“Kamala is Brat”: Relatability, Celebrity Endorsements and Media Literacy in the age of Social Media Campaigns
By Saiba Haque
This new age of social media campaigning for politicians can call into question the emergence of influencer-like political campaigns, media literacy amongst those consuming said campaigns, and celebrity endorsements in the age of social media politics, and whether they should hold weight. Perhaps we can argue that we are at an age where pop-culture is viscerally bleeding into mainstream politics, and this is strongly indicated from the UK and US election cycles of 2024. When looked in retrospect, this year will be one for the books to record the way political campaigning has seen a drastic shift in terms of strategy around social media, and perhaps it can be a cautionary reminder for navigating elections in future cycles.
Populism, relatability and para-social tactics have long been used in the media sphere, whether it’s celebrities like Taylor Swift or Drake personally giving their fans gifts, or Elon Musk pretending to be a champion for freedom of speech for the underdogs and disenfranchised, or Donald Trump pretending like he’s an everyman-normal-person, regardless all of the above being incredibly famous billionaires and perhaps making them not as down to earth. When celebs and people in power decide that they want people to like them more, the best approach is often, to simply convince the public that you have their best interests at heart, and if you can convince them that you have the same hobbies or like the same music or artists as them, that will certainly help. Perhaps even the same ‘relatable’ humour that resonates with particular communities (“I’m not just MAGA, I’m Dark Gothic Maga”-Elon Musk…anyone?).
This relationship between celebrities and fans has seemingly been mirroring with the relationship between politicians and voters: Where a para-social relationship results in putting certain figures on pedestals by a target demographic that the figure is actively catering their personality to. Of course when worlds collide, and you see your favourite artist or celebrity, who you find relatable and really look up to, officially endorsing a political party (perhaps someone as influential as Beyonce endorsing Harris), it can arguably hold some level of weight for those enamoured by celebrity culture, especially when the stakes of marginality in voter shares are very high. This therefore weaves into the importance of media literacy as well.
From Tony Blair making D:Ream’s “Things can only get better” as the heart of his political campaigning to US presidential candidates securing celebrity endorsements (notably Obama securing an endorsement from Oprah Winfrey) to peek into the bias of voters is nothing new. In fact, previously in the US, actors like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ronald Reagan, managed to appeal to the bias of the public’s perception of their acting career to pivot into their political careers; Something which is also notable with Donald Trump.
But para-social methods used in political campaigning does not just stop at celebrity endorsements or selective campaign songs to evoke a feeling of change. For instance the hyper-specific meme-ification of Trump has been very prominent since 2016 in the US election cycles. Candidates making a jab at other opposing candidates to big themselves up is not an alien concept, as it has long been the case with traditional campaign videos or manifestos.
Image Credit Phil Hearing via unsplash
Although using relatability to pander to demographics is not unfamiliar in the realm of mainstream politics, the strategy for this year's election season for their respective social media campaigns have seemed rather unusual to some and at times rather bizarre. Perhaps it’s because TikTok has become a more widely used app this election year compared to the last cycle. An effect also seen in the UK with the Reform UK and Nigel Farage’s social media pages on TikTok gaining popularity through relatability politics, and portraying themselves as the party for “those who’ve had enough”- in other words, the politically disenfranchised.
This summer, ahead of the US election campaigns kicking off in full swing, The internet has coined ‘Brat Summer’ as the most notable pop-cultural decision of the year. The stupendous reception to Charli XCX’s album has garnered a huge mainstream yet cult following. This has been of significant help to the Harris administration, perfectly timed with Biden stepping down. There’s no way to know in absolution whether this move by Kamala HQ (Kamala Harris’ Campaign TikTok) has worked quite yet, as the election results will prevail in a few days time. But perhaps we can argue that to some extent this shift (maybe) worked, as it encouraged a younger American audience to go vote for Harris, who had relative popularity for advocating on women’s rights and abortion laws, but also for fairer workers rights and taxes.
It is notable that across the pond, celebrity endorsements carry significantly heavier weight than they would here in the UK. Hence when Charli XCX officially endorsed Harris by tweeting “Kamala is BRAT”, it held a tremendous weight for the initial target demographic of young women for the campaign.
Additionally, when it comes to the US election campaign it’s not that the Brat ‘Attitude’ (Confident, independent and hedonistic attitude) is directly affecting social media campaigns for politicians, but rather what this move by the campaign team implies on a deeper level in relation to politicians pining for the votes of the new generation of voters and their relationship with social media and voters. Of course we know now that the celebrity endorsements are stacked at this point on both parties. And coming up this close to the elections these endorsements seem to hold heavy weight especially as many are predicting a historically marginal outcome with the swing states ahead of the elections, where it will be down to the voters of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. To say that the stakes are high would be an understatement.
