Kareem Rahma wasn’t surprised when Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign reached out about getting Ms. Harris and her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, on his TikTok show.
Flattered, yes, but not surprised.
“As the entire world’s attention has shifted to video content, particularly short-form vertical entertainment, it would make a lot of sense for those campaigns to want to reach as many people as possible,” he said. “It’s also a lot cheaper than TV.”
Mr. Rahma, 38, is the host of “Subway Takes,” a minute-long talk show conducted on the New York City subway. Clutching a MetroCard attached to a tiny microphone, Mr. Rahma invites guests to share a strongly held (but usually pretty low-stakes) opinion. Past guests have included the actor Olivia Wilde and the musician Charli XCX.
“So what’s your take?” Mr. Rahma asks at the beginning of each episode.
For Mr. Walz this week, the take was about gutters.
“When I see a well-tended gutter, it says a lot about somebody,” Mr. Walz said in the interview, describing the various pitfalls of poorly managed gutters. He warned against ice dams in the winter, flooded basements and falls off ladders trying to clean out leaves. He recommended something called a “gutter helmet.”
TikTok’s hyper-personalized algorithm means that users who don’t regularly watch political content might never see a political video on their feed. (They also may be skeptical of the TikTok videos crafted by the campaigns themselves, which tend to be more polished and professional.) Speaking with creators like Mr. Rahma, whose content isn’t overtly political, is a tactical workaround for campaigns to get their candidates in front of a critical group of young voters. It can be a way to humanize a candidate, as well as a way of spreading the campaign’s message that is far more subtle than a stump speech.
Last year, a study by the Pew Research Center reported that almost half of Americans get the news from social media. A third of adults under the age of 30 get their news from TikTok specifically, the study found.
“The American people are harder to reach than ever before, but they’re also more online than ever before,” Seth Schuster, a spokesman for the Harris campaign, wrote in an email. “That’s why we’re on every platform and engaging with creators — whose content reaches trusted and diverse audiences — to ensure that the Harris-Walz message is making its way to the hardest to reach voters in every corner of the internet and we’re capitalizing on the enthusiasm we’re seeing online to grow our base of support.”
Last week, Ms. Harris gave brief interviews to several influencers who attended the Democratic National Convention, including Jack Coyne, the host of “Track Star,” a TikTok show with over 380,000 followers in which guests have to name the artist of a song after hearing just a snippet. For Ms. Harris, he played tracks by Stevie Wonder, Miles Davis and Too Short.
The Biden campaign had initially reached out earlier in the year about having Ms. Harris on the show as a guest, Mr. Coyne, 33, said in an interview. They reached out again the Sunday before the convention began to ask if Mr. Coyne might be able to get to Chicago in a hurry. Mr. Coyne spoke to Ms. Harris the following evening.
When he posted the video, which now has almost one million views, Mr. Coyne said he was surprised to see comments from a handful of viewers who wrote that they planned to vote for Ms. Harris after seeing her on the show.
The Harris campaign is not the only one turning to social media stars during this phase of the race.
After former President Donald J. Trump joined TikTok, he quickly linked up with Logan Paul, a YouTuber and professional wrestler, for a promotional video ahead of an appearance by Mr. Trump on Mr. Paul’s podcast, “Impaulsive.” (The 53-minute episode dropped the next day on YouTube.)
In the video, Mr. Trump and Mr. Paul square up to each other, as if preparing for a wrestling match, before breaking into laughter. Some commenters noted Mr. Trump’s apparent sense of humor and called him a “goof.”
Earlier this summer, Mr. Trump played a round of golf with the professional golfer Bryson DeChambeau in a video on Mr. DeChambeau’s popular YouTube channel. The game was a fund-raiser for the Wounded Warrior Project, a charity that supports veterans.
The video — which has been viewed over 11 million times — was not meant to be political, Mr. DeChambeau later said.
“Politicians are divisive figures for sure, and I respect and understand that,” Mr. DeChambeau told Golf magazine. “But creating content and raising money for charity were the main focus. We tried to take the politics out of it and just have fun.”
Alex Bruesewitz, a Trump campaign adviser, said that “alternative media” allowed Mr. Trump to “take his message directly to the American people in a unique way.”
Social media shows about pop culture, internet culture, sports and other seemingly nonpartisan subjects can seem like safe spaces for politicians, but they can come with their own political risks.
Ms. Harris and Mr. Walz appeared on these TikTok shows before giving interviews to traditional news media or holding news conferences, which has spurred criticism from some who have accused the two candidates of dodging scrutiny. (Ms. Harris and Mr. Walz gave their first sit-down interview to Dana Bash at CNN on Thursday evening.)
And even with friendly TikTok creators, there may be some awkward moments.
Before Mr. Rahma, the “Subway Takes” host, began his interview with Mr. Walz, he asked the campaign team if he could discuss the war in Gaza on the show. The campaign declined, Mr. Rahma said, but they moved forward with the shoot, which took place on a campaign bus while Mr. Walz was on the trail in Pittsburgh. Mr. Rahma said the Secret Service had concerns about his usual set, the subway. (The campaign did not pay Mr. Rahma or Mr. Coyne to make videos with the candidates but did cover their travel expenses.)
“My show is not necessarily about politics or policy,” Mr. Rahma said. “It’s just honestly about people’s personal takes. That’s why I was willing to do it.”
“I held them to the same standards that I hold any guest, which is, Is the take good?” he added. “If the take is good enough, it can be on the show.”
As a New York transplant from Minnesota, Mr. Rahma said he appreciated Mr. Walz’s sense of humor.
During his trip to Pittsburgh, Mr. Rahma said, he also filmed a video with Ms. Harris. He hasn’t posted it yet, and he said he didn’t think her “take” fit the tone of his show. He is hoping to get a chance to reshoot the video.
“I think it’s one of those things where we’ve got to workshop the take a bit,” Mr. Rahma said.
Source: nytimes.com
