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Across different social media platforms, influencers continue to find new ways to appeal for your vote as we get closer and closer to Election Day. And they’re not doing it because they suddenly have an enormous sense of civic responsibility, or because they’ve bought into the idea that this is “the most important election of our lifetime.”
No, they’re doing it because they’re getting paid to. In some cases, influencers with huge numbers of followers are getting paid thousands of dollars per video. In other cases, they are getting paid hundreds of dollars simply for showing up at an event and documenting it in real-time.
Social media influencers embrace American politics
What’s remarkable about all this money changing hands is that the people creating all this new content often know little or nothing about politics. And they are certainly not acquainted with the finer nuances of complex policy stances. Often, they are beauty influencers, lifestyle gurus, or social media celebrities talented at sharing all the details of what they ate for breakfast. Given their lack of political acumen, they’re simply handed a set of pre-approved talking points by political campaign teams, and told to add their own little unique creative angle to it.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Except, of course, when these influencers aren’t divulging who’s really paying them. It’s considered bad form for a political candidate to pay an influencer directly. That would look too much like paying for a vote. So political candidates work through a dizzying number of intermediaries, with the final check coming from a political advocacy group of some kind. Somehow, things don’t seem as sordid if the money is coming from some group calling themselves something like “Suburban Moms For Democracy.” What could possibly be wrong with that?
Are social media creators part of the problem or the solution?
As might be expected, top influencers themselves defend the practice of getting paid to support certain candidates, saying that it shows the power of the creator economy. They talk about how important it is for “authentic” voices to speak out at such a difficult moment in American history. But let’s face reality here. Isn’t there something a little bit obnoxious about paying people to say things they don’t really believe, all for a quick buck?
The result is something like what the Kamala Harris campaign team is currently trying to pull off – a “vibes only” campaign that is short on real substance. For now, It might be fun for Democrats to talk about “brat summer” and for political analysts or to ooh and aah over all the Kamala Harris memes appearing across social media.
Will social media tip the scales of this election?
But, if you step back and consider the impact of cold, hard cash on this election, this is really scary stuff. We keep hearing how much money is being spent on Instagram and TikTok influencers. So is the future of America being determined by a bunch of recent college grads looking for some quick cash to support themselves until they figure out what they want to do with the rest of their lives?
Maybe this whole process of dumping tens of thousands of dollars on individual influencers is “refreshing” and “creative,” as CBS News recently opined. But I don’t think so. If anything, this wide-scale attempt to convince people to vote for someone they may not really like is going to encourage more voters to check out entirely, and decide it’s not worth their time to vote in this election. And that’s simply very bad for democracy.
