This week’s Democratic National Convention is hosting the coming out party for what is perhaps the country’s TikTokiest campaign to date, that of “Coconut Meme Queen”/”Brat” Vice President Kamala Harris.
The campaign that launched a thousand memes is headlining a convention that has made great strides in the online space since 2008, when it first credentialed bloggers along with the traditional press corps.
This year, we can report from onsite at the convention that “content creators” are ubiquitous, with their own dedicated “lounges” off the floor and special receptions. More than 200 digital creators have special access to the convention’s first-ever Creator Platform, positioned right on the convention floor. The platform, which lets creators capture 360-degree views of the convention space and conduct interviews with prominent attendees for their audiences, represents a new step forward in how campaigns are covered—and how that coverage is prioritized by convention organizers.
The Trump campaign is no stranger to engaging content creators either, having worked with influencers from Logan Paul to Elon Musk and claiming several million followers on TikTok. Certainly, the platform Musk now owns—created as Twitter almost 20 years ago, in 2006—has played an outsize role in politics since its inception. And FGS politicos note online voices have been represented at the convention for several years now.
But the prominence of their platform this year—right on the convention floor—combined with the laser focus of the convention’s keystone campaign on courting Gen Z through TikTokvoices – represents a brave new world in campaign communications. And perhaps a model that other organizations will emulate.