Feature: Social media playing unique role in 2024 presidential election

Hofstra Student Reporting

Transcript:

Since its Advent, social media has played a number of different roles in presidential election years, especially for younger voters in the political process. What you're currently hearing is a remix of the now viral Coconut Tree meme from a TikTok user known simply as MX Welch 03.

My mother used to she would give us a hard time sometimes, and she would say to us, I don't know what's wrong with you, young. People. You think you just fell? Out of a coconut tree. You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.

Micah Loewinger, co-host of the popular WNYC radio show On the Media, says this now very famous speech was originally meant to hurt the Harris campaign.

The coconut tree meme came from this clip that actually the RNC dug up in an attempt to make Kamala Harris seem meandering and scatterbrained and not as serious politician. But this clip actually had the opposite effect.

That backfiring stemmed from the co-opting of this speech by younger voters, mainly those in Gen. Z.

Clips from that now-viral video have been used in remixes of Charli XCX songs and Chappell Roan songs on TikTok and beyond, and it's really became a rallying cry for her campaign, when she announced her candidacy.

And since the use of singer Charlie XDX's Brat summer with Harris's speech, the singer-songwriter herself endorsed Harris.

One of the big celebrity endorsements that we saw right after she announced her candidacy was Charli XCX, tweeting that Kamala Harris is brat. The reference to Charlie XCX's hugely popular summer blockbuster album, Brat. Kamala Harris had started adopting the iconography of the album, her social media channels now read Kamala HQ, using the same faded arial black font against a chartreuse lime green background. The same style of Charlie XCX's album cover.

Loewinger is unsure if it will have any longstanding impact.

Does this virality translate into actual voters in November? And that's just a really hard question to answer. There are still months ahead before November.

Some Hofstra students who have a podcast that features politics weighed in on this trend. Emma Rizzo, a Long Island freshman forensic science major, shared their thoughts on the impact of this popular. Social media trend.

It's very good for reach because she's able to connect to the this generation that- They're newer to politics, with some of them being their first election, and it's kind of just like grabbing us and gravitating us towards voting because we feel comfortable with social media.

Another first year Hofstra student, Megan Mancuso, studying speech pathology, says she was going to vote Democratic in this election, but the trend further cemented her choice as Harris.

I think it was definitely reassuring, especially after, like Biden dropped out and stuff. It was kind of very confusing cause no one really knew what was happening. But now, because of the rise of these like memes, kind of reassuring in a way cause it's like, OK, the Democratic Party, they have this under control. There's nothing we need to worry about.

On the other side of this election, former president and Republican presidential nominee. Donald Trump has used social media in a similar way, but with differing results. Recently he was interviewed by Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and owner of X, formerly known as Twitter.

Biden actually did something that was impossible. Both sides hate him. You know, both sides. Yeah. That was a hard thing to do. Unification.

That clip was from the Daily Mail.

Trump has joined content creators with massive followings, and what some see as an effort to shore up support among what one New York Times reporter described as "a testosterone heavy demographic that the former president sees as critical to his bid for office."

Some of these media appearances have been with Youtubers Logan and Jake Paul. Podcasters and elk boys and a Kick live streamer by the name of Adin Ross. Again, WNYC's Michael Loewinger on that live stream:

Somebody like Adin Ross, whether you're familiar with his work as a viewer or you've seen just clips of him online, it's not clear that he really has a super coherent political worldview.

And here's what he thinks of Trump's connection with those influencers.

I look to those endorsements as a sign that Donald Trump and his campaign are attempting to make inroads with this kind of broyer segment of influencer culture, and they very well may succeed.

But he says he doesn't believe that the live stream appearances will create any long standing effects within those communities.

The most successful political voices on these platforms are those who for hours a day, days a week, are instilling in their viewers a very specific and coherent political ideology.

Loewinger does think, however, that Trump's connections with those communities align with the typical image seen by many MAGA Trump supporters.

I think many of Donald Trump's supporters enjoy casting him as a a strongman, an ultra-rich guy who kind of fits a Hollywood definition of masculinity. That's the image that he is cultivating by courting some of these frattier influencers, Tik Tokers and Youtubers.

Officer students also shared their input on Trump's use of social media freshman engineering major. Lucas Huang says that Trump's involvement with that community will largely be inconsequential.

Definitely it's like. Targeting, you know those, the young generation that's like mainly males that are they're planning on voting Republican anyways.

And his podcast co-host Emma Rizzo expresses a similar sentiment, saying that Trump is missing the mark when it comes to the communities he should appeal to.

It definitely feels like he's trying to compete with Kamala and trying to get the younger generations, but he's focusing more on those who probably will be voting Republican.

Gen. Z, some of who are voting for the first time, use these social media platforms as their lifeblood and their own independent media sources, and that definitely shows through the approach both Trump and Harris have taken to social media. For morning wake up call, I'm Cameron Bowden, 88.7 FM WRHU.