Politics

Source: Dana Galo I TikTok Campaign

Politics is a big topic on TikTok, where users express their own political opinions or comment on political news. As TikTok’s demographic of users skews heavily toward Gen-Z and younger groups, they are arguably the most progressive and becoming increasingly politically engaged, emphasizing values like diversity, acceptance, and social responsibility. Therefore, they use TikTok to express those views.

Ahead of the 2020 election between Donald Trump and President Joe Biden, KPop fans across the world united on TikTok to form a plan to represent their shared political agenda. With Trump’s insistence on holding large, indoor political rallies during a global pandemic to promote his re-election, a rally was scheduled in Tulsa, Oklahoma in June of 2020. Kpop fans, a huge community with a massive digital presence, used TikTok to initiate a stunt to manipulate the attendance at Trump’s rally in Tulsa by encouraging millions of teenagers to register for the rally and obviously not attend. And… it worked: the venue holds 19,000 audience members and roughly 6,000 people actually attended. I’m sure this only contributed to the former President’s fear of TikTok, but also probably saved thousands of people from contracting COVID-19. Videos of the empty rally were then posted across TikTok for millions to share and comment on. In Vogue author Christian Allaire’s article “How TikTok Went From Dance Videos to Meaningful Activism,” he wrote, “this was more just than a clever prank; it was a successful form of protest against a president who many believe continues to deny Americans basic human rights.”

According to CNN’s article “Digital Political Operatives Turn to TikTok to Get Out the Vote,” written by Rachel Janfaza and Allison Gordon, TikTok became the “latest political battlefield in the 2020 election.” In the weeks leading up to the election, TikTok launched a national voter registration campaign called ‘Tok the Vote’ to encourage users to vote. Forbes reporter Seth Cohen described in his article “Voting Gone Viral? How TikTok Creators Plan To Influence The 2020 Election” that the campaign is a “creator-led coalition to empower Gen Z to vote and mobilize young leaders in the fight for progress.” Tok the Vote was created to influence the youth and “use this online platform to drive social change and to empower them to be leaders in the fight for progress.” It was reported that hundreds of TikTok creators participated in the campaign and helped to reach millions of both new and first-time voters. Cohen added, “it’s the platform’s ability to inspire people to vote that might ultimately be its most powerful viral content of all.”