Gen Z influencers who supported Biden in 2020 turn against him ( www.washingtonpost.com )

“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.

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.”

CharlesDarwin ,
@CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world avatar

Hope they like not having any future elections.

UnderpantsWeevil OP ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

There's a theory that democracy is just going to end if Trump is elected. But I'm more prone to see it as a continuation of the current trend - more intense gerrymandering, courts picking winners and losers, fewer and fewer people enfranchised.

The form of election is still around, just like in Russia or Israel. But only the oligarchs and their cronies really get to participate.

I think turning popular democracy into a Hong Kong style of corporate board votes will fit their tastes nicely.

CharlesDarwin ,
@CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world avatar

We'll see. I think donnie himself and some of his stupid and venal supporters have a different view. I'm sure donnie would love to pay back those that he thinks wronged him somehow. If that is just humiliation in the courts and a RWNJ-friendly media, that may be enough for him, who knows.

His venal supporters? They probably don't really love corporate power and carrying more of the tax burden than their fair share, even if they probably don't think about that all that much.

Some of the worst just want to spill blood, literally, maybe even doing it themselves. Some of them (when they think they are anonymous) clearly enunciate how they relish the idea of killing men, women and children of the wrong color/religion. Many of them are just pissed that donnie wasn't able to go full throttle last time; I don't see donnie's admin having much reason to show any restraint in this regard this time around. I'm not sure fucking over liberals and POC with gerrymandering, court wins, disenfranchisement will be visceral enough for the most magabrained.

UnderpantsWeevil OP ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

Plenty of ethnic cleansing has occurred democratically. I don't think one strictly precludes the other. If anything, a popular voter endorsement of eugenics and concentration camps helps facilitate the atrocities. Just look at what's happening in Israel. Or what happened under Bolsonaro in Brazil.

555 ,

Well can you blame them? This “genocide Joe” stuff is being pushed hard by the right-wing to play on the left’s “offended” nature. This same type of propaganda is used by all sides.

Cosmonauticus ,

What? If anything I've seen right wingers push Joe isn't doing enough to help Israel.

Also the dude was wagging his finger at Israel for blowing up and starving children. Left wing criticism of it is warranted and you SHOULD be offended.

From my view the thing turning ppl off of Biden is his supporters considering any valid criticism of him as supporting Trump

555 ,

A lot of Americans think that Biden has control of Israel.

mhague ,

I wonder if influencers are real. People will make decisions and then gravitate towards something, and others will end up thinking that that something is the cause. But I've never seen evidence that an influencer with 1 million followers is anything other than a mustering ground for people already wanting to act out. I guess "influencer" is just shorthand for "we don't actually know what's influencing all these people, but we know where they've assembled!"

CthuluVoIP ,
@CthuluVoIP@lemmy.world avatar

Influencers are paid product shills. Most have no scruples or real positions. They produce whatever content will attract followers so that they can maximize their sponsorship dollars. These aren’t serious opinions anyone should pay much mind to.

unmagical ,

Are we sure it's not Biden that turned against them?

anticolonialist ,

That would assume Biden ever had their backs. The only thing democrats ever have with someone's back is a knife in it. He and all other DC trash only have the backs of the donor class.

autotldr Bot ,

This is the best summary I could come up with:

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.

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.

According to a recent poll conducted by Morning Consult, two-thirds of Gen Z voters — 67 percent — say Biden’s decision to back legislation that could lead to a TikTok ban has made them less likely to vote for him in November.

On TikTok, for example, many creators who were relatively new to the industry four years ago and working to build their followings have become powerful multiplatform influencers running profitable media businesses that reach tens of millions of young people.

Gen-Z for Change Executive Director Elise Joshi, a content creator and climate activist, said she hosted Zoom calls with hundreds of other young people in 2020 outlining why they should vote for Biden.

What angers her is the president’s failure to engage with Gen Z influencers’ substantive concerns, she said — though she acknowledged that the White House climate office recently contacted her directly regarding a pause in the approval of new liquefied natural gas projects.

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