Salt Lake Tribune - “Move aside tradwives. Here’s how social media is shaping LDS men’s views of masculinity — for better or worse” by Tamarra Kemsley (February 2025)

I couldn’t help but include this article in today’s reading list. The Salt Lake Tribune dissects male-focused online content and examines what it means for young Mormon men. It’s a fascinating perspective considering the conservative gender role conceptions of many LDS communities and their newfound attention stemming from the “tradwife” content, made primarily by young Mormon women.

Semafor - “Kamala Harris’ digital chief on Democrats ‘losing hold of culture’” by Max Tani (December 2024)

We often harp on the cultural aspects of social media and digital content here at Noise Level, stressing the cultural influence of the digital information ecosystem. In this article, Kamala Harris’ digital chief, Rob Flaherty, describes just how far behind the Democrats were in 2024 in the cultural arena.

Politico - “Dems concede Republicans ‘running circles’ around them online as Trump remakes Washington” by Elena Schneider (February 2025)

Similarly, this article showcases the stark asymmetry in the political parties’ approach to media and the attention economy. While one side tries to wrap their heads around the new media landscape, the other side has lived in it for almost a decade. It’s clear which strategy has paid off.

Content

YouTube - Richard Reeves | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #562 (February 2025)

Theo Von hosts a conversation with Richard Reeves, the President of the American Institute for Boys and Men. Reeves is a thought leader in the quest to redefine and reform social conceptions of masculinity in a healthier way, and here he sits down with one of the most popular male podcast hosts on the planet for a conversation about exactly that. It’s well worth your time. It is also NSFW.

It’s easy to be wary of any media that caters specifically to young men. There’s reflexive skepticism, and I get why. There’s no shortage of content that warrants genuine concern. In trying to sort through it all, we can sometimes cast too wide a net and apply a strict binary judgment deeming content “good” or “bad.” I’m here to argue that we need, at the very least, a third category: “fine.”

By assuming everything with a low-brow, crude comedic angle is an essential part of a broader problem, we misunderstand the space entirely. Some content is just lighthearted escapism and not everything is some concerted effort to push harmful agendas or exploit social grievances. If we chastise the “fine” and group it in with the “bad,” we create a self-fulfilling prophecy and push young men away from the harmless and toward the caustic.

No content fits the “fine” category better than the men’s entertainment behemoth Barstool Sports. Rather than painting with a broad brush, it might help to look more closely at what Barstool Sports is, and what it isn’t. It’s not toxic reprogramming to turn young men into misogynists. It’s entertainment that may occasionally cross a line.

What Barstool is and is Not

Barstool Sports is a deeply unique media company; half reality TV, half digital media publishing platform. Barstool grew from a local sports paper in Boston, led by its brash and outspoken founder, Dave Portnoy. Portnoy himself is a controversial figure and has drawn his fair share of criticism over the years. I’m not here to defend any of it. That’s not the point of this article. What I will say is the company Portnoy built deserves more respect than it gets.

In the days of YouTube’s infancy, he saw how social media was evolving and predicted where the influencer market would end up. In 2007, before Instagram hit the app stores, Barstool began posting content online. Portnoy started recruiting other content creators (a term that was yet to be invented) to join his platform and form a collective of digital creatives who published both individually and collaboratively, but all under the larger Barstool Sports umbrella. He created a flywheel effect for both the Barstool brand and the public personas of the company’s influences, where virality for one increased everyone’s audience and visibility. It spread the risk around and manufactured a platform that could self-advertise. It’s a brilliant model and one that has been copied many times over. I believe Portnoy was the first to do it.

Over time, it evolved into a quarter-billion-dollar digital publishing house, showcasing sports commentary and cultural discussions alongside comedic bits and bizarre live streams, which may seem boring to the uninitiated but generate shocking levels of engagement. One of Barstool’s defining characteristics is how it puts its employees front and center by filming the workplace at a nearly 24/7 rate, letting the audience see them not just as podcast hosts, but as real authentic people. In many ways, it’s like a reality show set in an office: the interactions among the staff become as much of a draw as the podcasts and sports content itself.

Serving as the original home of the mega-popular podcast Call Her Daddy and the current platform for Pardon My Take, the most popular sports podcast on the planet, Barstool has become a massive social and cultural influence for young people. What Portnoy does, better than anyone else in this space, is leverage the authenticity of both himself and Barstool’s content creators. Videos of Barstool’s main office or quick snippets of meaningless sports debates between employees are ubiquitous on any young man’s social media feed.

Why We Should Avoid Oversimplification

The algorithms love Barstool’s content and young men, hungry for authenticity, love the entertainment. It feels close and familiar as if you know these guys on a deep and personal level. Not as trusted sources of information, but as guys you’d watch football with. That distinction is important. The Manosphere influencers’ harm derives from their positions as self-declared role models for young men who are in desperate search for meaning. That position gives them legitimacy to tell young men how to live and without it, they’re just shock jocks. The content would be meaningless without that air of perceived legitimacy.

Despite misconceptions, Barstool Sports is not Manosphere adjacent. It doesn’t claim to be a platform filled with role models and the influencers would be the first to tell you not to listen to their advice. It can be irreverent and rife with humor that occasionally crosses a line, whatever that may mean, but calling it part of the Manosphere oversimplifies the space and the role this type of content fills. Barstool is, at its core, pure entertainment and it doesn’t pretend to be anything more.

They’re not advising men on how to view society or how to define masculinity. They’re not exploiting grievances to methodically spread divisive mindsets. They’re certainly not out to market themselves as thought leaders on personal development or gender dynamics. You should take them as seriously as they take themselves.

I’m not saying some of Barstool’s jokes aren’t occasionally offensive to some people or that they don’t occasionally cross a line. I’m saying that these jokes are not made with some ulterior motive to socially manipulate their listeners. There is a big difference between Andrew Tate and an offensive comedian, and it does everyone a disservice to pretend otherwise. Lumping Barstool (and others like it) in with genuinely harmful media obscures critical nuances and ends up pushing young men toward the very media you are trying to condemn. It’s like a strict parent banning rock music because it’s corrupting. The kid will roll their eyes and wonder what else society is overreacting about.

It dilutes the seriousness of actual divisive conflict entrepreneurs. The term “Manosphere” loses all meaning if it includes everything beyond the harmless. Grouping it in a category that is somehow inclusive of off-color sports commentary and content made by literal sex traffickers seems like an overreaction. Young men know it’s an overreaction and they tune the warnings out. It also cedes the platform–which is unfathomably popular across all young male demographics–to everyone else. Politically, that’s why the Barstool podcasts hosted a litany of right-wing politicians in the 2024 election cycle. No one from the left would go on the shows.

None of this is to say Barstool Sports is beyond reproach. Like any media platform, it has weathered controversies and will likely face more. People are free to critique its humor, tone, or personalities (just know that they would welcome the free engagement). But if we care about building a healthier online environment, we need to distinguish between intentionally harmful content and content that’s simply low-brow, crude comedic entertainment geared toward college-aged men.

Not everyone will enjoy Barstool’s style, and that’s perfectly fine. It probably means it’s not for you. But in a world where so much hostility and aggression do exist, lumping relatively innocuous platforms into the same category can muddle our understanding and weaken our capacity to respond effectively to actual harmful content. If you reject that argument, then at least consider picking your battles. There’s more important stuff to focus on.

Articles

The New York Times - “Attention Is the Fuel of American Politics” by Ezra Klein (January 2025)

“Attention, not money, is now the fuel of American politics.” Jumping off from his podcast with Chris Hayes last week, Klein discusses how attention—particularly social media—is now political appeal's lifeblood. This is a synthesized version of their longer conversation on the attention economy, and the podcast itself is worth a listen.

The New York Times - “Financial Advice on Social Media is Growing. And Risky.” by Isabella Kwai (January 2025)

Legions of everyday investors are turning to YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram for money tips—trusting charismatic “fin-fluencers” with thousands of dollars (or more). The article shows how that confidence can backfire (obviously), with some influencers pushing risky strategies or deals they’re paid to promote. It underscores Klein’s point in the article above that the legal guardrails of this sector are dubious at best.

Bloomberg - “The Second Trump Presidency, Brought to You by YouTubers” by Davey Alba (January 2025)

A sweeping analysis of 2,000+ videos shows how massively popular podcasters (Joe Rogan, Theo Von, Logan Paul, etc.) helped sway a generation of young male voters toward Trump. Their freewheeling discussions mix politics, entertainment, and cultural grievances in a way that has proven remarkably effective at mobilizing support, leading some analysts to call them the “new mainstream.”

Research

Harmony Labs - The Power of Story to Grow Democracy (January 2025)

In this brilliant phase 1 report, Harmony Labs researches how digital consumers internalize democracy-related content. They stretch the bounds of what “democracy-related” really means and dig into how important the values and tones of this content are, rather than the direct messages themselves. This is some of the best and most creative social media research I have seen yet and it is well worth your time.

Content

YouTube - The Origin Story Of #1 Sports Podcast Pardon My Take (November 2024)

This mini-doc is a bit of a pre-read (pre-watch?) for next week’s newsletter on Barstool Sports and the cultural side of young men’s internet content. For those that don’t know, Pardon My Take is the biggest and most listened-to sports podcast on the planet. The show is under the Barstool Sports umbrella and has been a cornerstone of Barstool’s business for years. This mini-doc digs into the show's origin story and the early days of Barstool itself, offering a fascinating insight into how these pioneers of online content—who are rumored to make $180,000 each, per episode—think about how to generate attention, build an audience, and stay relevant in this lighting fast media environment. Disclaimer: This video is rife with very crude humor so use headphones if you’re at work. This is a newsletter about the internet, I never said it would all be high-brow commentary.

Since at least 2016, the tactic of tapping into rage about “the system” has gone mainstream. The notion of challenging our institutions and lambasting the status quo is now the bread and butter of countless politicians, pundits, and media personalities, so much so that our only observable partisan agreements tend to overlap on which areas of the American government and private sector we think are broken.

Recent events give us some troubling insights. Take the case of Luigi Mangione, the young man accused of murdering UnitedHealthcare’s CEO, Brian Thompson. The mainstream media struggled to figure out where Mangione sat on the political spectrum. Was he an outraged left-winger motivated by corporate excess in health care? A right-wing extremist motivated to commit violence? In truth, he doesn’t fit neatly into either box. Mangione’s social media profile and the manifesto he left behind point to something deeper, more pervasive, and digitally ubiquitous—a decidedly anti-system worldview. It’s an ideology that used to be confined to more niche corners internet but has now become the dominant one for 4chan users and TikTok scrollers alike.

That worldview has quickly become the internet’s macro-culture. This cynicism isn’t fleeting. It’s a lived, 24/7 experience for many who spend large chunks of their day online (as nearly all young people do), reading post after post about corruption, corporate malfeasance, and political hypocrisy. There is no institution or personality beyond reproach. Over time, that drumbeat fosters the belief that every institution is irredeemably rotten and every solution is an unacceptable half-measure. When politicians and elites try to harness this anger for election wins or brand-building, they often fail to grasp how profoundly the sentiment runs.

The Native Ideology of the Internet

There’s always been a degree of skepticism in American politics, a baseline suspicion of elites and government that simmers under the surface. But the internet has transformed that skepticism into a cynical worldview that is, in many cases, totalizing. The online echo chambers where people gather aren’t just complaining about one particular party or policy. They’re complaining about the entire structure—corporations, the two-party system, higher education, media conglomerates, you name it. The partisan lean of your media diet is only differentiated by which institution your influencers hate on the most.

Politicians and commentators often miss this because they’re fixated on the old categories. If you can’t label someone a standard “progressive” or “conservative,” we tend to lose interest. Yet the defining feature of so many younger people’s political ideology is precisely this anti-system stance. You see it in the populist fervor that brought Bernie and Trump into prominence. You also see it in the meteoric rise of podcast figures like Joe Rogan and Hasan Piker—personalities who are sometimes hard to classify as strictly left-wing or right-wing. Their brand is pure skepticism of the elite-ordained truth and cynicism about the systems those elites run. They acknowledge the failures and bask in the approval of audiences who feel validated in their anger.

Truth be told, large parts of the system are broken. It’s impossible to pretend otherwise. But instead of proposing nuanced solutions, these personalities double down on pointing out the flaws and criticizing any proposed solutions which naturally breeds an overwhelming sense of hopelessness. Their message isn’t, “Here’s a complex pathway to fix health care.” It’s, “The system is irredeemably rigged—let’s endlessly observe why.” That message resonates powerfully with younger audiences, who have come of age amid financial crises, murky economic security, and an endlessly fractious political landscape. It feels cathartic.

This explains why Mangione—whose early social media likes and posts seemed sympathetic to Bernie Sanders and left-wing populism—could later pivot to positions that sound more aligned with Trump’s message. It’s not ideological whiplash so much as an unyielding discontent with the status quo, wherever it resides. Bernie and Trump both rose on the promise of smashing “the system.” They each claimed they’d do it in very different ways, to say the least, but the underlying message was the same: “Everything is broken, and I’m the outsider who can fix it.” They’re not just distrustful of some elites–they are distrustful of the entire class as a whole and the system they believe elites are responsible for building and maintaining.

When the initial outpour of support for Mangione hit the airwaves, I was shocked. Not by the support, but because so many media personalities seemed blindsided by it. Perversely, it makes sense if you understand the online sentiment. The deluge of support–or withheld sympathy for the victim at the very least–has even the most perceptive online influencers caught off guard. In the days after the shooting, Ben Shapiro posted a video reviewing the reactions of online progressives who were objectively gleeful about the murder and tried to assign partisan sides to this debate.

