On July 21st, Charli XCX tweeted, “Kamala IS brat,” initiating widespread social media support for Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign. Since the 2008 U.S. Presidential election, the internet and social media have played a large role in campaigning and public support. During this election cycle, 55% of the adult population went online to get election information. Furthering this trend, the 2012 election reshaped politics as Facebook became a powerful political force in Obama’s reelection. As technology and media consumption continue to grow, their effects on politics increase as well. While using media has powerful, informative effects on politics, there are numerous consequences associated with it.
My initial reaction to politics in social media is positive. Increasing accessibility and broadened reach to the average American allows the media to introduce new voters to the political landscape. Through political conversations on social media, citizens can access information about distant events and people, forming connections that create a resurgence of support for democracy. Social media is a powerful tool when informative; however, swaying someone’s vote based on new trends and memes causes more harm than good. People with no knowledge of politics will vote in surface-level ways, hurting democracy.
An example of social media use is the “Brat” campaign, taking after Charlie XCX’s marketing for her recent album, Brat. After Charlie XCX’s tweet, as mentioned above, the Harris team embraced the endorsement and even went so far as to change the banner on the Kamala HQ campaign account to the Brat cover art. To me, this use of social media trends to amplify a campaign was appealing when I saw it online, and I found humor in Harris’s social media edits. After relentless “Brat” content from the Harris team and her supporters online, I began to question the validity of using this trend in political campaigns. In a TikTok interview, Charlie XCX describes being a “brat” as “that girl who is a little messy and likes to party and maybe says some dumb things sometimes…A little bit volatile. Like, does dumb things. But it’s brat.” This definition shows that conflating Kamala Harris and “Brat” can pose a large danger to public perception of Harris. Why would someone back a candidate who is a “little bit volatile” and “does dumb things?” The association of “Brat” with Harris undermines her campaign and political policies while demonstrating a potentially worrisome result of social media usage.
Problems of social media use in politics are further exemplified by Donald Trump’s posts on X during the past three election cycles. X, formerly called Twitter, was a major part of Trump’s presidency and catalyzed Trump’s thoughts, accusations, and news updates. Among the posts was the infamous tweet that stated, “Despite the constant negative press covfefe.” The “typo” made national headlines and sparked intrigue over the true meaning of the word “covfefe.” However, this tweet emphasized the lack of care put into U.S. politics over social media. Although the ability of the president to send a message to the public in the matter of an instant can be beneficial for quick communication, it also allows for any information to be spread without being fact-checked by members of the White House Staff or the public in general. The use of social media by politicians can cause a loss of credibility and the depreciation of policies. How thought out, can a policy be if it can be tweeted in a maximum of 280 characters?
The oversaturation of trends in the media is furthered by political use, and it detracts from the politics themselves, turning American politics into a mockery. Although these posts use trends to generate attention, they are targeted at a very small target demographic when platforms such as TikTok and Instagram are used. Even though many ordinary citizens see social media as a constructive and destructive component of political life, just “34% of U.S. adults think social media has had an overall good impact.” In fact, the U.S. is an outlier in this statistic as more U.S. citizens see social media as divisive compared to other countries, with 79% of U.S. citizens believing that social media has caused more divides in political opinions. This division is largely caused by false information and rumors and can form a central distrust in the government.
This distrust takes the form of political anger and cynicism– two rising factors in the U.S. “associated with exposure to political attacks on social media.” Much of the political content posted on social media platforms is unproductive in nature, causing resentment between political parties rather than focusing on the issues and policies themselves. Public confidence in the government is currently at the lowest it has been in the past few decades, largely influenced by social media and internet use. Social media platforms’ algorithms amplify these effects by promoting negative content to the audiences; however, this makes outrage and negative opinions more visible. Although these negative emotions can motivate advocacy, they isolate large amounts of the population from participating in politics. Therefore, there are many benefits to the heightened media use in the political landscape of the U.S.; however, the consequences are numerous and pose a great risk to society.
ASMR aficionado majoring in English, economics, and Neuroscience who is a knitter in training.