@KamalaHQ via X
While many have been enamoured by Kamala HQ to unapologetically utilise Brat Summer as the beating heart to jumpstart Kamala Harris’ political campaign on the internet to mostly appeal to the Gen Z demographic, there were also voters who had different priorities and expectations, pertaining to the Israel-Palestine issue, more specifically on the democratic party under Biden-Harris endorsing Israel’s war-crimes under the justification that it has the right to defence, not yet reaching a ceasefire deal and also on the selling of arms and weapons to Israel for the bombing of Gaza and now Lebanon. This not only brought into question true motives for the democratic party but also called into question the aspect of media literacy on internet discourse and how the oversimplification and “meme-afication” of politics can often blur the lines between celebrity culture and politics with such endorsements.
Arguably it is all the more jarring when there’s a political party campaign video on TikTok that tries to come off as relatable, and a few swipes away there’s scenes of utter destruction in Gaza and Lebanon; a dissonance which remains difficult to un-see. Many muslim American voters are leaning towards the third party vote for Jill Stein as their main objective is to put an end to the war. Alternatively some of the share of the muslim vote may also be going towards Trump, especially with the republican party making their play in swing state Michigan.
However, it doesn’t take away from a particularly regular trend amongst both UK and US (notably in the 2016 elections) when it comes to election season: Negative Partisanship. with many on social media going as far as saying “a vote for the Jill Stein is a vote for Donald Trump” with how marginal the figures are especially for swing states in 2024. In fact Andrew Yang, the candidate who started a third party has urged voters from swing states to avoid voting for a third party for this election. This year this intention of Tactical Voting amongst the public is looking homogenous in both US and UK. Often the narrative would be along the lines of “the opposing party will not support the needs of you, the public, therefore you should vote for us”. The public then feels inclined to choose between the lesser evil. With popular throwaway statements like “Vote for Harris if you don’t want women’s and reproductive rights and workers rights to fall in the wrong hands under Trump” or “Vote for Trump if you don’t want higher taxes and out of control immigration”.
Image credit -Ludovic Gauthier via unsplash
It is also important to note that blanket statements like this often make its way into mainstream discourse which continues tugging on the heart-strings of the populace to vote for what they believe to be the lesser evil. This, combined with the constant drive for relatability in campaigns, growing echo-chambers, rampant misinformation at a fast rate, and what seems to be endless celebrity endorsements seems more or less normalised. This often leads to the core policies for both parties being neglected.
When the election campaigning kicked off this year for both UK and US, the official political accounts/pages for the different parties were very homogenous in using the same kind of niche social media campaigning by using trending songs, edits and challenges on TikTok to paint candidates in a relatable light for a younger audience.
The concern is more apparent considering that there is a sizeable population of impressionable young people more active in social media (especially TikTok) , many younger than the legal age to vote. It must also be a consideration that algorithms on these platforms often fuel an echo-chamber of pushing same or similar content in a matter of seconds, creating an intellectual bubble. The concern therefore exacerbates on how susceptible users may be to not fully comprehend the blurry lines of social media marketing, consuming content within an echo-chamber and political campaigning. This concern arises as celebrities have already successfully built para-social relationships with their followers, what’s to say that politicians can’t get on the band-wagon? Although this has already existed in elections of years past, the navigation of this dynamic may become progressively difficult in future elections with these issues continuing to snowball if not seriously addressed.
Image Credit- Maxim Hopman via unsplash
Perhaps another very visible example (pertaining to the UK) also lies with Nigel Farage’s TikTok channel dominating the politics sphere of social media pre-UK elections, which left many wondering “How did this old man get so good at TikTok?” as he made a return to the frontline of politics with memes featuring the notorious verse “Guess who’s back, back again” from the track “Without Me” by Eminem. The 60 year-old controversial figure all of a sudden did not just start having a penchant for social media influencing, but rather he hired a Gen Z person to curate his social media media presence in order to portray himself as a relatable figure to a younger audience. 23 year-old Jack Anderton has managed to do what many thought was impossible: getting the youth of TikTok, with questionable media literacy to be on board with the likes of Farage, whilst upholding similar anti-immigration views as Farage. All of a sudden Reform UK grew in popularity on TikTok rather swiftly prior to the UK elections, with many of the demographic consisting of unexpectedly younger users of the platform.
The Conservative Party, Labour Party and Reform UK accounts on TikTok were notably fighting it out with memes in disguise of fuelling negative partisanship; with the aim to convince those who are just starting to grasp politics to choose the lesser of two evils by appealing to them through meme-ing and “sh*tposting”. Although Reform UK, Conservative and Labour did not use the Brat album as the forefront of their campaigns, they still used comparatively similar mechanisms to reach a new and growing audience, through memes that are niche to social media consumers who hardly follow mainstream news, perhaps even targeting audiences disenfranchised or unable to make up their mind. Which Kamala HQ has done so through campaigning vicariously through Brat Summer, and Farage did with the help of his Gen Z social media manager, and Trump has done so by making his appearance in the Joe Rogan Podcast and being popular in 4-chan.
Social media and trends have done for politicians what it had done for celebrities, it has increasingly blurred the divide between the audience and the public figure, fuelling a para-social bond of sorts through the aspect of relatability. Of course the modern age of political campaigning via social media, although seemingly effective, calls into question how media literacy and misinformation can be tackled along with having a significant impact on how the new age of voters will make their voting decisions ahead of the elections.
