Trump Dominates TikTok. This Pro-Biden Influencer Explains Why.
Politico (archive.ph)
By Rachel Janfaza
2024-07-07 11:00:00GMT
Olivia Julianna received the Marie C. Wilson Emerging Leader Award at the 2023 Ms. Foundation Women of Vision Awards ceremony. | Illustration by Bill Kuchman/POLITICO (source image via Olivia Julianna)
Joe Biden’s campaign had a four-month head start on TikTok before Donald Trump followed him to the platform they both pledged to ban, but that has not translated into a lead. Trump’s follower count (7.4 million) trounces the Biden campaign’s (over 405,000), though it’s unclear how many of those might be bots. His posts, along with a wave of MAGA content from smaller creators, have drastically outperformed Biden’s, despite the president’s hopes that TikTok would help him connect with young voters who are skeptical of his reelection campaign — especially following an embarrassing debate performance that has made Biden’s advanced age a focal point in the presidential election.
Olivia Julianna wants to turn the tide online. In an interview with POLITICO Magazine, the 21-year-old social media star opens up about her uphill mission to make Biden boom on a platform increasingly dominated by right-wing creators.
One of the original stars of TikTok for Biden — which evolved into the progressive advocacy group Gen Z for Change — Julianna cemented her place as a Democratic social media power-player in 2022, when she clapped back at a body-shaming post from Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz by starting a fundraiser that ultimately pulled in over $2 million to support abortion care. Now an independent creator, Julianna — who posts selfies with the likes of Vice President Kamala Harris and has over 670,000 TikTok followers, far more than the Biden campaign — is leveraging her audience to convince young voters to stick with Biden. I spoke with her about how Trump became a TikTok “lifestyle girly,” why the left is struggling to keep up with the right on TikTok and how Biden’s damaging debate is playing online.
The following has been edited for length and clarity.
Are you concerned about the way that the debate and its aftermath are playing out online?
I have actually been very surprised by what I am seeing on social media. I have not seen concern or really anti-Biden sentiment on my social media pages from normal people. I have only seen the concern and the ‘Biden can’t do this’ from the punditry circle and the Beltway. Even with normal people in my life, like I’ve messaged and texted with them, and I’m like, ‘Hey, how are you feeling?’ They’re kind of all like, ‘We knew Joe Biden was old, but I’d rather vote for Grandpa Democracy than Grandpa Dictator.’
An internal TikTok review found there was two times more pro-Trump content on the platform than pro-Biden content between November to May. Why is that?
If you are on the left, oftentimes it can feel like there is a disincentive to make political content. For me, I am a Joe Biden Democrat. I am a normal Democrat from Texas. I have very progressive beliefs and very progressive values, but I don’t appear that way in the way that I make videos sometimes. And as a result of that, I have people on the left who have called me anything from a sellout, to a bootlicker, to a corporate shill. And if you are a young person who is passionate about these issues, you have to deal with the hate from the right, but you also have to deal with it from the left now too. I’ve been friends with these people who have made young people leave their platforms or feel like they can’t post because they are going to get told that they’re not a good person for having the beliefs they have. I’ve witnessed that with my own two eyes — seeing young people be shamed for having different political beliefs on different policies, having the same beliefs when it comes to our core principles, but being shamed off the platform. And I think that this double edged sword is a big part of it. If you can’t handle the hate from both sides, then you’re probably not going to be someone who wants to make that kind of content.
Why does Trump have a bigger following than Biden?
Just look at the substance of his posts compared to the Biden HQ content. The Biden HQ content often is very policy-driven. It’s very policy- or issue-focused. At times it can be very intellectual, whereas Trump’s is just like, “I’m Donald Trump, and I’m at a UFC fight.” It’s just so simplistic in nature that it’s just easier to consume, and it moves faster because it’s so nonpolitical, consumable, almost normal TikTok content. If you were not tuned into politics at all, you had no idea who Donald Trump and Joe Biden were, and you were just a person on TikTok for the first time, and you saw that video of Trump with Dana White at the UFC fight, you would be like, “Who is this guy?”
I don’t think that Trump is approaching TikTok as a means of campaigning on the issues. He’s approaching it as a means of, “I’m Donald Trump. Watch me do cool stuff, with cool people.” I’m not saying I think he’s cool or that he’s doing cool stuff. That’s the vibe. He’s treating it like he’s a lifestyle girly, but he’s catering it to his audience.
Should the Biden campaign be putting out more of that softer, less political content?
The most impactful digital content we’ve seen on the platform in relation to Biden was Joe Biden telling a story from when he was younger. It was just a very good moment of people being able to see, you know, the president is not this caricature that we might get on social media. He is just a normal human being. He does have past experiences and a life story that people don’t know. Those kinds of moments are just so impactful and moving. I would love to see more of that in the future.
There is anti-Biden content coming out of more left-leaning young voters who are saying they won’t vote for him because of his handling of Israel’s war in Gaza. How do you address that?