In response, his viewers flooded the comment section with stern opposition against Shapiro’s sympathy for Brian Thompson. One comment, which has 3x the total likes as the video itself, says “We got conservatives and liberals hugging each other in a comment section.” When you see the surprising pockets of support or justification for Mangione’s alleged actions, you’re seeing the shared anti-system mentality that permeates online culture and is much farther upstream than the partisan identities we tend to focus on.

This anti-system mentality lies at the root of young people’s minds. This isn’t the typical, rational protest of “Hey, the healthcare system is broken, let’s fix it together.” It’s a glimpse into a raw and more menacing anger—an anger that is the foundation of young people’s media diet. So if you wonder why they seem so supportive of the shooting, look no further than their mindsets. To them, they are being told by the stewards of the system they hate to mourn the loss of someone who embodies one of the systems they hate most. They’re being asked to respect and honor someone that they feel does not respect or honor them.

Luigi Mangione’s story, to be clear, is no justification for murder. We should not cheer someone’s death even if we acknowledge serious problems in the healthcare industry and murder is not a solution to any of these problems. We should never support an extrajudicial assassination of a private citizen. That said, to pretend you don’t see why young people would celebrate reflects a deep ignorance of what’s brewing online.

Recent polls have shown high levels of support for Magione among young people or, at the very least, an overwhelming lack of sympathy for the victim, and the outpour of online content since the shooting has been almost categorically celebratory. And in an era where cynical content runs rampant—where platforms thrive on continuous outrage and any solution feels either shallow or nonexistent—that fury can morph into something far more dangerous. Mangione is a case study, albeit an extreme one, of what it looks like when anti-system rage bursts off the screen and onto the streets. It’s a warning about what’s simmering under the surface and a sign that the us-vs.-them chasm has grown frighteningly wide.

Everyone is asking what’s happening with young men today. There are skyrocketing rates of social isolation, loneliness, drug overdoses, and suicides. Along with those are seismic partisan realignments and shifting culture. It comes at a time when we are working to redefine masculinity away from the reductive conception of the past, which was harmful to men themselves and women even more so. Who is reaching young men the most to establish that definition? As you may have guessed, it starts online.

The space is filled with conflict entrepreneurs and Andrew Tate-esque content at worst, or hollow entertainment content disguised as self-help that typically encourages stock trading, sports betting, or over-leveraged real estate investments at best. You might get a little sports content or comedian podcast clips here and there to shake things up. Holistically, it’s a mess. It’s the digital version of endless mid-2000s reality TV shows with less FCC oversight and more gambling ads.

Alongside the toxic and the vapid are understandable critiques of this content and of the way it teaches young men how to actualize a reductive and harmful ideal of masculinity. While I share many of those critiques, they are not a sufficient counterbalance. Young men need a positive alternative and there isn’t enough of one out there. The distinct lack of “good” male-focused content that meaningfully and earnestly engages with the question of what it means to be a young man today is a major problem, and it is ceding the space to the harmful and the disingenuous.

The Content Space for Young Men

Andrew Tate and the “Manosphere” are now infamous for championing some of the worst visions for young men. But their content is only a small piece of young men’s digital ecosystem. Their overtly toxic messages are nestled within the majority of online content directed toward young men, which implicitly or explicitly tells them that masculinity is achieved through money, power, and sex. It's mostly mindless, hollow entertainment content disguised as self-help. Imagine buff snake oil salesmen encouraging radical optimizations of sleep, workouts and diets, pontificating on how to get rich, how to seem rich, how to get women to sleep with you. That, and lots of sports betting. However much sports betting content you think there is, I promise you there’s more.

That said, it isn’t all used car salesmen and steroid-abusing scam artists standing next to someone else’s private jet. The more influential influencers and content come from what can only be described as male cultural media. It’s the Barstool Sports content and podcasts like Joe Rogan and Theo Von. It’s often a combination of typically male-coded subjects like sports and crude humor mixed with genuine discussions about what masculinity is today–some of which are deeper and more genuine than you would think. This space is complicated and is frankly not the MAGA right-wing hive mind that many progressives believe it to be. There’s a lot to unpack about it, some good and some bad, and we will do it in a subsequent newsletter to give it the time it deserves.

All this content is mostly irrelevant when broken down into individual pieces. What it combines into–the noise that is formed in the aggregate–is what’s shaping young men’s conceptualization of masculinity. This comes at a time when society is debating how to define masculinity and what role it plays in a modern and more equitable system, which is both a good and necessary conversation.

It does, though, leave masculinity’s definition up to social consensus at some level if we are going to replace the outdated (and, in many ways, harmful) definition with a question mark. And if the content I described is providing a bad answer, who’s out there providing a good one? Not many, it turns out.

The Lack of “Good” Content

There is a debilitating lack of good, earnest content attempting to define masculinity in a healthy and productive way right now. The internet is in deep need of influencers and opinion leaders who are working to engage with the question of where and how young men fit into this modern world and expand past the reductive focus on money, status, and success as the defining characteristics of male self-actualization. That definition not only encourages the domination of others, but it holds up unattainable criteria that the vast majority of men will never achieve. Not everyone can be wealthy, famous, and powerful and even if they could, that is not what should dictate our self-worth.

The good news is that there are some trying to provide a better, healthier answer. One of them is Scott Galloway, who goes by Professor G online. Galloway has built a sizeable audience for his content that both acknowledges the struggles young men face today and provides solutions focused on self-betterment and personal responsibility (the healthy kind, not the bootstraps kind). He comes across as a great youth sports coach who provides support in times of hardship, acknowledges the challenges in front of you, and instills a sense of confidence that you are strong enough to overcome them. Occasionally, that last point requires some tough love and Galloway provides that.

What makes his message so particularly helpful for young men is two-fold: he acknowledges their struggles as shown in the clip above (ignore, if you can, the absurd thumbnail), and he engages them without placing blame on our changing society or characterizing women’s empowerment as hurting men. Other more harmful influencers will acknowledge the same struggles, but subtly shift responsibility away from their male audience and towards everyone else. They say if you are financially insecure, it’s because women in the workplace have taken your opportunities. If you can’t find a romantic partner, it’s women to blame for not wanting you. Their answer is, of course, to become egregiously wealthy and scoff at the idea of an egalitarian society.

Galloway and others like him can provide meaningful alternatives that teach young men how to self-actualize while appreciating the moral necessity of pursuing gender equality and celebrating our nation’s attempts at achieving it. Yes, you do have to compete with women for jobs and college admissions now. That’s the way it should have always been. Man to man, here are some ways to find fulfilment and success.

We Need More Scott Galloways

What’s clear is that we need more folks like Galloway and fewer like Andrew Tate. We also need those alternatives to stem the tide of the vapid “hustler culture” content and to give young men an idea that their image and self-worth extend far beyond their net worth and that their passions can include something other than sports betting. The lack of alternative voices in the ecosystem allows the worst of us to define what masculinity is.

That said, it’s not hard to see why many well-meaning influencers are tepid about joining the conversation. Considering the sensitivity of the issue, the justified-yet-intense backlash against the Manosphere content, and the complete inability of the internet to appreciate nuanced arguments, it’s not exactly an inviting place to be. It feels like a few poorly worded sentences or an out-of-context clip going viral could sentence you to death in the court of public opinion even if you mean well.

Ultimately, anything we say online is going to generate some level of backlash. It’s how the space works. If you speak long enough on a hot-button issue, no matter how empathetic or inclusive you are, you will eventually say something that can be cut into an out-of-context clip, posted online for the reactionaries to feast on, and someone will try and cancel you. The same is true of any topic that hits on an exposed nerve in American culture, not just gender-based content.

My point is that it doesn’t really matter. There is outrage and backlash every single day online and almost none of it lasts. What matters is taking the time to meaningfully think about your message and whether or not what you’re saying is thoughtful. And in many ways, some level of misplaced backlash helps build an audience. For better or worse, young men are pining for edgy and irreverent content and some frenetic internet anger can help build your authenticity. I wish that wasn’t true, but it is. It has certainly helped Scott Galloway at times.

If you mean well and think you can connect with young male culture in a helpful and productive way, then make content! Go out there and put your noise into the ecosystem. Young men desperately need it, and so does everyone else.

Welcome Back

It’s been a couple of weeks since our last newsletter. We wanted to take a beat post-election to evaluate our message here and consider how it connects with what we’re all experiencing.

Plenty of talking heads have been saying it for years, but it’s now undeniable that the center of power has shifted away from legacy media institutions and towards the decentralized content creator jungle where your engagement strategy is no longer about how many, but instead about who. Who you are reaching and who you are reaching them through. The Democratic Party failed to understand this in 2016 and was subsequently and brutally outsmarted by Steve Bannon’s theory of politics. Politics is downstream of culture, and culture is downstream of the internet. 

This election proved that his theory isn’t just one way to win an election, it’s now the way to win an election. If you want to succeed–either financially or politically–you need to figure out how to plug into the massive cultural conversation happening online. Those that do will continue to win, and those that don’t will find themselves increasingly irrelevant. 

And with that, I feel comfortable moving away from politics as our focus at Noise Level and towards culture as the major lens through which we study the digital noise. So let’s begin.

The Vibes are Off

Does the world feel unrecognizable today? Do other people’s mindsets feel alien to you, and are you perplexed at how even the most basic truths seem up for debate? If you’ve found yourself wondering how so many people believe in such a wildly different set of facts, or how half the country seems to see the world in such a starkly different way than you do, you’re not alone. The whole country feels this way. Half of them just feel that way about you. 

So why does reality feel so slippery? Why does it feel impossible to form any consensus about what’s happening and what we should think about it? I don’t have the answers and neither does anyone else, but I suspect I know what’s contributing to it. More and more, we are forming our worldviews and mindsets from a social consensus built online. That social consensus, more than ever before, is no longer produced through objective analysis and logical reasoning but by the emotional “vibes” emitted from the bewildering speed and intensity of online discourse that skew towards the negative, the cynical, and the irreverent. 

The Power of Social Consensus

As we gain access to more and more information shoved into delivery mechanisms that are getting faster and faster, our mindsets—the lens through which we see the world—are increasingly shaped by a collective social consensus rather than through our own analysis of that information. As we consume more information at a rate that outpaces our natural and biological ability to digest it, our lenses get blurrier and our reliance on that social consensus increases. We look more to our social networks to see what everyone else thinks and to take cues from the people around us. Today, our social consensus is no longer meaningfully formed by our in-person community or even by people we actually know. It’s now formed by algorithmically fed digital content and discourse from influencers and online personalities, the reactions to that discourse, and the reactions to those reactions. 

At some level, humans have always formed their mindsets and developed their conceptions of reality through social consensus. We like to think of ourselves as rational people capable of reading facts, witnessing events, and distilling the “truth” all within the vacuum of our mind and through the irrefutable science of logic. None of us do that, though. We are tribal animals, at the end of the day. We take cues from the people around us who tell us what is cool, interesting, or worth our time. When we don’t know what to think about something we tend to, at some level, copy the opinions of those around us. Even the most ardent contrarians do this even if they won’t admit it. 

Unfortunately, the social consensus we take cues from now isn’t a coherent signal. It’s not generated through carefully worded essays or from the calming voice of an evening news anchor. It’s not shaped by logic or facts or explained to us in explicit terms. It instead manifests as vibes. Abstract, amorphous emotional undertones that are formed by both the speed and intensity of online content. The intensity–conflict-driven, heated opinion spewing that happens online–generates the emotion, and the speed it comes to us distorts the coherency of the message. What you are left with is a feeling and maybe, at best, a couple of out-of-context facts you picked up along the way that may or may not be true. 

The pace of online content is so relentless that there’s no time to process it meaningfully. What sticks isn’t a signal, but a feeling. A set of abstract emotions. And those feelings—those vibes—are shaping our culture in profound ways. Both by the natural properties of this digital ecosystem and by people who have figured out how to manufacture them. 

Impenetrable Vibes

To center this all on “vibes” seems reductive and inadequate. I get that. But the frustration and confusion we all feel when we think about this media environment suggests the answer isn’t scientific and objective. The digital ecosystem is abstract and intangible and so are vibes. Some online discourse might be coherent and healthy debates, but when you aggregate that discourse and feed it to people at lightspeed, the coherency breaks down. That is the “noise” we reference here so often, and the end product of that noise is a vibe that the consumer leaves with. Those vibes, I argue, have become the building blocks of our mass cultural production. 

This is where things get tricky. Online spaces are where our cultural conversations happen now. They’re the incubators for pre-political culture. These are the ideas, memes, and narratives that take root in culture and create permission structures for political appeals. They are something for political strategists to exploit, not create. 

But therein lies the problem: these vibes are both abstract and incredibly powerful. Everyone wants to influence them, but they are difficult to even define, let alone change. There’s a feeling online that shifts our cultural mindsets and political opinions and they are, as we have all seen, fairly immune to logical reasoning. Not just in the most radical spaces, but everywhere. On the left and the right. Facts, evidence, or even well-constructed arguments rarely break through. And when you think about social media as a high-strung emotional state rather than a marketplace of information, it begins to make sense. The more emotional someone gets, the less appetite they have for the soothing properties of fact-based appeals. When emotions get intense enough, they become impenetrable. They transform from a byproduct of reality into reality itself. These vibes are impenetrable. 

Endless Bummers

One of the most troubling parts of this new reality is the negativity that comes with it. In our current online culture, nothing is sacred. Nothing is worthy of inherent respect. Irreverence isn’t just common, it’s currency. The more cynical, mocking, or dismissive you can be, the better your content performs.

This irreverence fuels a relentless sense of despair. Everything feels worse than it is. Even moments of genuine progress or good news are drowned out by the cacophony of skepticism and bad takes that prove overwhelming to our social consensus. The internet has become a machine that churns out endless bummers, and we’re all stuck on the assembly line.

