Kamala Harris’ media strategy right out the gate is young, fun, and unburdened by what has been
Memes and celebrity endorsements have already set the tone for Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign.
After weeks of top Democrats pressuring President Joe Biden to quit the race, he finally buckled, endorsing his younger vice president for the top ticket instead.
And she’s already gotten to work shaking off Biden’s old style from her campaign with revamped social media accounts that lean into the memes around her.
After Biden’s TikTok account changed its title to Kamala HQ following Harris’ endorsement, its first post was a screenshot of Charli XCX’s post saying: “Kamala IS brat.”
Kamala HQ used Charli’s latest song, “Brat,” as background music for the post.
And just a few hours after Biden’s announcement, the Kamala HQ X account debuted its first meme. The meme directly pokes fun at a right-wing line of attack on Harris, which has used a video of her waxing lyrical about the virtues of Venn diagrams as commentary on her competence for high office.
Kamala HQ instead posted a Venn diagram, with the two outer circles, “Biden HQ” and “Kamala HQ” merging to form “holding Trump accountable.”
Even the banner image for Kamala HQ’s X account has Gen Z written all over it — a neon green background with a blurry lowercase “kamala hq” in the center.
Her campaign is also capitalizing on memes created about her.
Her bio, “Providing context,” references the coconut tree memes that erupted on social media after Harris said in a speech in May, “You think you just fell out of a coconut tree? You exist in the context.”
Even her party has gotten the meme memo, with many Democrats using coconut tree emojis in their endorsement posts for her.
In his endorsement post on Sunday, Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz posted a picture of himself climbing a coconut tree with the caption “Madam Vice President, we are ready to help.”
And Colorado Gov. Jared Polis signed off his endorsement post with coconut emojis.
Across the social media landscape, the energy is palpable, said David Karpf, a professor of media and public affairs at George Washington University.
“There is a wave of grassroots enthusiasm that feels like Obama 2008, but with the social media of 2024,” Karpf told B-17. “When you’ve got a good social media team that has arrived at a cultural moment and pent-up enthusiasm, they get to play with it.”
It’s also, importantly, organic.
The memes around Harris taking over the ticket weren’t spawned by her campaign, giving them an air of authenticity.
There’s a reason for the memes
Communications experts say that Harris’ team is trying to craft a personable image for her to boost her visibility and her likeability with voters.
“The content that performs the best is either entertaining or personal,” Karen North, clinical professor of communication at USC Annenberg, said. “People want to feel a personal connection, and social media gives elected officials and other influencers or celebrities the opportunity to connect with their audiences very, very directly and 24 hours a day.”
While Harris’ team is focusing on younger voters and voters of color, the appeal of social media transcends age, North said.
“The real change with social media is that for the first time ever, we really feel as if we have a personal relationship with people — even when we don’t — in the same way that our friends text us or send us funny videos or memes or connects with us on our phones,” she said.
Dr. Marcus Collins — an ad executive, author, and marketing professor at the University of Michigan — noted that people of color and the communities they’re a part of have enthusiastically mobilized around Harris on social media, as they did when she was first selected as Biden’s VP.
This includes key groups like HBCUs, Black Greek letter organizations, Black women, and the hip-hop community.
“They’re barometers of what’s acceptable for people like us,” he said.
Karpf noted the memes are Gen Z’s way of including Harris in the “cultural constellation,” and said highlighting endorsements from celebrities like Charlie XCX is smart, given that much of the public doesn’t want to engage in politics.
“When you are bringing political actors into their world and those political actors are seeming cool, that’s a win.”
Harris’ position is also unique because she’s the only other female candidate — after Hillary Clinton — to be up against Trump.
“Hillary Clinton struggled with promoting a likable image to the public, and that was just a blink of an eye ago in Democratic political history,” North said. “Right now, it’s very obvious that Harris’ team will be looking at likability and trying to bolster her likability because they know that was a difficult hurdle for a previous female presidential candidate, up against the same political adversary.”
Phoenix Andrews, a research fellow at the University of Aberdeen and the author of a book on political fandoms, “I Heart Politics,” told B-17 that Harris’ “ironic fandom” — those who say they are “coconut-pilled” —has persisted into “genuine warmth.”
He said, “She has reliability as well as goofiness that makes it work, despite her being way to the right of the Squad. And honestly, people need something positive and fun to rally behind, or it all seems too impossibly dark and nihilistic.”
Up until July, Trump had dominated the meme war. His TikTok account had wracked up over 9 million followers, easily lapping what Biden’s HQ had pulled in.
Trump also appeared on Logan Paul’s podcast and had UFC president Dana White’s backing too. The campaign had targeted young voters as an area of weakness for Biden, according to reporting in The Atlantic.
But the surge around Harris may be a foil the campaign isn’t ready for.
On Sunday night, Trump’s campaign posted on X with a link to Harris’ account rebrand, mocking a memed line from one of her speeches: “This account is living unburdened by what has been.”
Harris’ campaign laughed it off, reposting another user who was freaking out.
“Drop the usage of that phrase now,” that user had warned Team Trump. “They’re going to spin that into marketing for her campaign. They’ve been creating TikTok videos of her saying that over Charli xcx songs and Gen Z loves it.”
