With only a few days to go before Election Day arrives on November 5, political campaigns are still doing what they can to connect with young voters on hubs like TikTok and Twitch. At the same time, political motivations on those platforms are shifting, and the Kamala Harris and Donald Trump teams would be wise to pay attention.
On TikTok in particular, Gen Z voters are dividing into factions to promote their progressive, neoliberal, or conservative stances. Some of those factions have been propped up by the major party presidential campaigns. Vice President Harris has received the support of Voters of Tomorrow, a Gen Z advocacy group that is going after Green Party candidate Jill Stein. In a TikTok-based campaign, Voters of Tomorrow labeled Stein as a “scammer” and urged viewers to avoid casting a third-party vote for her.
@voterstomorrow Let’s talk about America’s biggest scammer. #tea #scam #breakdown #chat #greenscreen #shade #popculture #annadelvey #fyrefestival #dramatiktok #scammer #politics #fyp #share ♬ original sound – Voters of Tomorrow
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Though both major parties are making overtures to young voters via TikTok, a recent raft of data suggests that the Democrats are seeing stronger results from that push. According to numbers compiled by social analytics company Zelf and analyzed by FWIW, more than 15,300 anti-Trump videos have arrived on TikTok over the past two months. Those clips have received more than 2.6 billion views. Meanwhile, anti-Harris sentiments have spread across 12,500 TikToks, which have collectively picked up 1 billion views.
Those figures align with common perceptions of the TikTok community, which is often cast as a progressive body that stands up to power structures. But one particular issue is making political analysis of TikTok more complicated. I’m talking, of course, about Israel and Palestine.
The creator community’s internal disagreements on the Middle East have added complexity to the influencer election a few days before its culmination. One high-profile fracas unfolded on Twitch, where Asmongold (real name Zack Hoyt) earned a two-week ban for comments on Palestine that were widely decried as racist.
Some of the harshest blowback against Asmongold has come from his colleagues at the streamer media company OTK. The COO of that firm, who goes by the username TipsOut, invoked his background as the son of Syrian immigrants when speaking out against Asmongold. “To many who heard Zack’s comments, the language he used, whether intended or not, wreaked of the same dehumanization that plagued their ancestors, their grandparents, and in some cases, their families today,” he wrote on X. “It is the same language used to justify wanton violence, genocide, and the destruction of our universal brotherhood.”
Asmongold has apologized for his comments, characterizing them as “disgusting.” Another feud among high-profile streamers, however, remains unresolved. Ethan Klein and Hasan Piker, who once co-hosted a podcast together, have struggled to see eye-to-eye since last October.
The latest twist in that tale saw Klein accuse Piker of “hyping up” Hezbollah, the paramilitary group that operates out of Lebanon. “Your rhetoric, your tone, the way you carry yourself on this topic is the reason why I’m being harassed by so many people online,” Klein said on his podcast.
Piker fired back with a dose of reality for Klein. “That sort of stuff is not going to be read positively by your audience, which is going to be very upset with you, because your audience does not agree with what you’re saying,” Piker said. “And it’s not just me goading them into feeling a type of way about you.”
Creator debates regarding Israel and Palestine show that politicians should approach influencer relations with care. On platforms like TikTok and Twitch, the divisions go deeper than left vs. right, and the fault lines are becoming clearer as the 2024 election draws closer. How will this animosity translate to the polls? Will young progressives vote for Jill Stein, much to the Harris campaign’s chagrin? Or will they fall in line with the anti-Trump brigade? The answer will arrive on November 5.