So, where does that leave us? Like I said earlier, I don’t have all the answers. No one does. But here’s what I do know: this isn’t a phase. It’s not some awkward adjustment period while we get used to the internet. This is the new media reality, and it’s here to stay.

What Do We Do About This?

If you want to influence this world, you can’t keep clinging to the old playbook. You can’t just preach from a pedestal, believing naively that truth will always prevail because it’s right. We misinterpret the truth all the time for a myriad of reasons, one of which is because of our emotional state. And we are all pretty emotional these days, no matter who you vote for or how many Ivy League degrees you have. 

We need to meet people where they are. That means engaging in the media ecosystem as it exists today, not as we wish it would be. Fifty years ago, if you wanted to influence the public discourse, you started a newspaper or a magazine. Those platforms held the levers of power. Today, those levers are podcasts, YouTube channels, and TikTok accounts. If you want to shape culture, you have to be part of the cultural conversation. You have to change the vibes of the digital ecosystem by adding your own noise—culturally resonant noise. That means creating content that doesn’t just inform, but also entertains and connects. It means using the tools of this new media landscape to reach people and build the public appetite for the world you want to live in. 

And let me be clear, this isn’t about dumbing down complex ideas or pandering to the lowest common denominator. It’s about understanding the cultural moment and finding ways to inject meaningful perspectives into it. It’s about meeting the vibes head-on and reshaping them from the inside out.

It’s a daunting task. It requires creativity, persistence, and a willingness to adapt. But if we don’t engage, we’re ceding the cultural conversation to the loudest, most divisive voices in the room on both sides of the political spectrum and from every pre-political social faction. And let me tell you, they know how to make engaging content.

If you want to change the course of our world, you can’t afford to sit on the digital sidelines. The internet is where culture happens now. That means having an appetite for failure, and a willingness to sometimes abandon a well-researched and over-measured approach in favor of speed and responsiveness. These media cycles are comically short and so are our attention spans. Embrace that. It means sometimes embracing the weird, the irreverent, and the viral—not as an end, but as a means to something greater. 

If you often wonder why certain stories don’t get more media coverage or ever said the words “why isn’t anyone talking about this,” you are not alone.

You are wrong, though. The “media” is normally talking about it, just not your media. There are so many media silos out there today that we are finding it hard to make sense of the world collectively. We all exist in different realities shaped by the media we consume, some of which we choose and some of which are chosen for us algorithmically.

Charlie Warzel’s recent article in The Atlantic discusses why we as a nation are seemingly unable to ascribe to a single shared reality and why so many are ascribed to a patently false one. The article came off the heels of the FEMA disinformation and conspiracy theories following the two hurricanes that hit the southeast this month. In it, he says the following:

This reality-fracturing is the result of an information ecosystem that is dominated by platforms that offer financial and attentional incentives to lie and enrage, and to turn every tragedy and large event into a shameless content-creation opportunity. This collides with a swath of people who would rather live in an alternate reality built on distrust and grievance than change their fundamental beliefs about the world.

Charlie is correct. While individuals who want to spread misinformation and division are causing the problem, the digital information ecosystem gives them the capability to do so at scale. What Charlie doesn’t dissect here is how this new information ecosystem has impacted good-faith actors, or at least neutral ones, from maintaining a coherent shared reality. 

The answer lies in how the digital information ecosystem has changed two vital powers of the media: the ability to set agendas and frame issues. Those powers have been democratized across the media ecosystem, and their limitations–both norm-based and legal–have been removed entirely. What we are left with is a confusing, noisy, and unimaginably fast news cycle that leaves all of us disoriented and in perpetual search of “the truth,” no matter how many articles we read. 

Agenda-Setting

Agenda-setting refers to the media’s ability to determine what is or is not important in public mindsets. In short, if the media spends time reporting on something, we tend to consider it important. If they don’t, we either live in blissful ignorance or, if we hear about it elsewhere, we assume it isn’t important. Many things happen worldwide every day and we depend on our media ecosystem to show us the important events and establish, through context, where events rank in terms of significance. Some stories are obviously significant, like a natural disaster or a war, but there’s complexity and nuance in most world events. If the media spends time reporting on an issue, the public will not only know more about it but consider it meaningful and worthy of their attention.

The mainstream media of old, the Fourth Estate, was excellent at agenda-setting. There were only a handful of mass media platforms and they alone could often select what issues or problems the public should be concerned about. They also served as powerful gatekeepers of the agenda, able to bury a story by ignoring it even if it was able to make it into the public zeitgeist through other means like alternative media sources or word of mouth. The public all watched or read the same several news outlets and smaller outlets were responsive to the agendas the big ones set, giving us all some level of a shared reality with similar agendas and focus placed in similar areas.

There are obvious problems with that paradigm and it’s right to squirm at the consolidated and unopposed power the mainstream media had in those days. Nevertheless, here we are today. The media ecosystem has fragmented and its power has decentralized. Rather than dozens of media outlets setting our agendas, we have millions. Social media gives anyone a platform to persuade the public and exploiting the engagement-focused algorithms can give you a wider reach than the mainstream media ever had. It’s no longer up to a handful of broadcast companies and newspapers to tell the public what they should care about. Instead, millions of social media accounts compete for your attention and you can, with some level of agency, choose which ones to listen to.

The fragmentation and democratization of agenda-setting carry massive consequences. It’s harmed our ability to stay tuned in to what’s important and know, collectively, the underlying facts that form our perception of reality. There are countless opinion leaders and influencers online who are allowed, both legally and socially, to say whatever they want, make it as engaging and entertaining as they can, and be handsomely rewarded for it.  

Yes, the mainstream media still retains some power to set agendas through their audience size and perceived (yet shrinking) legitimacy. But the point is that they have much less influence than they used to and there are now countless opinion leaders competing to form people’s realities in a public mindset arena that prioritizes attention in ways that didn’t exist before. While it’s probably good that the unelected elites of the mainstream media carry less influence over us, it turns out that being on the same page about what's happening in the world is a pretty vital component of a functional democracy. 

Framing

Framing refers to how mass media rhetorically packages and describes concepts and events. As a negative example, clickbait headlines are the ultimate showcase of disingenuous framing where every mundane story is a BOMBSHELL, or SHOCKING. Those clickbait sites frame things as JAW-DROPPING through how they write the headlines and the tone of their rhetoric. It’s rarely accurate.

Genuine and “accurate” framing is difficult. It’s subjective at some level and no matter how close a journalist gets to the “right” framing, readers will nitpick it to death. There’s no perfect formula out there to nail objective and truthful framing every time and I think some folks are overly harsh on newsrooms for it. With that said, let’s get harsh for a moment. 

The NBC headline above is my favorite recent example of framing. This was back in July of this year when a “soft landing” became the most likely outcome of our inflationary troubles and the US dollar was (and still is) extraordinarily strong overseas. The Fed was signaling a rate cut as inflation rates fell which is, by nearly all measures, a positive sign of a healthy and recovered economy. In a baffling dedication to conflict reporting and negativity to generate clicks, NBC decided to frame a potential rate cut as…bad for your next overseas vacation. 

How does this headline frame the idea of a rate cut to a reader who isn’t well-versed in the intricacies of macroeconomics? If you don’t know much about what interest rates do, how would you feel about them if you scanned this headline while scrolling on Facebook? I’m not saying there aren’t valid critiques of a rate cut at this moment and that the headline isn’t technically true. I’m saying there’s power in how you frame an issue and the deference that modern media gives to conflict and negativity tends to produce a fairly gloomy picture of the world. 

In the old media environment, with fewer outlets setting agendas and a more comprehensively shared reality, there were limitations to how disingenuous or extreme one could frame an issue. Sure, there were tabloids and yellow journalism but at the core of our information environment were media outlets with institutional trust. That gave us a point of reference to judge reports that framed an issue far outside what the mainstream media was saying. 

Today, trust in mainstream media institutions has bottomed out.  Almost 70% of Americans have either no or almost no trust in mass media writ large. The mainstream media’s authority over the bounds of acceptable issue framing has deteriorated. As a reader, there’s now a much wider choice of narratives to choose from and agendas to subscribe to without any trusted reference point to judge one influencer’s framing against another. It comes down to what you believe the right framing is, which pushes us towards media that reinforces our worldview and away from media that challenges it. 

We Choose Our Reality

With the power of agenda-setting democratized and fragmented out to thousands of influencers rather than a handful of trusted journalists, the outer bounds of acceptable framing have expanded to almost limitless possibilities. Over time, we’ve sorted into media silos that feed us the stories we want to read with the framing we believe to be accurate. Or, if we’re all honest with ourselves, sometimes the framing just needs to feel cathartic. 

No matter what you believe or how your partisan identity makes you yearn for something to be true, there is someone out there who will speak to your heart. They will tell you that the things you suspect are important are indeed important. They will tell you that the things you want to be true, either consciously or subconsciously, are indeed true. The algorithms will measure your engagement with these people as you scroll through the infinite and slowly steep you in the agenda you desire and the reality you want to live in.

That is how people end up believing that armed FEMA soldiers have occupied North Carolina, and it’s why misinformation is so powerful today. The guardrails are off and anything can be true.

If you’ve been paying attention to the candidates’ media focus in this final stretch, you’ve probably noticed a curious trend: Harris and Trump are eschewing the usual cable news circuit to sit down with online podcast hosts many people have never heard of. If the names Theo Von, Lex Friedman, or Alex Cooper are unknown to you, chances are you’re over 40 and don’t spend all your free time on social media. That’s for the best, to be clear, but it probably leaves you wondering why the campaigns are spending the precious final hours of this election season speaking to people you’ve never heard of. If you do spend all your free time on social media, I bet you’re wondering why they would spend their time doing anything else. 

If you’re tuned into the young people zeitgeist, you’ll know this strategy isn’t just savvy, it’s the only realistic one in a media environment that has changed drastically over the past decade. Trust in mainstream media is plummeting, and the digital Fifth Estate has taken over. The campaigns are doing exactly what they should be: reaching young, disengaged voters through the platforms and media they actually use, ignoring traditional cable news and newspaper interviews whose audience is both older and smaller year over year. Traditional political wisdom says that part of the election cycle isn’t about making new appeals or trying to turn red votes blue, but about trying to motivate your base and making some last-ditch efforts to turn out disaffected low-propensity voters. Young people vote the least, and these are the ideologically aligned yet low-propensity voters that campaigns are desperately trying to activate through non-traditional media platforms.

Traditional media personalities are throwing a fit over it. I find it hard to muster any sympathy; the old media is dead, long live the new media. 

The Age of the Podcast Bro

Over the past month, the major candidates and their VP picks have sat down with several high-profile online podcast hosts. Trump has done long-form interviews with Theo Von, Lex Fridman, and Andrew Shultz, who are all hugely popular with young men. Harris has sat down with the highly viewed NBA podcast All the Smoke, whose audience is primarily young black men (and me), and the podcast behemoth Call Her Daddy, which is the second-most popular podcast on the planet next to Joe Rogan’s and whose host, Alex Cooper, has become a cultural leader for many young women.  

It might be obvious that if you’re trying to reach young people you should go on shows and podcasts that young people watch. What’s less obvious is the sheer magnitude of young people these shows reach compared to the total audience, of all demographics, of cable news and traditional media. Dana Bash’s 20-minute CNN interview with Harris and Walz garnered just over six million viewers across all digital and TV platforms. Comedian Theo Von’s hour-long talk with Trump has earned, as of today, over 13 million views on Von’s YouTube page alone. 

Those views say nothing of the thousands of clips shared across social media that have likely earned millions more, which is an underappreciated part of these shows’ influence and something traditional media is desperate to emulate. I have to tune into CNN or purposefully navigate to their website to see their content, while my social media algorithms relentlessly barrage me with short clips of Theo Von’s and others’ shows, reposted by unrelated content creators that are either earnestly resharing content they like, or by content creators who are cleverly attempting to leverage the algorithm to earn more views and likes by engaging with popular content that’s sure to get a lot of digital foot traffic. Even just a 38-second clip of Harris’ recent interview with Howard Stern has almost 5 million views on TikTok. That’s about four times more than the entirety of MSNBC’s daily audience. 

We Demand to be Taken Seriously

Many in the traditional media world are having trouble coming to terms with this new shift in candidates’ attention. Frankly, the major news networks are not making a convincing case as to why Presidential candidates–or even sitting Presidents themselves–should prioritize interviews with cable news or major newspapers like The New York Times, whose editorial board published a scathing statement in April of this year calling out President Biden for “avoid[ing] questions from independent journalists.” In the statement, The Times accused Biden of ignoring their many requests for a sit-down interview as well as purposefully avoiding questions from all independent news organizations during his tenure. A soon-to-follow Politico piece detailing the feud between the Biden administration and The Times stated “When describing their grievances with The Times, almost every Biden administration and campaign official used the word “entitled” to characterize the [NYT] writ large.” That entitlement is an important part of this story. 

The Times said they “[have] repeatedly urged the White House to have the president sit down with The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, CNN and other major independent news organizations that millions of Americans rely on to understand their government.” While independent journalists are indeed a vital pillar of our liberal democracy, nowhere in the constitution does it name these specific news agencies as the most important ones or place some emphasis on viewership to grant them membership in the fourth pillar of democracy. There are many other independent journalists in America, and social media has given them a platform that, in many ways, is larger than the ones those outlets occupy. 

Considering the public’s declining trust in mainstream media, those outlets’ shrinking audience, and their ever-increasing focus on conflict and negative storylines, it’s hard to argue that future Presidents or political candidates should feel beholden to sitting for interviews and making themselves available to outlets which reach fewer and fewer people and rely more and more on clickbait headlines to generate clicks and revenue. Good, solid investigative journalism is one thing and it’s an essential aspect of journalism that podcasters do not satisfy; I want to be clear that my problem isn’t with them. But when was the last time you truly learned something from a White House press conference? They’ve become soundbite generators instead of illuminating question-and-answer sessions. 

