The Biden campaign’s venture onto TikTok has been met with mixed reviews, as some supporters praise the attempt to explore new ways to reach young adults while others insist the account needs to engage on a more substantive level to appear authentic.
The account, created Sunday, has released a dozen posts, a mix of cable news clips bashing former President Donald Trump, jokes about President Joe Biden’s age, a Super Bowl video featuring the Dark Brandon meme and a clip of campaign staffers defending him against special counsel Robert Hur’s comments on his mental acuity.
Supporters of the president’s reelection efforts say the new account is a step in the right direction and offers an outlet to better tout what his administration has accomplished for young people, such as a TikTok featuring a former school principal whose student loans were forgiven through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.
But critics, and some allies, warn that there is a fine line between genuinely engaging with voters and being performative.
“If he is just getting on the platform to share memes, I think he’s going to find tons of pushback and comment sections that are full of people calling him out,” Dakota Hall, executive director of the Alliance for Youth Action, told CNN.
For the Biden campaign, joining the social media site presents the possibility for modest rewards but also high risks. Digital strategists see TikTok as a critical tool for Democratic candidates to reach young voters, a bloc that has soured on Biden amidst rising inflation, concerns about his age and his administration’s response to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
“I think they had to launch one,” said Cate Domino, a senior vice president for digital at Precision Strategies, a Democratic consulting…
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