With nearly 40.1 million eligible voters, Generation Z will have a chance to impact the upcoming presidential election, with social media playing a vital role.
In an online era, most election updates are shared throughout the internet. Whether it’s making a meme, a cartoon of a candidate, clips of speeches being reposted or social media accounts created to spread voter awareness and show support for their party, social media has played a pivotal role in the 2024 Kamala Harris and Donald Trump presidential election campaigns and may continue to impact the 8 million people aging into voter eligibility.
Amanda Jordan, Department of Communication lecturer, said the 2008 presidential election was the first election where social media was available, but it wasn’t widely used. Its usage grew by the 2012 presidential election because of the shift in interest and candidate personalities, Democratic nominee Barack Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney.
Over the past decade, Jordan has seen a big change in where students get information when they’re ready to vote. She said social media has become a place for communities to find information about current candidates, which can have its ups and downs.
“[One of the bigger] downsides of elections and social media is, it’s very difficult to trust information that you find,” she said. “It’s difficult to trust information you find about anything, but really [in] politics, in the United States and globally, it is a buyer beware situation.”
For a portion of Gen Z, this is the first presidential election they’ll be voting in, which can be intimidating, but having social media platforms encourage voting and explain the process can make going to the polls easier.
Connecting people through social media with a shared interest, like singer Taylor Swift, can take a level of voting intimidation away.
Emerald Medrano, UT - El Paso creative writing major, is one of the original co-founders of the social media account @Swifties4Kamala. The page aims to promote voting in fun ways, like making friendship bracelets or gathering with like-minded people to watch debates. Medrano said he wanted to bring “Swiftie culture” into politics, to provide comfort to new voters.
During a moment of uncertainty after President Joe Biden announced that he stepped down from the race, Medrano turned to X in July 2024 to express his worries.
“I have a lot of faith in Swifties, a lot of trust in the community I’m a part of online, that we could do something. So, I made a tweet that was like, ‘We should organize and get together and do something this election to promote voting,’” he said.
Trump supporters have also created fandom and community groups such as Swifties for Trump, Moms for Liberty, Turning Point Action and the NELK Boys, a group of YouTubers advocating for Trump.
“What I am seeing is a grassroots ability to get people to make sure they’re registered to vote,” Jordan said. “That was a door-to-door thing, and frankly, door-to-door anything is terrifying these days. Social media can take that out and allow you to reach more people, and that’s fantastic.”
The NELK Boys consist of four Canadian friends who make prank videos on YouTube. On the 8.17 million subscriber platform, they’ve sold t-shirts and have had Donald Trump Jr. on their podcast supporting the former president’s campaign.
The channel uses its platform to discuss the upcoming election, showing its young subscribers a personal side of the Republican Party.
Younger people are the least likely to vote because issues regarding homeownership or paying taxes don’t apply to them yet, but if candidates are saying anything that interests these voters, it will entice them to vote for them, said Rebecca Deen, senior associate dean in the College of Liberal Arts and political science professor.
For example, Harris’ campaign discusses reproductive freedom and economic crises, whereas Trump emphasizes strength and cracks down on crime.
Although there have been memes and posts on social media poking fun at both candidates and the election, it’s the way they hold themselves and react to the media that will catch voters' attention, Deen said.
“Media has always been a powerful tool,” Medrano said. “Media is how we frame what we see and the narratives of who these people are, what they’ll bring to our country.”
Deen said candidates need to meet the media landscape; they have to be able to use it to their advantage.
“Presidential candidates, politicians — all politicians, but especially presidential candidates — have to navigate the media landscape that they’re in,” Deen said. “It’s not that it’s become more positive or that [Harris] turned it positive. She’s just been able to navigate very adeptly through the media world that she’s lived in.”
On social platform X, the verified account @trumpswiftie has nearly 20,000 followers and uses their platforms to connect Trump-supporting Swifties to discuss the upcoming election. The account often posts memes and reposts informational media on its page.
Launched by Trump, Truth Social is a platform that encourages free, open and honest expression without discrimination based on political ideology, according to the Associated Press. In August, Trump reposted photos of various AI-generated Swifties for Trump supporters on his Truth Social account saying, “I accept!,” showing formal support to voters.
Following the Sept. 10 presidential debate, Swift took to her social media to announce her disproval of the false AI endorsements created with her likeness and announced her endorsement for Harris.
"The simplest way to combat misinformation is with the truth," Swift wrote in an Instagram post.
Freelance producer Irene Kim, co-founder and executive director of @Swifties4Kamala, said using existing fandom culture to share resources has been effective to hopefully make receiving election information fun.
“I felt like this was a really good chance for us to work together on something else we care a lot about, which is protecting each other’s rights,” Kim said.
Serving as a modern-day version of political cartoons, memes and election trends have been essential to this campaign, among all parties.
“This is how political movements start,” Kim said. “It’s just from the people you know and trust, and so it felt like a really good opportunity here.”
@Swifties4Kamala wants to make things digestible and accessible, reaching people who may not have been educated otherwise.
“We’re not taught a lot of this in school. We really should be, but we’re not,” Kim said. “I think it’s very valid that if you don’t understand something, you’re not really going to be a part of it.”
Working with Social Goods, a nonprofit organization that donates its merchandise sale profits to voter registration efforts, @Swifties4Kamala has amassed over 41,000 voter registration checks and shares information with over 75,000 followers on their X page alone.
While various groups focus on providing information to the public, Jordan said to still verify your facts, because even though a social media group says something, that doesn’t automatically make it true.
“I don’t think any single candidate is perfect, and that makes things hard,” Kim said. “But I think what we need to do in this situation is go with what works best.”
@amandaLaldridge @_itsjinelle