The self-righteousness of the mainstream media is in large part why the public has such little trust in them and why young people have flocked to alternative media stars that exude authenticity instead of self-importance. The President does indeed owe the American people transparency and insight into the administration but by no means does he owe a publicly traded, for-profit company an interview that they then monetize and profit from. We would surely criticize Joe Rogan for presumptively demanding an interview with a sitting President. So why can The New York Times demand one? Is it because of their long history? Their click-through rate? Their market cap? 

The influence of mainstream media is waning and without considerable changes to their tone, strategy, and business model, they will continue to be replaced by charismatic influencers with a $75 desktop microphone and a webcam. 

Podcast Bros Get the Time

Enter the new media moguls: Alex Cooper, Joe Rogan, Theo Von–they’re the ones capturing the ears and minds of young people. Their interviews are real, engaging, and unfiltered. Listeners feel like they know them on a personal level, which builds a deep sense of trust that the mainstream media simply does not enjoy. 

To young people, cable news anchors and political reporters come off as scripted, out-of-touch, and too much of an “insider” to give them an objective take. Juxtaposed with the unrehearsed, authentic, and genuine qualities of these podcast interviews, it’s clear why they’re starting to win out. If Trump taught us anything, it’s that voters are craving something different. Something irreverent that snubs the stuffy status quo. It doesn’t mean these podcast hosts are always genuine and authentic and some can certainly fake the funk. Logan and Jake Paul borrow more from professional wrestling personas than Larry King, but entertainment factor can always make up for other missing qualities. 

This isn’t just about where young people are getting their political influence from; it’s more about who they trust. Authenticity is the currency of the digital age, and successful content creators are rich with it. Alex Cooper muses about modern life as a young woman with an unfiltered and raw quality you will not see on television. Theo Von talks openly and vulnerably about his past struggles with substance abuse and often offers earnest and deeply empathetic takes on the struggles young men face today. This makes it all the more disappointing for Dan Pfeiffer to call him “MAGA adjacent” last week in a dig at Trump’s appearance on Von’s podcast. Watch this clip and tell me he’s right. If you’re wondering why Democrats are hemorrhaging young men, out-of-touch statements like this might be part of the problem. 

So what’s the takeaway here? If you’re in the business of influencing public opinion, you need to recognize where the conversation is happening and where your audience is. If your audience is young people, I assure you the answer isn’t cable news or TV ads. It’s not in the op-ed pages of legacy newspapers or interviews on 60 Minutes. It’s in the podcast studios, the YouTube channels, and the social media feeds of young people who have more contempt for the mainstream media than you have for YouTube stars. 

In that sense, Harris and Trump’s focus on digital podcast interviews is the right strategy. We would ridicule a campaign for attempting to reach female voters by going to a UFC event or Hispanic voters by going to rural Maine. We should give them the same ridicule if their strategy to reach low-propensity young voters involves traditional media strategies and op-eds in The Atlantic. I can assure you, they aren’t listening. 

Foreign interference in U.S. politics is not a distant memory from 2016. It’s an ongoing, evolving threat that has become multi-dimensional and much more widespread. For the moment, let’s focus on the recent Iranian hack of the Trump campaign and set aside the indictment of NYC Mayor Eric Adams, the recent Microsoft cyber threat report on Russian disinformation, the new accusations of Chinese fake news sites, the Iranian intelligence plot to assassinate Donald Trump, and…well, you get the point. 

The Trump campaign hack is a problem on its own. A major focus of this newsletter is to discuss the question of what information we are consuming and who is producing it, and the hack is an obvious installment of that discussion. It also showcases another problem deserving of our attention: the influence, power, and censorship abilities of those who own our digital platforms. 

Iranian Hack of the Trump Campaign

The U.S. Department of Justice claimed last month that Iranian hackers were responsible for attempted hacks of the Trump campaign, the Harris campaign, and several CIA agents. The DoJ made it clear that they were successful in gaining access to private Trump campaign documents, which Iran then sent to major U.S. media outlets to be published. Those outlets refused to publish the information, which is an interesting wrinkle we will discuss shortly. 

We now have more information about the hacks after the DoJ unsealed an indictment against three Iranian men they claim are responsible. For the successful Trump campaign hack, the DoJ alleges the Iranians set up a fake email account four years ago impersonating Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. They spent those four years building a digital trail to provide the account some legitimacy, then using it to send phishing links to senior campaign officials. They gained access to Roger Stone’s email account, which they used to steal private documents from the campaign. Be careful what you click on, folks. 

As was the case with the Hunter Biden laptop information, the hackers sent their stolen documents to major media outlets for publication to harm their targeted candidate – Trump, in this case. Those outlets, following the precedent they set during the Hunter Biden incident, refused to publish the information, claiming that its publication would only encourage future hackers if they knew they could easily get their dirt into U.S. news cycles. Some cried foul, still upset about the 2016 Russian hacks of John Podesta and the voracious media coverage those documents earned through election day. Ultimately, however, this is probably the right stance, for the same reasons why buying stolen goods is illegal–you create an incentive for more theft if there’s an easily accessible market for what you have stolen. 

That said, it does feel paternalistic for major media outlet heads to decide unilaterally what the public sees. At a time when trust in media is at rock bottom, depriving viewers of seeing those documents doesn’t help. This issue was made all the more interesting when independent journalist Ken Klippenstein published the documents anyway. The documents turned out to be the Trump campaign’s oppo research file on JD Vance and were frankly an objectively mundane and anticlimactic read. 

What then happened to Klippenstein is far more interesting. Minutes after posting the documents on Twitter/X, his account was permanently banned for “posting private information,” which Elon Musk says is because the documents contained JD Vance’s home address and part of his social security number. Klippenstein has since redacted that information, but his ban remains in effect, and accuses Musk, a vocal Trump supporter of banning him for political purposes. He fairly points out that no user was banned for posting much more salacious private information about Hunter Biden and we have discussed in previous newsletters, Musk’s content moderation policy is incoherent at best. 

While the documents are still up on Klippenstein’s substack, other media platforms have outright banned any link that brings you to the information. As of today, you cannot post a direct link to the document on X, while Meta has taken action to prevent its spread on Facebook and Instagram. Most shockingly, Google has blocked users from importing the document to Google Drive or sharing it with others on that platform. 

It’s Not Just the Noise

This is a stark reminder that the noisy information we are bombarded with is only part of the problem. At the end of the day, that information lives on digital platforms governed by a small subset of powerful people. At worst, they are partisan hacks operating in bad faith, as Musk likely is. At best, they are the heads of trillion-dollar for-profit enterprises who weigh a litany of conflicting interests, none of which, I suspect, are an altruistic appreciation for the difficult balance of user safety and agency. Call me a cynic, if you must. 

I initially assumed Meta and Google blocked access to the document for cybersecurity reasons; the document, after all, came from an Iranian hacker who had just phished the Trump campaign using malicious links. I was proven wrong when Google stated they were restricting access to the document due to a violation of their “personal and confidential information policy.” Even if you buy that argument, Meta was much more clear that their restriction was about combating foreign influence in our politics and media. 

My cynicism about these companies’ actions may seem odd considering how intense a threat I consider foreign influence is on our media. In fact, I disagree with Klippenstein’s argument that foreign interference isn’t a sufficient reason to censor information online. Ultimately, however, these are the very companies that are failing to address countless other instances of pure and malicious misinformation posted by hostile foreign nations. The Trump campaign document may have been the product of an Iranian hack, but at the end of the day, it’s a real document with real information. They have limited the public’s access to it while Russian-made deep fake videos continue to flow, even if the platforms are “doing their best” to take them down. 

I won’t pretend this is a black-and-white ethical decision. There’s a lot to consider here and if we assume these are good-faith arguments, I get why they did what they did. But this is a stark reminder that we don’t just have a noise problem online. Our digital platforms are governed by fallible and imperfect people who decide what we see and when we see it. The information we consume is not shown to us through some democratic process or virality-based meritocracy; it is uplifted by a man-made algorithm that we cannot access and is subject to censorship at the whims of unelected elites. Our information ecosystem is not some Hobbesian state of nature, it is under our control and we are doing a very bad job at controlling it. 

Microsoft - “Russian Election Interference Efforts Focus On The Harris-Walz Campaign” (Sep. 2024)

Microsoft’s latest release details state-funded Russian troll farms that are posting doctored or fabricated videos about the Harris campaign. The report names two Russian groups, Storm-1516 and Storm-1679, who use generative AI tools and sock puppet influencer accounts to spread misinformation videos, some of which have earned millions of views. Read the full report here.

Nature - “How Influencers And Algorithms Mobilize Propaganda — And Distort Reality” by Sander van der Linden (Sep. 2024)

“If you make it trend, you make it true.” A review of Renée DiResta’s new book Invisible Rulers, in which she studies the influencer economy and modern concept of digital virality. She details how social-media influencers and algorithms “hijack the public debate,” in what she calls the fantasy-industrial complex. Read the full article here.

The New York Times - “Brands Love Influencers (Until Politics Get Involved)” by Sapna Maheshwari (Aug. 2024)

With our partisan divides as deep as they are now, brands that leverage digital influencers do all they can to avoid associating with those that produce political content. This article from the New York Times explores how some marketing firms are using AI not to see if an influencer has been politically outspoken, but if they will be in the future. Read the full article here.

Network Propaganda by Yochai Benkler, Robert Faris, and Hal Roberts (2018)

This book might be six years old, but it remains the most insightful and illuminating thing I have read about our modern digital media landscape. If you are at all interested in what the combination of partisan cable news and social media has done to our politics, it is well worth your time. You can download a free PDF copy here.

The issue of foreign influence in American politics has taken center stage over the past few years. Despite all the attention, our adversaries have only become more emboldened. A recent Department of Justice release highlights an alarming chapter in Russia’s ongoing information warfare: Tenet Media, an American right-wing content machine funded covertly by the Russian government. Their goals extend beyond influencing elections –they seek to actively distort our domestic political landscape, pitting Americans against one another to weaken the country from within. 

Having spent years working in the intelligence community with experience in information warfare, I’ve seen firsthand how powerful these tactics can be. Russia’s recruitment of Tenet Media underscores a much larger and more troubling issue than simple partisan squabbles. From my experience, the scale of this problem is far greater than we realize. What’s worse is that the effects of this information warfare–deepening social and political divides–inherently complicate our collective ability to fight back. The longer it goes on, the worse it gets and the harder it is to solve. If our partisan identities prevent us from addressing this threat, we will continue to fracture and weaken from within. 

Overview of DoJ Release and Tenet Media

From DoJ affidavit: Russian talking points given to Tenet Media

The unsealed affidavit pulls back the curtain on a shadowy operation that funneled nearly $10 million from the Russian government into a right-wing digital influencer network operating in the U.S. The payments came from RT, formerly known as Russia Today, which closed shop in the U.S. due to sanctions. The DoJ alleges the payments were part of a broader strategy to manipulate U.S. public opinion and paid directly to Lauren Chen, CEO of Tenet Media. Shockingly, the DoJ alleges that Russian agents were intimately involved in the editorial process for much of Tenet’s content, which included Russian nationals personally editing and posting over 2,000 videos on Tenet’s YouTube channel.  A more in-depth analysis of the situation can be read here from the New York Times or here from Reuters. 

The scale of influence is alarming. Prominent right-wing influencers like Tim Pool, Benny Johnson, and Dave Rubin received payments totaling as much as $400,000 a month per influencer, regurgitating talking points written by the Kremlin in videos edited and published by Russian agents. These content creators, knowingly or not, became foreign assets, disseminating narratives designed to divide the American public, promote conflict, and exacerbate partisan divides. 

What Russia Was Paying For

The influencers in question are not minor players in the Fifth Estate. With millions of combined followers across YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter/X, they hold significant sway in the right-wing media landscape. They’ve built their brands on ideas of free speech, fighting the mainstream media, and exposing the evils of liberalism and cancel culture. They both echo mainstream GOP talking points and create new ones by throwing out new arguments while Republican strategists pay attention to what gets traction. They’re influential to both the general public and the Republican Party elites. 

The Russian talking points, pictured above, instructed the influencers to focus on some of America’s most powerful dividers: race, immigration, and economic uncertainty. What’s interesting is that Russia’s most important issue, America’s support for Ukraine, is not the main focus. This was not just about furthering short-term Russian interests; it was a much more nebulous effort to generate abstract discord, conflict, and division among us. Russia was telling these influencers to focus on issues that make their viewers fearful, upset, and angry at partisan enemies. 

So how, exactly, did this Russian influence manifest itself in online content? Therein lies the problem: it’s hard to tell. These talking points aren’t just (literally) given to them by Russian agents; they are already mainstays of right-wing influencer content. The talking points aren’t new, they are just the most divisive and frightening ones that exist among right-wing media. 

Russia isn’t paying them to promote tax cuts or balance the budget; they are paying them to incite racial resentment and make you feel unsafe. The seamless integration of these narratives makes it incredibly difficult to discern where genuine American political discourse ends and where Russian influence begins. This is a textbook example of why covert information warfare is so difficult to stop. 

There are, however, some examples that are obvious in hindsight. Tim Pool, for one, found himself explicitly amplifying Russian narratives about Ukraine mere days after his first Kremlin-signed paycheck. Pool talks about how Ukraine is “America’s real enemy” and, somehow, “our biggest threat.” He opines that our support for the country is intolerable and that our demonization of Russia is unfounded and wrong. A clip of the video is liked here. 

YouTube thumbnail of video by Lauren Chen, CEO of Tenet Media

Beyond Ukraine, all the influencers mentioned in the affidavit frequently speak about the dangers that immigrants pose to the American way of life and how minorities in America are committing violent crimes at unprecedented levels. They frequently highlight the economic hardships that white Americans face today, and how the Democratic Party is purposefully supporting illegal immigrants and people of color while they abandon lower and middle-class white Americans; these influencers’ main audience. 

