X (formerly Twitter), political advertisers have spent over $2.5 million on the platform in 2024. Here are the top spending accounts:
Your 2024 digital dispatch
FWIW, here’s how weekly digital ad spending (Facebook/Instagram, Google/YouTube) compares between the Trump and Biden campaigns year-to-date:
Biden Deputy Campaign Manager Rob Flaherty went on Offline with Jon Favreau this week, outlining “The Biden Campaign’s Plan to Beat Trump Online.” It’s a really great conversation, where Rob explains how his team is approaching voters’ changing information consumption habits. Listen to the full episode here >>
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The vibes on TikTok last week:
FWIW, here’s a look at 10 of the most-liked videos mentioning Trump on TikTok in the past week:
The vibes for Trump on TikTok were generally positive this week. Several accounts, like @overtimeboxing, @vietpoatan, and @altdrillgods, posted about his viral meeting with professional boxer Ryan Garcia, which MAGA supporters readily cheered. @bwtgrils_, which appears to be a thirst account for Trump’s 18-year-old son, Barron, also got a lot of attention this week.
Here were some of the most-liked videos mentioning Biden in the past week:
At the same time, the vibes for President Biden were kind of mixed. He continued to take some heat over the TikTok ban from creators like @teapotlaughvic and @spencewuah (who is an influencer with 16+ million followers). On the other hand, clips from @cspanofficial and @msnbc from the White House Correspondents Dinner of Colin Jost boosting Biden while roasting Trump also received a large amount of online love.
More from around the internet:
Online donations to candidates and causes have totally changed the game in the past several years, enabling new voices to compete with longstanding elected leaders. Here’s a great interactive from POLITICO on the state of online fundraising.
Campus protests over Israel’s actions in Gaza are spreading both IRL and online this week. Political pollsters, commentators, and journalists alike continue to divine what the unrest means for Joe Biden’s chances at re-election. Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, head of NextGen America, laid out how she thinks about young voter attitudes vs. young voter behavior on the Vibes Only podcast this week. Listen here >>
Not surprisingly, Facebook Groups continue to be cesspools for far-right extremists organizing.
RFK Jr. is all over conservative media, and apparently Trump’s team is pissed.
New polling data from NBC News showed that Trump and Biden supporters have very different news consumption habits.
That’s it for FWIW this week. This email was sent to 20,758 readers. If you enjoy reading this newsletter each week, would you mind sharing it on Twitter or Threads? Have a tip, idea, or feedback? Reply directly to this email.