If I see a larger left creator making content that is very anti-Biden or anti-Democrat, but I know that our core principles are the same — I know that our core principles are, we really care about people, we care about voting rights, we care about autonomy — then there have been times where I felt so inclined to reach out and ask to have a conversation with that creator. And I have had so many conversations with very left-leaning creators, where I sat down and talked to them for a few hours and explained and made my case. So I’m like, “Look, I completely understand where you’re coming from. I empathize with your feelings, and I’m not going to tell you that they’re not valid or that your feelings are wrong.” No. 1, that’s just never going to get anyone to want to listen to you. But No. 2, it would just be hypocritical of me to sit down and tell people that their concerns aren’t valid, when I’m asking them to vote or be involved.
What are the biggest misconceptions about young people in general when it comes to this election?
There has been this narrative since, I want to say 2016, that the issues that are undeniably, “Young people care about this; this is what they vote off,” is climate change, gun violence, and abortion rights or student debt. All of those issues are important to a very large subset of young people.
But I think a big part of the reason we see so many young people tuned out is because we’re asking them to care about these other things when they can’t pay their rent. We’re asking them to care about these other things when they can’t afford to buy groceries. Young people care about the same issues as older generations when it comes to affordability, the economy and cost of living, and hardly ever, in my opinion, do we see them messaged to on those issues, despite the fact that we are dealing with those issues just like every other generation is.
I’m a young woman. I care about abortion rights, I care about climate change, I care about gun violence prevention. But I’ve also been working and financially supporting myself since I was 18 years old. I’ve paid my own tuition, got myself through college, and I know that there are millions of other young people out there who have done that exact same thing. Sometimes I just want a politician to tell me: “This is what I’m doing to try to bring your cost of living down. This is what I’m doing to make things more affordable to you in the future, not just erasing student debt, but also making sure we don’t create this problem of debt.”
What is your biggest tip for the type of content that may persuade a skeptical young voter to actually turn out in November?
Stop shaming young people. That’s the absolute biggest thing. And you know what? I’m a hypocrite for even saying that, because I’ve done it in the past. I’ve let my passions get the best of me, and I’ve let that come forward. But I’ve done a lot of traveling last year to different places, like I went to the Texas Democrats convention. I did some local youth forums in Houston, and I’ve talked to a lot of young people in the last few years. And I really realized we get told this thing all the time of, “The youth will save us,” and if a youth has an opinion where they disagree, suddenly it’s, “You’re young, you don’t know what you’re talking about.” It can’t be both. You can’t tell young people that they’re going to save the world and then also tell them that they don’t know how to do it. If they have an opinion, or they’re feeling dejected, it is our moral responsibility as people who have been involved in politics for a long time, even though I am really young, to have those conversations and to have them with an open heart and open mind and be willing to answer the tough questions.
Politico (archive.ph)
By Rachel Janfaza
2024-07-07 11:00:00GMT
Olivia Julianna received the Marie C. Wilson Emerging Leader Award at the 2023 Ms. Foundation Women of Vision Awards ceremony. | Illustration by Bill Kuchman/POLITICO (source image via Olivia Julianna)
Joe Biden’s campaign had a four-month head start on TikTok before Donald Trump followed him to the platform they both pledged to ban, but that has not translated into a lead. Trump’s follower count (7.4 million) trounces the Biden campaign’s (over 405,000), though it’s unclear how many of those might be bots. His posts, along with a wave of MAGA content from smaller creators, have drastically outperformed Biden’s, despite the president’s hopes that TikTok would help him connect with young voters who are skeptical of his reelection campaign — especially following an embarrassing debate performance that has made Biden’s advanced age a focal point in the presidential election.
Olivia Julianna wants to turn the tide online. In an interview with POLITICO Magazine, the 21-year-old social media star opens up about her uphill mission to make Biden boom on a platform increasingly dominated by right-wing creators.
One of the original stars of TikTok for Biden — which evolved into the progressive advocacy group Gen Z for Change — Julianna cemented her place as a Democratic social media power-player in 2022, when she clapped back at a body-shaming post from Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz by starting a fundraiser that ultimately pulled in over $2 million to support abortion care. Now an independent creator, Julianna — who posts selfies with the likes of Vice President Kamala Harris and has over 670,000 TikTok followers, far more than the Biden campaign — is leveraging her audience to convince young voters to stick with Biden. I spoke with her about how Trump became a TikTok “lifestyle girly,” why the left is struggling to keep up with the right on TikTok and how Biden’s damaging debate is playing online.
The following has been edited for length and clarity.
Are you concerned about the way that the debate and its aftermath are playing out online?
I have actually been very surprised by what I am seeing on social media. I have not seen concern or really anti-Biden sentiment on my social media pages from normal people. I have only seen the concern and the ‘Biden can’t do this’ from the punditry circle and the Beltway. Even with normal people in my life, like I’ve messaged and texted with them, and I’m like, ‘Hey, how are you feeling?’ They’re kind of all like, ‘We knew Joe Biden was old, but I’d rather vote for Grandpa Democracy than Grandpa Dictator.’
An internal TikTok review found there was two times more pro-Trump content on the platform than pro-Biden content between November to May. Why is that?