WIRED magazine published a data analysis of Tenet Media’s YouTube videos, showing the most commonly used phrases and words among the content posted while they received Russian money. Considering Russia’s involvement in choosing what content to post on their channels, the substance of these videos gives us an important glimpse into what Russia prioritizes in this information warfare strategy.

It shows the editors were only vaguely interested in Ukraine, which is mentioned 67 times in the over 400 videos included in the study, compared to the words “trans” and “transgender,” which earned over 200 mentions. They focused on hot-button issues of social divides and racial resentment, reinforcing a feeling of conflict and animosity. Among the most common phrases in the videos were “white people,” “black people,” “civil war,” and “illegal immigrants.” 

Source

Despite the DoJ indictment, the influencers who were involved remain active on all platforms, continuing to pump out the same divisive content despite their revealed connections. Even if the principal agent, Tenet Media CEO Lauren Chen, has been removed, the talking points she helped spread are still alive and well. The narratives have already taken root, and the damage to our political discourse continues. 

For influencers like Pool and Johnson, the damage is done. Their stance on Ukraine, which aligns closely with Russian interests, combined with their focus on promoting racial and cultural conflict, served to deepen partisan division in the U.S. The constant drumbeat of conflict–whether about immigration, race, wokeness, etc.–does more than just polarize audiences. It fosters a climate of hopelessness and anger, leaving little room for meaningful political dialogue. With partisan divides as deep as they are today, along with the politicization of Russia’s influence as a topic in American politics, we are left unable to meaningfully combat it. 

For Russia, this is a win. By amplifying discord in the U.S., they weaken us from the inside out. While they may succeed in reducing public support for Ukraine, their broader goal is to destabilize American society and, frankly, they’re succeeding. The genius of these information warfare operations is that they aren’t about changing personal stances on specific issues–they’re about fostering an environment where everyone is suspicious, angry, fearful, and divided. 

What Does it Mean For Us?

This is just the tip of the iceberg. It’s highly unlikely that this is the only instance of Russian money making its way into our media. The DoJ affidavit claims that Russia maintains an active list of over 2,800 influencers, signaling that the Tenet Media recruitment is likely part of a much larger effort to influence our information ecosystem. 

Unfortunately, it has become difficult to rally the public around these issues. The question of Russian influence has itself become politicized, with Fox News calling the DoJ release ‘fake news’ and other right-wing influencers shrugging their shoulders in a coordinated fashion. Without any non-DoJ accountability, this problem becomes nearly impossible to solve. If people are willing to accept Russian money to spread their propaganda, the problem becomes a game of whack-a-mole where the DoJ tries, fruitlessly, to stop the inflow of cash and hold people accountable. There simply aren’t enough resources to categorically prevent Russian money from finding its way in, and a significant portion of the public either doesn’t care about the story, or believes it to be false. 

So what happens next? How can we, as a nation, resist foreign influence over our media? Frankly, the answer is complicated and the solution feels unattainable. We have to decide, collectively, that it is intolerable to allow foreign nations to maliciously manipulate what we see and hear day to day online. We also have to want to be more unified against information meant to divide us.

That may seem easy to do, but it gets much harder when the manipulated media echoes arguments and talking points that help your preferred political party or align with your personal views. After all, it isn’t just Russia propping up hardline right-wing talking points. The intelligence community has warned us of Iranian digital influence to weaken public support for Israel, as well as Israeli digital influence operations aimed at strengthening their support and isolating their critics. Given the polarity and sensitivity of that issue, it’s difficult to imagine us banding together across the divide. 

But regardless of where you stand on the issue, the influence itself should give us pause. Non-traditional media and the rise of the Fifth Estate has given businesses, lobbyists, political parties, and nation-states endless vectors to influence our mindsets and manipulate our opinions. Those vectors will always be there, but it’s up to us to resist the noise. The first step is to put the good of the nation over our partisan interests. In the world of information warfare, that would require a counter-narrative that challenges the negativity and toxicity that dominate our modern media landscape. People need a reason to feel hopeful, along with someone to communicate that reason to them. For now, all we have is hateful content about immigrants eating pets in Ohio, and collective outrage in response. Negativity dominates our news feed while Putin smiles in Moscow. 

Elon Musk took Twitter private and plunged headfirst into the partisan and cultural wars, both personally and with the platform. The site is now awash in vile, divisive content with little to no policy in place to prevent its proliferation. The signal here is the legitimization of fringe and far-right culture and policies and a hard partisan bend to one of our largest social media platforms. The noise is a massive injection of confusion, disinformation, and divisiveness into one of the world’s most influential social media feeds. While the signal is scary, the noise is far more damaging.

Why He’s Doing This

Elon’s power and influence stem from his position as the wealthiest man in the world. For years, that wealth seemed limitless as Tesla stock soared and SpaceX thrived without competition. But things have changed. Tesla is rapidly losing market share to legacy automakers while its product quality declines. Its stock price is half of what it was in 2021. Elon’s financial power now comes almost entirely from leveraging his 13% stake in the now $670 billion company. His ownership share dropped from 22% after buying Twitter, which has more than halved in value.

SpaceX remains a cash cow, but its future is murkier than it seems. The private company makes billions annually in defense contracts, using its reusable rockets to launch NASA missions and spy satellites for the U.S. government. These contracts are believed to be the majority of SpaceX’s revenue. Given Elon’s increasingly antagonistic stance towards the Biden administration and concerningly erratic behavior, there’s no guarantee these contracts will continue when a real competitor steps in.

Source: Washington Post

With Tesla losing market share, SpaceX’s vulnerability, and Twitter/X’s rapid decline in value alongside high debt, Elon is feeling the heat. Investors believe the company has lost more than 70% of its value since Musk’s acquisition, which would be one of the biggest and fastest destructions of corporate enterprise value in history. The deal is now considered the worst merger-acquisition buyout for banks since the 2008 financial crisis. 

Tesla and SpaceX also rely heavily on federal policies through EV tax credits and defense contracts; crucial context to understanding his recent political pivots. His endorsement and financial support of Trump and the GOP may stem from genuine ideological agreement, but it’s likely more of a desperate financial and social investment. Musk sees a second Trump administration as his best hope for protecting his business interests, despite the GOP’s attacks on electric vehicles and Trump’s long history of reneging on deals.

Elon’s Partisan Turn

The absence of clear moderation means the platform is essentially governed by Musk’s whims. Lately, those whims have leaned toward promoting fringe far-right content.

In just the past month, Musk has reposted tweets about links between race and IQ, defended a Hitler apologist, accused Kamala Harris of being a communist with a secret plan for a Stalinist regime, and shared opinions about what it means to be a “high testosterone male” today—in short, it revolves around questioning authority and practicing Jiu Jitsu.

It’s easy to dismiss Musk’s antics as those of an eccentric billionaire with too much screen time, but the reality is far more serious. Musk isn’t just some podcast host; he’s one of the most powerful figures in the world. He owns a social media platform that he alone directs. His words carry weight, especially with young men. To many, he’s a role model—a successful entrepreneur who shirks norms, speaks his mind, and protects free speech.

Is Musk really swaying that many young men? Probably not alone, but he adds a loud voice to a chorus of right-wing influencers targeting our nation’s most disaffected population. He joins them in normalizing fringe political views, subtly shifting the Overton window for what society considers acceptable. As that window shifts right, the center of gravity in our political apparatus moves with it. This is the power of coordinated information operations.

Disinformation on X: It’s a Feature, Not a Bug

Given Musk’s political investments and motivations, Twitter/X has become his personal propaganda machine. The first major change after his acquisition was the removal of nearly all content moderation and the firing of those previously involved. Musk effectively turned off auto-moderation and made himself the judge, jury, and executioner. Journalists critical of Musk have been shadowbanned or removed, while Alex Jones, Richard Spencer, and Nick Fuentes have had their accounts reinstated. Advertisers have fled and will continue to flee, wary of posting ads beside comments supporting white nationalism or political violence, which are now common. There is seemingly no coherent content moderation policy beyond whatever Musk wants in the moment. 

The rapid proliferation of bots on X has made it even messier. Bot traffic is at an all-time high, which seems to be Musk’s intent after announcing a profit-sharing program giving top users a cut of X’s ad revenue. Accounts with premium paid X subscriptions receive an undisclosed amount monthly based on engagement metrics. Some larger accounts have shown five-digit monthly payouts, though without itemization or explanation. As the platform hemorrhaged advertisers, this was likely an attempt to boost metrics like daily active users and quantifiable engagement measurements.

While those metrics have technically improved, so has the number of AI bot accounts on the platform. X doesn’t release data on bots, but countless examples show real users tricking suspected bot accounts into revealing themselves and, quite frankly, it’s obvious when you look at the comments on any high-traffic tweet. Why the increase in AI-generated content? Tech-savvy users realized they could profit by creating bot accounts, paying for their X subscriptions, and having them comment on high-visibility posts, generating views and likes. X’s payout mechanics consider them premium accounts with high engagement, giving bot farmers a nice monthly stipend. It floods the platform with nonsense, but X gets more daily active users, and the bot farmers get paid. You, the user, suffer.

The Consequences of a Noisy Platform

Musk’s signal is one thing, but the deafening noise he spreads is more important. By flooding the platform with nonsensical and divisive content, he’s injecting confusion and distrust into the information ecosystem. The result is a social media feed where fact and fiction blur, and the loudest, most polarizing voices dominate. For every sane, informed political post, there are hundreds of frantic, angry tweets highlighting the worst of our political reality, from livid partisans to literal neo-Nazis. Many bots post innocuous replies like “Wow, so interesting! [insert emoji]” to Musk’s tweets, but some post hardline and angry partisan content, fueling the perpetual culture war online. They’re in the comment sections of politicians, world leaders, and bombshell news articles, all worsened by the platform’s lack of moderation and its subsidies to these bots.

The platform is a disaster. What many once considered our best source of real-time news and the open blog for journalists and academics has become a glorified digital tabloid at best and “Nazi Porn Bar” to its critics. If you want information on the war in Gaza, X will show you posts explicitly supportive of Hamas alongside posts that objectively dehumanize Palestinian lives, all sandwiched between bots shilling OnlyFans accounts and cryptocurrency scams.

That reality is Musk’s intended one. The bots give him better platform metrics and the enraging content keeps users engaged. He gets to promote right-wing content while funding his pro-Trump super PAC, and users drown in confusion.

The Power of Information Warfare

At its core, Musk’s transformation of Twitter is an information operation. By controlling what people see and hear on one of the world’s most influential platforms, he shapes the narratives that define our reality. While the discourse may push some toward the intended political side, it also creates confusion and cynicism when people already feel angry, divided, and distrustful of media and democracy.

This is the real danger of Musk’s platform. It’s not just the amplification of Nick Fuentes; it’s that he’s ruining another source of information we use to make sense of the world. It adds more disorienting noise to our lives. For some, the far-right content will shift their politics. For most, the divisive, conflict-oriented content will make them apathetic and cynical.

That’s the consequence of noise in information warfare. Musk’s version drives some toward dangerous fringe beliefs (Biden wants to turn your children transgender; white people are scientifically more intelligent) or makes others so cynical they disengage from the political process altogether. Either way, division wins, as does Elon’s preferred political party. This is the power of information operations. You turn some into supporters and scramble the brains of others. It’s a win-win for Musk and Trump: You turn on a few thousand young men and turn off hundreds of thousands more, not toward you but away from civic discourse. You make it harder for them to see a signal. You make them angry and upset but too cynical to fight back. You grow your numbers while shrinking your opponent’s pool.

There are ways to push back. Some are trying - including the country of Brazil, which last week banned X -  but, such efforts often reinforce the conflict. Successful mitigation requires more coordination, more amplification, and, most importantly, more positivity. Fighting divisive information operations is like quicksand—the more you fight, the quicker you sink. You have to offer a real alternative to disarm the divisiveness. Until then, Musk and others go unopposed.

In a new era, where trust in traditional media is at an all time low, it should come as no surprise, that creators and influencers (like the above) are playing an outsized role throughout this election cycle, including the hundreds of credentialed creators taking over the conventions, and an estimated 1 in 4 creators that have been approached by political campaigns ahead of November. Users crave the relatability as well as the parasocial relationships and the sense of trust these personalities provide—this experience now belongs to all of us because we’re consuming it through this person I “know”.

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So What’s Going On Here?

To help us all navigate this new landscape, we're piloting a Creator Index. Our goals with this new index are to help track and understand how popular creators across the political spectrum impact the national conversation; highlight trending topics and messaging shifts; and, analyze the impact of creator content on public opinion when it comes to civic and political discourse. 

We'll provide regular observations about the Creator Index, helping you stay informed about the digital forces shaping the online conversation, particularly when it comes to our civic lives. 

To build the index, we have selected a set of influencers generally associated with conservative values, and another that are considered progressively-aligned. We used recent coverage from Wired, NYT, Fast Company, Axios and Politico to help us identify a cross section in both camps. We have started by selecting a subset of creators who are more associated with civic and current event news initially; thus, we opted to exclude outsized accounts like the Paul brothers and X’s own Elon Musk. 

Our selection will grow and evolve over time, so for now here’s our starting lineup:

And, If there’s anyone you’d love to see added, hit reply to this email and let us know!

Here are a few initial observations as we begin to track the Creator Index:

• While these initial conservatives have higher overall counts, don’t dig too much into that right now. We think that, over time, what will be more interesting is the growth rates in followers. And, by that metric, Progressives are seeing meteoric growth, likely thanks to their positioning last week at the DNC.

