2016 Election: Case Study

This 2016 Presidential Election serves as the most fascinating and salient example of social media’s impact on this country in history. You have surely noticed at this point that Donald Trump receives an ungodly amount of television coverage, but you may not appreciate how far-reaching his twitter account has become. Donald Trump has about 7 million followers on twitter, so he’s about half-way to Beyonce’s level! Hillary’s page will also reach an impressive milestone of 6 million followers in the coming weeks. And I certainly won’t forget Bernie Sanders. My Facebook feed constantly contains passionate posts and links to articles supporting his campaign. In fact, my social media accounts expose me to Sanders more than any other candidate, which is certainly a result of my college-aged friend-list. I have mentioned in previous posts to this blogs that social media can act as a hall of mirrors for people with similar opinions, and this property can certainly explain Bernie’s popularity with young voters who use Facebook and Twitter every day.

But just how heavily do the candidates rely on social media to get them dibs on Obama’s digs? According to a recent report from the Social Times, they collectively have spent more than $1,000,000,000.00 on digital media and social media (the advanced reader will note that I included all those zeros for rhetorical effect, and the highly advanced reader will note that reporting that statistic to such a high degree of accuracy is complete BS, but the non-advanced reader will have skipped over this text in parentheses to save time, leaving him or her hopelessly clueless as per usual). You may also have noticed that social media is also putting a good deal of money into politics. YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook have all sponsored televised debates that integrate questions from their users into the flow of the discussion. Snapchat even covers various debates and important political events in their daily stories. Cleary, the 2016 election has taken advantage of social media more than any other year.

Courtesy of Pew

The candidates focus on social media for obvious reasons. According to a study published last month by the Pew Research Center, social media has become the second most prominent source of election information for all Americans, with only cable TV outperforming it. However, when Pew narrowed the scope to the 18-29 year-old demographic, social media placed at the top of the list, 17% above the next source, online news. Tapping into digital and social media is absolutely crucial to winning the millennial vote; traditional approaches simply cannot compete.

Perhaps watching these candidates’ poor efforts of reaching the millennial heart through Twitter has been the most enjoyable part of this otherwise bleak election. Many seeks to seem “cool” above all else. However, as Erin Lindsay, who worked on Obama’s campaign, says in the Social Times article, “Authenticity is a big thing in social media. I think the candidates that are the most successful are the ones that are clearly the most comfortable.” I argue that the candidate that fits this bill most closely is Donald Trump. Look at one of his tweets where he actually isn’t attacking anyone:

You can just tell by the direct correlation between syntactical carelessness and word-count that Donald Trump’s greasy little thumbs really are the perpetrators of this post; I can imagine them furiously squishing away at an iPhone screen on some private jet headed for the Florida primaries. People respond to this level of honesty. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, doesn’t quite mask the fact that she has a crack team of underpaid interns working for her day and night to craft her perfect tweets. Here is Hillary trying to appeal to young voters:

…and here is Hillary appealing to African Americans with references to Hip-Hop group Run-D.M.C., Rosa Parks (with Mrs. Parks tragically seated at the back of the logo), and Kwanzaa:

All courtesy of the New York Times

…   and here is Hillary appealing to hispanics with an article on her campaign page that consequently sparked many tweets from latinos using #notmyabuela:

Regardless of your opinion of these two candidates, who at this point will very likely face-off in the November election, Trump undoubtedly conveys an astronomically higher degree of authenticity with his social media accounts than Clinton. For years, people have called politics a popularity contest, and when candidates today spend $1 billion of campaign funds to amass likes, favorites, and followers, that statement suddenly becomes prophetic. I hope that our generation chooses to value policy over personality despite the current trend to emphasize the latter. All I can do at this point is cross my fingers and hope President Obama uses executive action to deport Trump to Mexico. Revenge is a dish best served garnished with irony.