If you are on the left, oftentimes it can feel like there is a disincentive to make political content. For me, I am a Joe Biden Democrat. I am a normal Democrat from Texas. I have very progressive beliefs and very progressive values, but I don’t appear that way in the way that I make videos sometimes. And as a result of that, I have people on the left who have called me anything from a sellout, to a bootlicker, to a corporate shill. And if you are a young person who is passionate about these issues, you have to deal with the hate from the right, but you also have to deal with it from the left now too. I’ve been friends with these people who have made young people leave their platforms or feel like they can’t post because they are going to get told that they’re not a good person for having the beliefs they have. I’ve witnessed that with my own two eyes — seeing young people be shamed for having different political beliefs on different policies, having the same beliefs when it comes to our core principles, but being shamed off the platform. And I think that this double edged sword is a big part of it. If you can’t handle the hate from both sides, then you’re probably not going to be someone who wants to make that kind of content.
Why does Trump have a bigger following than Biden?
Just look at the substance of his posts compared to the Biden HQ content. The Biden HQ content often is very policy-driven. It’s very policy- or issue-focused. At times it can be very intellectual, whereas Trump’s is just like, “I’m Donald Trump, and I’m at a UFC fight.” It’s just so simplistic in nature that it’s just easier to consume, and it moves faster because it’s so nonpolitical, consumable, almost normal TikTok content. If you were not tuned into politics at all, you had no idea who Donald Trump and Joe Biden were, and you were just a person on TikTok for the first time, and you saw that video of Trump with Dana White at the UFC fight, you would be like, “Who is this guy?”
I don’t think that Trump is approaching TikTok as a means of campaigning on the issues. He’s approaching it as a means of, “I’m Donald Trump. Watch me do cool stuff, with cool people.” I’m not saying I think he’s cool or that he’s doing cool stuff. That’s the vibe. He’s treating it like he’s a lifestyle girly, but he’s catering it to his audience.
Should the Biden campaign be putting out more of that softer, less political content?
The most impactful digital content we’ve seen on the platform in relation to Biden was Joe Biden telling a story from when he was younger. It was just a very good moment of people being able to see, you know, the president is not this caricature that we might get on social media. He is just a normal human being. He does have past experiences and a life story that people don’t know. Those kinds of moments are just so impactful and moving. I would love to see more of that in the future.
There is anti-Biden content coming out of more left-leaning young voters who are saying they won’t vote for him because of his handling of Israel’s war in Gaza. How do you address that?
If I see a larger left creator making content that is very anti-Biden or anti-Democrat, but I know that our core principles are the same — I know that our core principles are, we really care about people, we care about voting rights, we care about autonomy — then there have been times where I felt so inclined to reach out and ask to have a conversation with that creator. And I have had so many conversations with very left-leaning creators, where I sat down and talked to them for a few hours and explained and made my case. So I’m like, “Look, I completely understand where you’re coming from. I empathize with your feelings, and I’m not going to tell you that they’re not valid or that your feelings are wrong.” No. 1, that’s just never going to get anyone to want to listen to you. But No. 2, it would just be hypocritical of me to sit down and tell people that their concerns aren’t valid, when I’m asking them to vote or be involved.
What are the biggest misconceptions about young people in general when it comes to this election?
There has been this narrative since, I want to say 2016, that the issues that are undeniably, “Young people care about this; this is what they vote off,” is climate change, gun violence, and abortion rights or student debt. All of those issues are important to a very large subset of young people.
But I think a big part of the reason we see so many young people tuned out is because we’re asking them to care about these other things when they can’t pay their rent. We’re asking them to care about these other things when they can’t afford to buy groceries. Young people care about the same issues as older generations when it comes to affordability, the economy and cost of living, and hardly ever, in my opinion, do we see them messaged to on those issues, despite the fact that we are dealing with those issues just like every other generation is.
I’m a young woman. I care about abortion rights, I care about climate change, I care about gun violence prevention. But I’ve also been working and financially supporting myself since I was 18 years old. I’ve paid my own tuition, got myself through college, and I know that there are millions of other young people out there who have done that exact same thing. Sometimes I just want a politician to tell me: “This is what I’m doing to try to bring your cost of living down. This is what I’m doing to make things more affordable to you in the future, not just erasing student debt, but also making sure we don’t create this problem of debt.”
What is your biggest tip for the type of content that may persuade a skeptical young voter to actually turn out in November?
Stop shaming young people. That’s the absolute biggest thing. And you know what? I’m a hypocrite for even saying that, because I’ve done it in the past. I’ve let my passions get the best of me, and I’ve let that come forward. But I’ve done a lot of traveling last year to different places, like I went to the Texas Democrats convention. I did some local youth forums in Houston, and I’ve talked to a lot of young people in the last few years. And I really realized we get told this thing all the time of, “The youth will save us,” and if a youth has an opinion where they disagree, suddenly it’s, “You’re young, you don’t know what you’re talking about.” It can’t be both. You can’t tell young people that they’re going to save the world and then also tell them that they don’t know how to do it. If they have an opinion, or they’re feeling dejected, it is our moral responsibility as people who have been involved in politics for a long time, even though I am really young, to have those conversations and to have them with an open heart and open mind and be willing to answer the tough questions.