• As you may have noticed, these conservative voices tend to have a more traditional media-inspired personality—they are also journalists, podcasters, etc., and therefore have spent more time cultivating cross-platform presences, which may explain why they had such large Instagram followings comparatively. For now, we are sticking to Instagram as our primary proxy. As a platform, it seems to have the broadest appeal with both our parents, and our gen-alpha cousins all regularly using it. If you’re curious to dig into other platforms, our friends at #FYP are going DEEP on TikTok and the election. 

• Interestingly, the one person who gained the highest number of followers this week was Matt Walsh. And, the content that provoked it: he “posed as a Kamala supporter” to try and trick Democrats into watching a trailer for his forthcoming documentary Am I Racist?. The goal, I think, was to enrage and shock Democrats, but it seems that the only media outlets covering the story are his own.

• And, If you want to know, our favorite Instagram of the week featured one of America’s favorite political families, as daughter Claudia Conway hosted her (divorced) parents George and KellyAnne in a live debate during the DNC. Enjoy.\

In the earliest days, the local town square was the center of our civic, political and cultural lives… and all that noise. These same conversations have since shifted to radio, television, and now… the dreaded internet, where over the last few years we’ve experienced an explosion in innovation—from streaming services where we can binge The Great British Bake Off, to tweet threads where news breaks. Now, we live our lives online and attached to our smartphones, with constant content consumption, fueled by advertisers aiming to win our attention and our money every minute of the day.  

Think about every Holiday Season, when Black Friday marks a hijacking of our screens, watercoolers and mind-share, as consumerism inhales all the oxygen in our collective conversation. Why? As Danny DeVito said, “Everybody needs money. That’s why they call it money.” In other words, big box retailers, direct-to-consumer brands and everyone in between purchases up every inch of attention real estate from our newsfeeds to our nightly news.

Likewise, every four years America’s focus shifts—often against our will—to the deafening noise of the presidential election.  This year is no different, except for the incredible acceleration we’ve seen over the last three weeks, and the spending promises candidates have made leading up to the DNC and then some.

The Dam Has Broken

In the wake of President Biden’s withdrawal and VP Harris’ rise as the presumptive Democratic nominee, we’ve witnessed an explosion in campaign activity—from coconuts to rallies that rival summer music festivals to an explosion in political ad spending. The Harris/Walz campaign has effectively broken the dam, unleashing a torrent of ad dollars (and sold a record number of camo hat merch) that has set off an arms race in political advertising.

The Harris/Walz campaign’s aggressive spending could be interpreted as a strategic move to make the most of the 77 days we have left until November 5th. Unlike Trump, who has nearly universal name recognition, the Harris/Walz ticket has to introduce their platform and messaging to the country within an exceptionally compressed timeframe.

According to recent data, political advertising for August alone is projected to reach a staggering $280.8 million, with Democrats slightly outspending Republicans at $151 million to $129.9 million. This represents an increase in ad spending like we’ve never seen before—August 2024 spending is already more than quadruple that of August 2016.

This is in addition to recent announcements from both camps, and these are assumed to be television alone:

• Trump’s main super PAC, MAGA Inc. announced a $100 million ad buy concentrated in seven swing states for the last 2.5 weeks of August.

• The Harris campaign then responded with a $90 million buy, which is their largest yet.

We are closely following (our friends at FWIW are the best source for this) the digital spend trends across Meta, Google and other channels. And, since the beginning of the Harris campaign, their digital spending has gone gangbusters, with at least a combined $45 million spent across these channels in the last three weeks alone.

Fortifying The Bubbles: How the Money Is Being Used

While the sheer amount of money being spent is eye-watering, it’s equally important to consider how it’s being deployed. A significant portion of digital ad spending appears to be reinforcing existing support and biases, rather than persuading undecided voters.

Interestingly, platforms like Meta (Instagram & Facebook) and Google (includes Youtube) remain relatively universal in reaching voters across the political spectrum. However, we’re seeing increased spending on platforms that cater to specific demographics or ideological leanings (Conservatives on Twitter, Progressives on Snapchat, etc), undoubtedly reinforcing individual information bubbles and increasing polarization.

Evolving Strategies In An Increasingly Opaque Digital Advertising World

As major platforms restrict micro-targeting capabilities across the board, but especially for political ads, advertisers are being forced to adapt their strategies (thanks, Cambridge Analytica). And the approach is becoming more akin to traditional TV advertising, where campaigns focus on matching their opponents’ spending in key markets across all channels, rather than pinpointing specific voter segments, as was the approach throughout the 2010s. This has been evidenced in the meteoric spending seen by the Harris campaign in the last few weeks across digital, and we’ll see if it continues in the weeks ahead.

Many firms are even recommending a shift back to more traditional formats, with publishers like Washington Post and Gannet boasting record quarters. This shift is particularly evident in battleground states like Pennsylvania, where ad spending has reached jaw dropping levels. Of the more than $110 million spent across seven swing states since July 22, roughly $42 million has gone to PA alone, more than double the next highest state. Seriously, check these numbers out.

With all of this, we’ve noticed a trend that is absolutely not demure, not at all mindful when it comes to frequency capping ads (which ensures users don’t see ads more than a certain amount of times to prevent message fatigue). With the amount of money being poured into advertising channels in this short timeframe, all bets are essentially off—and as we’re sure you’ve noticed—no newsfeed, timeline, or inbox is immune to the flood of information.

What Are The Implications Of This Ad Blitz?

More money is being poured into the screens, and ultimately the hearts and minds of Americans coast to coast. As the election cycle progresses, it will be crucial to keep an eye on these evolving tactics and record-breaking spending. The shift in strategy, combined with the sheer volume of information, raises important questions about the impact on voter perceptions and the overall health of our democratic discourse.

Interestingly, amid the blitz, we’re seeing a focus from the Harris campaign on more positive, unifying messaging. This approach of course stands in contrast to the MAGA-fueled, us vs. them tone that has characterized the last decade or so of political advertising.

As we approach November, Noise Level will continue to monitor these trends and their potential impacts on our democracy. We’ll be paying close attention to:

1. How the massive influx of spending affects voter engagement and turnout

2. Whether the shift away from microtargeting actually leads to more inclusive political discourse—or simply more noise.

3. The receipt and effectiveness of positive, unifying messaging in a landscape often dominated by attack ads.

4. And long term, the potential consequences the 2024 ad arms race has on future elections and campaign finance.

We need a drink … Over and out.

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Everyone wants to “go viral,” but it isn’t easy to manufacture. The McDonald’s Grimace Shake trend is my favorite example of this. Last year, the McDonald’s social media team launched a campaign for the birthday of Grimace, the large purple furry mascot of the franchise. They released a new purple milkshake called the Grimace Shake along with social media posts in Grimace’s character.

Kids on TikTok ran with it and produced thousands of videos portraying the Grimace Shake as a sinister plot by the mascot to take over the world. The videos were objectively bizarre, and McDonald’s legal team was concerned about the videos depicting the shake “killing” teenagers. Their concerns were assuaged as the videos generated billions of views and drove $2 billion of additional revenue – McDonald’s global sales rose 11% that month. Many called it the world’s most successful online campaign, and it involved teens drinking a milkshake and submitting to the dark magic of a furry purple McDonald’s mascot. I’m not saying it made sense, but it did make a lot of money. 

McDonald’s never advertised the campaign nor produced any content for this specific storyline. As their Director of Social Media said, all they did was give the internet the “tools to play with” and let audiences run with it. 

Being “online” today means more than just a digital presence – it requires connecting with digital culture, speaking its language, and tapping into the zeitgeist. But this approach is risky; missing the mark can backfire. As political campaigns increasingly prioritize digital outreach, there are lessons to be learned from their successes and failures. 

Normie Memes

You have to understand internet culture to connect with it. It’s obvious when someone tries to fake the funk and speak a language they clearly are not familiar with. It’s like a parent using new slang words in front of their kids; trying too hard can make you look out of touch, instantly killing the word’s cool factor. For brands or political campaigns, this is a delicate balance. Best case, you’re ignored or quickly forgotten. Worst case, you’re Kendall Jenner’s Pepsi ad.

If you want virality, you have to produce content that people not only like, but want to be part of. McDonald’s understood this; if you give the internet tools to use – tools that content creators think are useful for making their own engaging content – they will do the work for you. A campaign can plant a seed, step back, and watch it grow. 

Instead, brands often end up producing what are known as “normie” memes, which internet culturalists consider mainstream and lame. They feel forced and stale, so certain content creators won’t engage with them. McDonald’s can’t purposefully induce a trend like the Grimace Shake videos because McDonald’s isn’t “cool.” It’s a massive global corporation, and there’s no authenticity in their voice. However, the marketing execs at McDonald’s understood internet culture enough to give content creators some interesting ideas to play with and then stay hands-off as the creators and influencers used their authentic culture fluency to spin digital gold. 

Striking Internet Gold

The Harris campaign’s strategy has been to connect with the online community in a way that feels organic rather than forced. The campaign innately seems to understand how to play it cool; I’m guessing the digital strategy team average age is around 25. They’ve tapped into the current online climate effectively, using humor and irony to resonate with a younger, more digitally savvy audience. Their attacks calling opponents “weird” have resonated, fitting the snarky, irreverent style that gains traction online. Their TikToks, with ironically hyped-up music and distorted images, and hyper-niche Twitter/X references, have delighted a small but culturally influential audience. 

Vice President Harris’ coconut memes are an interesting case study here. They were born naturally from her now-viral speech, and originally as a way to make fun of her; they were negative memes about her incoherence. Fast forward a year, and they’ve turned into her digital identity in wildly positive ways. The campaign embraces the coconuts now, but it’s an acknowledgment of a meme born from real internet culture. She couldn’t have started the joke herself and she could ruin it by being too heavy-handed with those acknowledgments; it would wear the humor out.

But, the campaign has managed to maintain the meme’s appeal across both online and mainstream audiences. It engages and activates the widest audience possible, with influencers producing content for you and downstream normie audiences consuming it. That is true virality. 

Chronically Online Interns Gone Wild

However, there are downsides to being too online, extremely online or chronically online, as the chronically online (or critics) say. The internet is not real life, and some parts of its culture aren’t suitable for public-facing brands or politicians. It’s a problem for journalists who overweigh Twitter/X sentiment in their analysis, and it’s a problem for campaigns trying to engage with online culture. Some of it is dark, off-putting, or downright disturbing. 

The DeSantis campaign got a lot of blowback during the GOP primary after a staffer personally made and shared a DeSantis-supporting video online. The video was the definition of “too online,” featuring imagery, references, and memes that are mainly popular in niche corners of the internet, like 4chan.

It also featured a Sonnenrad, an image commonly used by Nazis and used today by many white supremacists. It shows a similar slip into white supremacist territory by Wendy’s back in 2017. Whether or not the staffer did it deliberately, the fact is he either purposefully used Nazi imagery, or he ignorantly copied other content he’d seen online, erroneously thinking that it would be as well-received by the masses as it is in some deep, ugly corners of the internet. He was far too “online” and had lost touch with what the vast majority of people consider acceptable. 

Take Away

As campaigns, brands and organizations look to make an impact and connect with broad American audiences, a certain level of internet literacy is increasingly essential. When creating content from an official account, there’s a goldilocks middle-ground where strategists can act as translators for “the normies”, while also appealing to those chronically online with a (brand-safe) secret handshake.

Ultimately, internet virality comes from content creators who have the space and freedom to create authentically and in the ever-evolving language of coolness. McDonald’s had no idea how the Grimace campaign would unfold, but by giving the creators the tools to play with, they ended up with a $2 billion success. 

The Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony celebrated French heritage and the games’ Greek origins in an irreverent style only the French can dream up. It featured scenes of a headless Marie Antoinette leading into a performance from one of my favorite metal bands, an animatronic horse racing across the Seine, and a drag Dionysus (see above, more on him shortly). France’s opening ceremony took some brave artistic liberties that I, personally, appreciated. It was a barrage of artistic skits honoring both French and Greek history, and it was the talk of the virtual town for several days. 

But if the image above made you do a double take, you’re not alone. It stole the show, becoming the gold medal-winning meme, stirring up an online controversy. Many viewers assumed the performance to be a depiction of Leonardo Da Vinci’s iconic painting, The Last Supper—including me. The perceived religious imagery sparked immediate debate across social media, with users declaring the performance either an uplifting commentary on inclusivity or an insult to Christians everywhere.

Instead of being enjoyed for a celebration of global unity, this single act in a 4-hour spectacle demonstrated on an international stage the power of misinformation and the divisive design of social media.

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Let The Blame Games Begin

Once the starting pistol went off, there was no stopping this controversy. And it turns out the French take not working on weekends very seriously, with any official statements arriving to the party quite late.

First, The French Bishops’ Conference and American figures like Bishop Robert Barron swiftly denounced the performance. Next, several celebrities and politicians (including Elon Musk and Donald Trump) decided to chime in. Not long after, the media (mainstream and otherwise) sunk its teeth into the story, with a nearly unanimous focus on the Last Supper angle, making for surefire clickbait and an infinite stream of thought pieces throughout the week.

Meanwhile, the voices of the artists and performers attempting to clarify the intention behind the scene and its message of inclusivity were largely drowned out or denigrated amidst the noise.

Finally, the artistic director of the ceremony, Thomas Jolly, and Paris 2024 spokesperson Anne Descamps tried to clear things up saying the scene wasn’t inspired by da Vinci at all. Instead, it was a nod to Greek mythology, specifically to Dionysus, the god of festivities and wine. In fact, many art historians have also suggested the scene was inspired by an entirely different painting, Jan van Bijlert’s The Feast of the Gods (above). 

But by then, it was too late. The misinformation had already spread like wildfire, fueling emotional responses and divisive rhetoric.

