“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,” Vice President Kamala Harris once said.
Harris’s remarks, exuberant laugh and cooking videos have gone viral across the internet. People on TikTok feel a sense of surprise when they see the account making these videos: her very own headquarters.
During the hectic time of presidential campaigns, candidates rally across states on a mission to prove why they’re the best person for the job. While this has been a common form of campaigning for decades, new strategies have arisen for this upcoming election, relying on social media amid a new digital age. Although Harris and former
President Donald Trump having their own social media pages isn’t shocking, their team’s pages, “Kamala HQ” and “Team Trump,” have become more of a focus than ever before.
Kamala HQ (headquarters), most prominent on Instagram and TikTok, has encapsulated the attention of millions of Gen Z and millennial Americans. The Tiktok account, fol- lowed by over four million people, consists of content ranging from attacks on Trump, Harris’s goals as President and the usage of prevalent trends surfacing on TikTok.
Its most famous take on a trend capitalized on the phenomenon of “Brat Summer,” based off of Charli XCX’s album “Brat.” The album seemed to resonate with Harris supporters with different accounts posting edits to Harris with Charli XCX’s music, along with Charli XCX tweeting that “Kamala IS brat.”
Along with the use of social media, Harris has also gained support and publicity through celebrity endorsements. Most notably, Taylor Swift’s endorsement of Harris inspired Harris’s team to not only embrace this support but to specifically highlight more of Swift’s songs on its media accounts.
In this endorsement post, Swift included the Vote.gov link for her followers. Twenty-four hours after this post, about 406,000 people had clicked on this link. The power of a single post on social media caused a drastic increase in the number of voters registered for this upcoming election.
Kamala HQ employs the tactic of using popular songs and prevalent trends to appeal to her image and campaign.
Along with focusing on the new perspective Harris would bring to the Oval Office, her campaign team also champions her pick for Vice President, Tim Walz.
Based off of the song “Get Low,” Kamala HQ has adapted the lyrics in the song to say “to the window to the Walz.” This play on words has become a common tactic used by Harris’s campaign to spread enthusiasm abou Walz.
Although Harris’s team has been using social media to campaign, it’s not the only one employing this new tactic.
Team Trump has used its social media pages to promote Trump’s widely-known slogan MAGA (Make America Great Again) as well as to criticize Harris’s policies. Team Trump focuses on the ways Biden and Harris’s presidency has corrupted the U.S. and claims that Trump is the one to bring our country back to what it used to be.
Trump’s team has also gained publicity through different influencers and celebrities. One of the first examples of this was influencer Logan Paul bringing Trump to speak on his podcast. Trump’s mission was to appeal to Paul’s viewers, a large demographic of which consists of young voters. While this decision evoked different feelings over the media, it brought in public attention from both sides.
Along with Paul, Trump has also targeted young voters by interacting with other big internet names.
Most recently, Trump brought influencer Bryce Hall on stage at his Las Vegas rally. Hall, after being criticized on TikTok for shaming Harris, has been an active supporter online of Trump.
On the stage of the Vegas rally, he expressed the need for Trump to be back as president.
Trump is also known for expressing his opinions and frequent thoughts on X (formally known as Twitter). While Harris also has an X account, Trump’s account having 91 million followers is a display of how he has used this app to his advantage as a candidate. He has posts supporting his MAGA campaign as well as expressing why he should be president.
Both Trump and Harris’s teams share the common goal to gain the support of newer voters. However, while Harris’s team primarily does this through its following of social media trends, Trump’s team takes a different approach.
Recently, conducting an image through AI of Taylor Swift endorsing Trump for president, Trump’s team took the opportunity to create the slogan “Swifties for Trump.” This was an at-
tempt (by Republicans) to align Swift supporters and Trump supporters by portraying them as being on the same side.
The influx of campaigning on social media hasn’t only affected teenagers globally, but also some of the first-time voters at Cherry Hill East.
Sam Becker (‘25), who will be able to vote in this upcoming election, expressed how the AI images of Swift and Swift’s endorsement of Harris has impacted the opinions of both him and his friends on who they will be voting for.
Becker said that the candidates’ campaigning through the media “has definitely made [him] feel stronger in [his] opinions. It gives a different perspective on them and shines a new light that isn’t normally talked about.”
While two oppositional viewpoints are being presented to the media, U.S. citizens over 18 have the choice to make a change.
Whether or not the media will personally influence your vote, it will unquestionably help to solidify opinions, or at the very least give more knowledge, about either candidate for this upcoming election.