What Happens When We Forget Our Golden Rule

For members of the LGBTQ+ community, the reaction to the Paris opening ceremony may feel like yet another example of the ways their expressions of identity and creativity can be misinterpreted and vilified. After all, as this X user points out, The Last Supper has seen plenty of re-imaginings over the years. The performers involved were celebrating diversity and inclusivity, only to have their message lost in a sea of outrage and accusation.

And on the other hand, those with a strong connection to their faith may have felt genuine confusion and offense in response to the perceived mockery of an important religious image. After all, Bishop Emmanuel Gobillard reminds us, blasphemy in France is fair game. The emotional nature of our faith can make it difficult to pause and consider other perspectives, especially when social media algorithms are designed to show us content that reinforces our existing beliefs and biases.

In this age of hot takes, there isn’t much room for empathy, nuance, or a commitment to facts—especially when we are all trapped in our own FYP-driven feedback loops that amplify division and obscure the truth.

Bottom Line

Of course, the path forward can only be in fostering a culture of understanding and respect—online and off. Let the Paris Olympics serve as a reminder of our shared humanity. And if you find your nervous system getting hijacked by an echo chamber of dogmatic talking heads: 

Stop. Touch Grass. And indulge in rich and tasty chocolate muffin content.

We’ve come a long way from Bill and Al’s snazzy ‘96 home page. For one, the Kamala campaign’s TikTok received more views in a single day than the entire universe of daily internet users in 1996. It’s endearing to imagine voters navigating to America’s first website for a Presidential campaign and clicking on those links to learn more about the “Volunteer of the Week” or how they plan to meet America’s challenges, but that’s not how it works today. I can’t tell you the last time I looked at a campaign’s website. These days, for better or for worse, we learn about candidates through memes and YouTube clips.

If you needed a case study, the last 8 days re-wrote the textbook. Let’s cut through the noise and break down the major themes emerging in this new election landscape.

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Let The Unprecedented Times Roll: Biden Drops Out Via X

President Biden’s decision to first post his withdrawal announcement on social media was certainly a first in modern politics – an unprecedented event announced in an unprecedented way. Where politicians of the past may have chosen a standard press release to major media outlets, the sitting President chose to tell the whole country, every person, all at once with a tweet. Social media now allows a communications intern to throw out a screenshot of a PDF, put their phone on do not disturb, and call it a day. 

The influencers, opinion leaders, and hot-take merchants are always in search of new things to comment on, and President Biden’s announcement certainly satisfied. Reactions were immediate, and countless memes spread like wildfire, often far beyond either campaign’s control. 

This lack of control can be a blessing and a curse. It can amplify a campaign’s message or motivate their base. It can also distort your message, taking on a life of its own and wind up out of control. The reactions to Biden’s announcement and Harris’ subsequent campaign activity exemplify this duality, showing just how unpredictable the digital noise can be. 

Execute Operation Coconut

With President Biden’s announcement came an explicit endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris as his replacement. A slower news cycle of pre-internet days may have invited some conversations about an open convention, other candidates, or at the very least a discussion about President Biden’s legacy, but not today. Operation Coconut was already underway.

If you aren’t aware of the meme, it comes from a speech the Vice President gave last year about expanding educational opportunities in America. In it is her now-iconic quote, “You think you just fell out of a coconut tree? You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.” Ironically, the original clip was first shared by a Republican oppo research account on YouTube and X, ostensibly to mock both the quote and delivery. They were somewhat successful, and the clip went fairly viral in mainstream social media, spurring some unflattering discourse. 

Fast forward a year, and the script has officially flipped. Moments after President Biden’s announcement, social media was filled with coconut-related memes and emojis. It started with influencers and everyday users, but quickly spread to political opinion leaders, traditional media, and other politicians in a matter of hours. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, Colorado Governor Jared Polis, and Hawaii Congressman Brian Schatz were among the first, with many others tweeting out jokes about coconuts, coconut trees, or some joke about falling out of one. Even the Harris campaign’s own X profile’s bio now says, solely, “Providing Context.” 

What was originally a Republican oppo research snippet has now turned into the Democrats’ most viral and energizing meme; a powerful messaging tool and a canvas on which influencers and content creators can paint. While I don’t blame the GOP for posting the original video, I can’t imagine this is what they had in mind. 

Other Memes and Positive Themes

Memes set the tone, as we discussed in this issue. They are the building blocks of viral content and serve as a vessel for humor and attention, the two most important components of viral content. They are the DNA of the internet, which is apt since the name comes from biologists as a term for cultural genetics. You may not see many memes throughout your day, but I can assure you they are the oxygen of social media. 

They also affect the world around them in profound ways. You don’t have to be steeped in internet culture to see the shockwaves they make in both traditional media and our IRL conversations. Take Jake Tapper, for instance, who live on air announced his aspiration last week to “be brat.” 

Tapper showcased this combination Kamala Harris and pop star Charli XCX meme on CNN after telling viewers he had learned about it from his 16-year-old daughter. The meme, which you can read a full description of here, incorporates the radically popular pop star’s latest album, "brat,” with the lowercase letters featured on a glaring lime green background. Late Sunday night, Charli XCX tweeted “kamala IS brat, " which has since received over 50 million views, and the content has since flowed. Harris’ official campaign has adopted it, other supportive politicians have engaged with it, and cable news channels are reporting on it. 

The meme has everything you’d want in today’s quick content economy – one word, a relevant celebrity extremely popular with young people, and an easily copyable aesthetic of a single color. It’s been meme’d all over the last few weeks pre-announcement, including on a NYC MTA announcement telling me my subway line would be down all summer for renovations. The irreverent green glow was humiliating, frankly. 

It’s not the fact that Kamala memes are everywhere online – it's 2024, there are always memes. What’s important is how these memes move downstream and change the discourse offline. Teenagers find a funny one and send it to their friends, who send it to their friends. Some of those teenagers go on to show their parents in a desperate attempt to bridge the cavernous generation gap. One of those parents happens to be CNN’s most-watched news anchor, and he tells everyone else. After all, the median age of a CNN viewer is 67 years old and now they know what brat summer is, albeit against their will. 

Is that actually consequential to a 67-year-old’s mindset? Probably not. But it’s an example of how internet culture seeps into real life, and not all the memes were happy and coconut-laden. 

It’s Not All Lime In The Coconuts

Not all the memes this week were positive. Biden’s announcement and Harris’ assumed rise to the candidacy generated intense vitriol from right-wing accounts. 

Here’s the thing: Right-wing social media messaging is usually much more coordinated and organized than it is on the left. There are many reasons why, and we’re writing a future newsletter to go into more detail, but that was not the case this week. The candidate swap instantly disarmed the major Biden attacks – age, cognitive decline, inflation, etc. – and forced them to pivot to Harris. From my perspective, they were not ready. 

The lack of coordination generated a free-for-all online, spawning content mostly focused on her race, gender, and the sound of her laugh. The most common attack was calling her a “DEI candidate,” arguing that she only got the VP position and the nomination because she is black. This started on right-wing online influencer pages and quickly made its way to GOP politicians who echoed it on camera; another example of how online content gets into mainstream media. Things got so bad that Speaker of the House Mike Johnson privately told his caucus to tone down the racial attacks. It didn’t seem to help. 

Next up was content claiming the only reason Harris had gotten this far was because she “slept her way upwards.” Posters claimed she had only gotten ahead in politics because she had slept with the former Mayor of San Francisco, while one account with over 200k followers called her “Kamala Hoerris”. Fox News echoed the sentiment, calling her the “DEI candidate” in the process. Peppered throughout this were additional insults about her lack of children. An old clip of JD Vance calling Harris a “childless cat lady” made its way around, which added fuel to the fire (and was quickly co-opted by millennial women and Taylor Swift fans). 

“Democrats Fall In Love. Republicans Fall In Line.”

There are always gross attacks on politicians and even grosser content online. What made this week particularly messy was a complete lack of message coordination from the GOP. While left-wing social media bubbles were drunk in love over a shiny new potential future, conservative influencers had no cues to take and no central theme to follow. The message became a variable to fill in themselves. 

This is a central theme to keep an eye on through November. Even if the GOP is able to whip its influencers into line, it’s clear that they do not have control over their ideological fringes. Riling up a base and relying on shock-factor content to keep them motivated has its downsides. The problem is exacerbated online, where the most extreme content gets the most engagement.

Mike Johnnson and others can urge influencers to refrain from these attacks, but I have my doubts it will work. The right might be fired up online, but I’m not sure it’s a controlled burn. 

The same goes for every social media platform as it rises to prominence. But when we downplay the impact a platform can have on a generation—or an entire society—that’s when elections are thrown, social movements get pressure cooked, and revolutions are born.

Living in a world where a sitting President chose X as his platform of choice to notify the American people that he would no longer be seeking re-election, we can’t afford to turn a blind eye in 2024 or beyond.

In this issue, we’re offering a lightning-round explainer of the most influential social platforms to help you make sense of not just the upcoming election, but the outlook for our democracy at large.

Subscribe and stay tuned for deeper dives on each platform in later issues.

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TikTok

According to Pew, it turns out that 43% of TikTok’s users regularly get their news from the platform. That’s a rate as high as Facebook, and second only to X. With 1/3 of all Americans reporting to be TikTok users, this is more than Beatlemania. 

It’s no secret that TikTok is the fastest-growing and most scrutinized platform of 2024. Armed with what many users believe to be the best content suggestion algorithm in the business, the Chinese-owned social media site has taken over the digital information ecosystem for young people. 

TikTok’s powerful influence over young people has less to do with its popularity or content and more with what the algorithm feeds them.

Take this report from The Wall Street Journal in December 2023. WSJ created eight fake accounts pretending to be 13-year-olds to test what content the app shows them without any empirical user data or behavioral insights. 

Every account they made was shown violent Gaza-related conflict videos. Half the accounts wound up in a “rabbit hole,” where the majority of their “For You” page became related to the war. One account found its way there after a mere 57 videos, after which nearly all the suggested content was about the war in Gaza. 

What should also be noted is that even if you’re not “on TikTok”, many creators repurpose or recreate their top TikToks and post them across the web to satiate social media’s limitless appetite for vertical video content. So in effect, if you’re on social media, you’re consuming content that was originally created for TikTok.

The Bottom Line: 

We’ll explore the many concerns the security community has around TikTok’s inner workings in a later issue, but for now, what you need to know is this: TikTok’s algorithm and user interface are specifically designed for an addictive, endless scroll. It has a reputation for being the most entertaining platform, and yet nearly half of its users expect to receive their news alongside viral dances and riffs on the latest lipsync—and it’s delivering.

Reddit

Thanks to its democratized content moderation system, Reddit has an ardently dedicated user base and, subjectively, more genuinely viral content. Close-knit communities within Reddit, known as subreddits, react to world events and share their experiences with people, places, and things by posting directly on the subreddit’s page. Other users vote on the post through “upvotes” and “downvotes” usually based on its relevance to the community or entertainment value. Upvotes increase its visibility while downvotes kill it. 

What many don’t realize is that much of today’s click-bait news sites and aggregators pull entire stories from popular threads on the platform. In fact, other influencers use so much content from Reddit that the company began placing watermarks on pictures posted to the website to discourage bots from scraping them and to show the internet just how much content originates from their platform. 

The Bottom Line: Despite being a source for journalists and beyond, a surprising amount of its content has much murkier origins. In 2017, researchers from the University of Alabama Birmingham attempted to show where Reddit sits in the online news discourse cycle between the mainstream media, Twitter, and the infamously problematic internet forum 4chan. They found that 4chan content’s entry point into more popular platforms came through Reddit. The content then made its way to Twitter, all while mainstream news stories impacted users’ interpretation of the content and dictated its saliency and virality. 

Reddit’s connection with Twitter is particularly interesting and influential, and we explain why below. 

X (Formerly Known as Twitter)

As one prominent New York Times reporter once said to me, “No one is on Twitter except for every journalist in America.” 

They were correct, it turns out. Despite being the smallest of the major social media sites, X is the collective digital home for the people who produce our news. Pew estimates that 70% of journalists actively use X compared to only 22% of the US population. It is by far the most used social media platform for journalists and has the highest usage disparity between them and the US population writ large. 

What’s important about this is that X is the clearest gateway between online culture and mainstream news. Journalists scrolling on X are influenced by the content they consume. They are impacted by the tone, volume, and overall vibe of the platform, which they admit is where they spend most of their time online. This results in both an information silo for those journalists and a feedback loop where the “vibes” of X influence their writing, their writing influences the “vibes” on X, and journalists end up commentating on discourse they created themselves. 

The Bottom Line: If you read Friday’s edition of Noise Level, you’ll know that the pervasive tone on X is divisive, combative, irreverent, and often viciously partisan. If content from the darker corners of the internet gets laundered through Reddit and onto X while journalists spend most of their time scrolling, consuming that content, and steeped in that tone, it is all making its way downstream to readers who believe they are insulated from the insanity of online culture. 

From 4chan To Your Nightly News

Are you starting to see a pattern?

The 4chan->Reddit->Twitter->Journalists link is evidence that what happens online has downstream effects on traditional media. More importantly, it shows that online content influences the mindsets of people who are not on these platforms by making its way onto your TV, newspapers, and even speeches given by the President of the United States. The content on X affects journalists who then write the news, which gets posted on Facebook, talked about on YouTube, opined on by Jon Stewart and John Oliver, and joked about on SNL. 

This is just one of the many ways digital culture makes its way downstream to people of all ages and all demographics, whether you love technology or still use a flip phone. The internet isn’t a compartmentalized information ecosystem, it is the information ecosystem. 

So what happens when a foreign entity controls what 70% of the teen population sees on TikTok? Or if 70% percent of Gen X spend their time reading Russian bot posts on Facebook? It’s difficult to argue that this is only affecting the people on those platforms. 

And if you’re wondering how TikTok dances move downstream, you’re likely underestimating just how much young people impact our pop culture, which we all do from time to time. You may never film yourself dancing in your bedroom, but I bet you’ve heard a Beatles song recently. 

Welcome to a special edition of Noise Level. 

There’s no way to sugarcoat this. Between now and November, things are going to be messy. And there will be moments, like what happened Saturday in Pennsylvania, that create significant noise and seismic shifts in mindsets. 

To help you make sense of these moments culturally and in your own media consumption, we’ll be popping into your inbox with occasional mid-week articles like this one.

Breaking News + Basketball

Despite its declining dominance in the social media world, X (fka Twitter) is still the digital town square many turn to amid breaking news to watch a story and its associated hot takes unfold. Its diehard users include an unparalleled mix of politicians, journalists, conspiracy influencers, and, well, me.

As an avid New York Knicks fan and a political junkie, my Twitter feed largely consists of two very different subjects: the NBA and American politics. Saturday night was no different, and the first tweet to load on my phone was a grim combination of the two. 

If you’re a basketball fan, you may recognize this often-meme’d photo of then-Brooklyn Nets star Kevin Durant’s foot in the 2021 NBA playoffs. The photo comes from a slow-motion review of a last-minute three-point shot to win a game 7 against the Milwaukee Bucks. Durant’s toe was just slightly over the three-point line and, thus, his shot was ruled a two-pointer and the Nets lost the series. This photo is a common meme among NBA fans to insinuate that someone had failed by only the slimmest margin. He would have pulled it off if he were just an inch to the side. 

After a very odd minute or two of the Twitter algorithm’s best efforts to show me combination NBA and political violence content, the actual news began to surface. 

Here are the primary threads I picked up on X that night:

Thoughts, Prayers, and Party Lines

A plurality of online accounts, particularly established leaders in American discourse, posted what most of us would expect to see when tragedy strikes - a calm, measured, and inoffensive response. Political leaders from both sides of the aisle, as well as popular pundits, offered their thoughts for former President Trump and those affected by the attack and condemned political violence. In most cases, these posts were unremarkable in contrast to the entire X ecosystem – tame and mature, lacking the elements that unlock virality like humor or anger. 

Others, however, struck a more partisan tone, often pointing out their perceived hypocrisy in the other party’s reaction to the shooting. Republicans blamed the assassination attempt on Democrats for their fiery rhetoric and combative messaging, while Democrats accused Republicans of being selective in where they place sympathy for previous acts of political violence, as shown in the tweet above. 

Queue The Tinfoil Hats

Unsurprisingly, misinformation was quick to spread in the aftermath of the shooting. There were instantaneous accusations of a coordinated attempt by Antifa, fake profiles of a Hispanic shooter that were posted before we knew any information, and flat-out accusations that President Biden had personally ordered the shooting. The latter saw significant traction in right-wing circles and was amplified by a sitting GOP Congressman. 

Another more confusing conspiracy theory proliferated later that night and into the next day. In May of this year, the shooter appeared, coincidentally, in a video made by the financial giant BlackRock. This set off a multitude of abstract (and frankly nonsensical) conspiracy theories that seemed to center around its abject suspiciousness. In one case, a screenshot of the video with the sarcastic quip “probably nothing” has generated almost 20 million views. 

The BlackRock conspiracy evolved later this week after several Trump-aligned influencers posted out-of-context financial disclosures from the financial firm Austin Private Wealth LLC, showing a nearly half-a-billion-dollar short position for Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of Trump’s Truth Social. The influencers claimed the wealth management firm shorted the company the day before the assassination attempt and had coordinated with BlackRock. In reality, the shorts were both taken out weeks before the shooting and were a $400,000 position – 99% less than originally claimed. The conspiracy, however, had already spread and now includes much darker theories and accusations that we will not link in this newsletter.  

@taylorlorenzMinutes after Saturday’s shooting at a Trump rally in Butler, Pa., liberal anti-Trump influencers began flooding social media platforms with conspiracy theories. They claimed the blood on former president Donald Trump’s ear was from a theatrical gel pack; that the shooting was a “false flag,” perhaps coordinated by the Secret Service in collaboration with the Trump campaign; that the scene of a bloodied Trump raising his fist under an American flag was “staged.” As more Americans lose trust in mainstream institutions and turn to partisan commentators and influencers for information, experts say they are seeing a big uptick in the manufacture and spread of BlueAnon conspiracy theories, a sign that the communal warping of reality is spreading well beyond the right. “The good-versus-evil paradigm of QAnon has really taken hold of the anti-Trump movement and you’re seeing two sides that feel like they are fighting a battle between good and evil,” said Mike Rothschild, author of “The Storm Is Upon Us: How QAnon Became a Movement, Cult and Conspiracy Theory of Everything.” “It’s coming from major leftist and liberal ‘resistance’ influencers who believe that Trump is so devious that he’d fake his own assassination attempt in order to help his campaign.” #popculture #trump #technology #technews #creatoreconomy #memes #commentary #meme #memes

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The most common conspiracy, however, was that the assassination attempt was staged by the Trump campaign. The accusation was so popular that the word “staged” was the top-trending word for many users in under an hour. The belief of a staged assassination attempt in left-wing circles included observations about how narrowly the shots had missed and disbelief that the Secret Service could have let it happen, likely exacerbated and fueled by feelings of pessimism around what such an attempt would do for Trump’s approval rating. 

An analogous conspiracy also spread on the right, positing that the Secret Service had deliberately allowed the assassination attempt to take place. Elon Musk propagated this theory moments after the shooting in a tweet now with nearly 100 million views. This spurred numerous social media posts criticizing the female Secret Service agent on stage that night, with some arguing that DEI policies had put Trump in explicit danger by hiring more women to serve in the agency. 

On Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal published a fairly comprehensive account of the conspiracies and misinformation that proliferated in the hours after the shooting. It’s worth a watch. 

Meanwhile, The Survey Says…

Naturally, the pundits didn’t miss a beat. Talk of how the assassination attempt would impact the election in November dominated online discourse across platforms. Before we had all the facts and before the identity of the shooter was known, users posted torrents of hot takes across the social universe discussing what this would mean for Trump’s support and Biden’s legitimacy as a candidate. There was massive anxiety about how such an attempt, coupled with the striking photo of a bloodied Trump, would result in skyrocketing approval ratings for the former President, much like we saw after Reagan’s attempted assassination in 1981. 

Cringe Currency

Tweets like the one above, along with many other CIA-related jokes, garnered millions of views on the night of the shooting. If you spend considerable time online, you’d know this variety of ‘brain rot’ humor is designed to spark laughs, outrage, and most importantly, reposts. The absurdity of it is the point, and your gut reaction is social media’s currency. 

Underneath it, however, is a rich combination of cultural tensions: conspiracy theories about the assassination attempt, partisan politics, DEI, intelligence agencies, etcetera. Is this person earnestly suggesting that the CIA carried out this assassination attempt and was unsuccessful due to DEI hiring policies? Looking at their page and their previous tweets, I can assure you he is not. But, like all jokes, your audience is important and the intended audience of a public tweet is… well, everyone. 

It may seem off-color, but there’s a reason why the Twitter algorithm showed me a picture of Kevin Durant’s foot before anything else: people were engaging with that joke more than the real news. The real-time updates about the attempted assassination of a former President lost out to a three-year-old picture of a basketball player’s shoe. If you logged into social media that night, you were shown brief snippets of real information peppered amongst conspiracy theories, misinformation, and jokes about the whole ordeal. Sure, I eventually learned what had transpired and am now as updated as anyone else, but I first witnessed and digested a wide variety of content stretching from the absurd to the outright dangerous. 

Even if you are scrolling with a discerning eye and a deliberately critical lens, it’s impossible to parse through the noise crowding your screen and leave with only “the facts.” Instead, we consume the information as the algorithms dictate and leave impacted by all we have seen. In the pre-internet era, an event of this magnitude would bring us to the same TV channels in search of updates. We would all get the same basic set of facts presented similarly. Today, if you get your news from social media, as most Americans do, your experience is vastly different from your neighbor’s and wildly disorienting. 

Before the news, you first get a meme of a shoe. 

First, A History Lesson

The term “estate” originates from the European concept of “estates of the realm,” which in England was the clergy, the nobles, and the commoners. In the United States, we reframed this concept as “estates of democracy,” substituting our three branches of government to replace England’s more hierarchical idea.

The term “Fourth Estate” refers to journalists and news sources serving as a check on power.

The Fifth Estate has existed, at least by name, since the 1960s. It originally referred to citizen journalists and independent newsletters (much like this one). Its definition, however, has changed as technology augmented our ability to communicate and network. Today, bloggers, podcast hosts, and independent journalists posting in real time to social media and, arguably, the mere intrinsic networking properties of the Internet constitute the new estate. 

The Fifth Estate is both people and technology, information and algorithms. It is both TikTok and the people who post TikToks. It’s the millions of content creators sharing media and the billions consuming it.

Fourth Estate: The Old Media

Social media has transformed how we consume news and develop our mindsets. In the past, news came in steady increments from established journalistic institutions and rarely from individuals. Even for high-profile journalists, people associated them with larger entities like Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein at The Washington Post, or Walter Cronkite at CBS Evening News. These institutions were the content platforms and served as gatekeepers, editing production and directing the flow of information. They were also held accountable by their readers, their investors, and their necessity to build and maintain societal trust, providing checks and balances on their power and behavior. Consumers trusted these institutions to vet their information and provide them the truth, regardless of whether or not it happened. 

The Fourth Estate’s stability began to waver as internet access proliferated. There are many reasons why, but two important ones are:

1. Rapidly shrinking news cycles due to new instant communication capabilities.

2. The rise of digital advertisements, leading to the click-based economy of today.

On the podcast Search Engine, Ezra Klein argued that the razor-thin advertisement margins have pushed news outlets to become hyper-efficient, cutting content and news desks that don’t generate enough cash flow. Long-form articles and time-consuming investigative journalism, which fail to generate enough clicks, have suffered. At The New York Times, most revenue now comes from crossword and cooking app subscriptions, not from their news. 

Fifth Estate: The New Media

With trust in mainstream media at historic lows, Americans are pining for alternatives and social media has given us more than we could ever dream of. However, instead of new media institutions and digital newspapers, we got millions of independent journalists and content creators, each serving as their own institution and forming the modern decentralized and fractured Fifth Estate. The near-overnight emergence of online news sources and attention-seekers devastated the Fourth Estate’s revenue and perceived importance. 

Much like the Fourth Estate, these new content creators are at the mercy of click-through rates and ad buys, but can move at lightning speeds, unburdened by pesky editors and ethical standards. Anyone can become a content creator without a journalism school degree, press credentials, or a spot at a writers desk. You make your position – and your income – through your ability to earn and keep attention. The business model has changed, the ethics are out the window, and incentives for good behavior have vanished.

An underappreciated change is the shift away from Fourth Estate institutions toward Fifth Estate individuals. While trust is vital for both, individual content creators can be seen as something institutions cannot: authentic. People build relationships with other people, not institutions. A common mantra in the influencer community is that “true influence is about leveraging authenticity,” and the messenger is often more critical than the message. Followers view these influencers as relatable and trustworthy, enhancing their ability to shape opinions and attitudes.  

This authenticity has also led to new and powerful capabilities for online influencers. Both the Fourth and Fifth Estates are adept at setting agendas, but the Fifth Estate excels at setting mindsets. Social media and independent content creators influence how people think and perceive the world, leveraging the power of their perceived authenticity and their ability to push quick, endless content to shape public consciousness more effectively than traditional media ever could.

Source

The sociological observation known as the Two-Step Flow Theory explains this shift, stating that large news outlets disseminate news from the top, but consumers receive the news from opinion leaders who translate it into their own terms. These opinion leaders filter, interpret, and contextualize the information for their followers, making it more accessible and impactful when delivered by a trusted and authentic messenger. Even if the influencer isn’t someone the consumer follows, the reader still receives the information filtered through that opinion leader’s lens. If you’ve ever seen someone tweet out a news article, what do you read first: the article itself, or the reaction they posted directly above the link? That is the Two-Step Flow Theory in action.

Fifth Estate Content & Creators

The digital media ecosystem is built by content creators, or “influencers.” While this term often brings images of the Kardashians or flashy YouTubers to mind, influencers cover a broad spectrum, with audiences ranging from millions to hundreds. They produce content such as DIY home videos, parenting insights, and even mundane “day in the life of” videos, which have collectively generated billions of views. In 2023, the influencer economy was measured at over $250 billion and is expected to grow to almost $500 billion by 2027.

There is also a new hybrid entity – what we call “influencer collectives” – which straddles the Fourth and Fifth Estates. Jeremy Boreing and Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire, a right-wing news and culture platform containing dozens of YouTube accounts, and Facebook pages, are among the most notable influencer collectives. Their website tagline is “Breaking News, Videos and Podcasts,” but their content production and business model relies on individual right-wing influencers, under exclusivity contracts, who produce content onto their personal social media accounts as well as the Daily Wire’s. They combine the individual’s authenticity with the promotional power of a central entity, merging the strengths of both Estates, and they have seen staggering success from it.

How Did We Get Here?

If you’ve spent any time scrolling on social media, you know that the environment is chaotic and attention-seeking – the noise level is off the charts. This is partially due to the fragmentation of our information sources, preventing the consolidation we see in the Fourth Estate. The barrier of entry to this space is low, the start-up overhead is near zero, and the social media algorithms allow new influencers to compete for your attention in perpetuity. The competition-saturated market creates a semi-democratized economy where consumers vote with their attention. There aren’t just a handful of places to get your news from anymore. There are millions. 

So what does this do to our individual and collective mindsets? That’s what we’ll soon explore together here at Noise Level.