Jaylyn Richter, a 27-year-old therapist who lives in suburban Minneapolis, was painting their basement with her husband on Sunday when she realized there was a song that would go perfectly with a TikTok video about Kamala Harris.
She sat at her kitchen island for an hour and made a music video on her phone, stitching together emoji-filled clips of Harris dancing to pop star Chapel Lone singing, “He ain’t got what it takes to be a girl like me.”
Richter said she’d been disengaged from politics for years — she had a small following on TikTok and had only seen videos about her personal life and Taylor Swift — but in that moment, “something felt reinvigorated for me,” she said. The video has since been viewed more than 1 million times.
As Harris has emerged as a potential Democratic presidential candidate after President Biden announced his intention to step down, the internet has been inundated with videos and memes designed to boost her popularity with the public.
Often called “fan edits” or “fan cams,” the videos, with their loud soundtracks, quick cuts and dazzling visual effects, cast Harris in a light befitting a pop culture icon. Many feature what supporters consider to be her most endearing moments, such as her dancing and marching with a drum corps at an event in Des Moines in 2019.
The deluge of viral political content is reminiscent of the online “meme army” that supported former President Donald Trump’s campaign, which was built by supporters who saw it as a key way to reach mainstream audiences using what one supporter called “21st century political cartoons.”
But Harris’ video shows how memes have evolved for a new TikTok era, driven by younger Americans who are familiar with the culture and technology of online video editing and are using it in the hopes of driving offline political gain.
Many of the most popular pro-Harris fancams come from political novices, including some who, like Richter, have never made a political video before. One account with a pro-Harris video that has garnered more than 500,000 views specializes in fancams of “Jersey Shore” reality TV personality Sami “Sweetheart” Giancola.
But with just over 100 days until the election, with the campaign window so short, fan videos could play a key role in introducing Harris to new voters and energizing those who already support her.
“It works because it’s so ridiculous,” said Annie Wu Henry, a digital and political strategist who helped run Sen. John Fetterman’s TikTok during his 2022 campaign. “It draws people in and keeps them engaged.”
On TikTok, “edits,” “remixes” and memes of Harris rank highly in political searches, and many of her videos have been viewed millions of times. Her official campaign account had nearly 400,000 followers as of Tuesday, according to data firm Socialblade, roughly the same number of followers as the Biden campaign’s now-shuttered account, which operated online for five months.
Trump has long enjoyed a huge online audience, with supporters bolstering him with custom fan-edited videos. But Alex Pearlman, a Philadelphia-based comedian and news content creator with nearly 3 million followers on TikTok, said social media has not been so flooded with pro-Harris videos since former President Barack Obama’s campaign, when he promoted Trump with parody videos of him kicking down doors and riding a skateboard.
He noted that many of Harris’ videos help defy Republican attacks that have sought to portray her as quirky and “curious.” A video of Harris posted to X by the Republican National Committee’s social media team last year in which she laughs at her mother’s old folklore about falling from a coconut tree has since become one of the main symbols of her supporters. Many TikTok users have jokingly described the goal of promoting her as part of “Project Coconuts.”
“These clips were obviously effective and made people stop and watch, but the addition of a music track and different edits put them in a new context,” Pearlman says. “Still images wouldn’t last long, but these fan edits… can add to a whole story in and of themselves.”
Fancams began as a hallmark of K-pop fandom, where fans would stitch together their favorite songs and stars into vibrant video collages to showcase their adoration and pride. They’ve since evolved into one of the most mainstream genres on short-form video platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels, embracing political statement as well as entertainment. The format has become so popular that it was parodied on “Saturday Night Live” last year.
“K-pop paved the way for people to realize that fancams are a really good way to express excitement about someone,” said Don Caldwell, editor-in-chief of the internet trends aggregator Know Your Meme. “They reach a lot of people, and if they can reach a lot of people, they have the potential to sway public opinion.”
Lindsay Junker, 28, a freelance social media worker from Seattle, said she spent about 15 minutes on Sunday putting together a fan edit of Harris and Chapel Lawn’s song “Femininomenon” as “a form of self-expression” while trying to make sense of the news.
But as she quickly gained attention online, with her TikTok garnering over 6 million views, she began to feel the effects in the form of comments like, “I just registered to vote,” and “I hope society makes a meme out of her for president.”
Juncker called memes the “language” of his generation and likened them to “modern-day guerilla marketing”, but he also said the video’s popularity reflected a broader shift in energy among young liberals.
“We’ve become so used to feeling like there’s nothing we can do, that all we can do is smile and watch,” she said. “For the first time in a long time, I’ve been thinking that, if we’re lucky, maybe things will turn out for the better.”
The Harris campaign has tried to capitalize on the frenzy with social media activity, including posting fancam-style videos to its burgeoning TikTok account. Its most successful video so far, also set to “Femininomenon,” features juxtaposed photos of Harris at work and Trump playing golf, and has been viewed more than 35 million times.
But some worry the campaign’s videos could backfire if they’re too extreme and alienate voters who see them as inside jokes for the most online voters. Jules Terpach, a content creator and digital strategist, said the Harris campaign will have to work hard to avoid ruining the fun by taking away from the novelty and spontaneity of the trend.
“It’s fine for Kamala HQ to gracefully lean into growing memes and trends, but it needs to be careful not to lean in too much and ruin the organic nature of the movement,” Telpak said.
The Trump campaign, she said, found viral success on TikTok by offering a “peek” into the former president’s life. Rather than making their own fancams, Terpak said the Harris campaign could work on providing more material for online fans to make their own fancams.
“Online marketers have learned over time that they have to let their fans do what they want,” Pearlman says, “or they end up looking like out-of-touch substitute teachers saying, ‘You’re all that stuff.'”
Jamie Cohen, a media professor at Queens College in New York, said the videos appear to be popular by offering a light-hearted counterargument to the divisive “rage-fueled trash talk” that has come to characterize online political debate.
For Gen Z voters who “have only seen trash when it comes to campaigning,” the fancams helped highlight Harris’ “lovable awkwardness” – her openness to “be herself and show things that other people might traditionally find embarrassing.”
He added that what made these campaigns especially powerful for Americans was that they were created by the users themselves, not by a central elections team. “The reality is, I don’t know where this is going to go, and that’s part of the joy of it,” he said.
But Americans aren’t the only ones excited: On Monday, 16-year-old Ronnie Parsons was bored during the summer holidays and posted a fan edit of Harris using a trending rap song, even though he lives in London and can’t vote.
Some of Parsons’ 16,000 followers were surprised by the change of direction from his usual videos about TV shows like “The Boys” and “Heartbreak High.” But Parsons said he was worried about Trump’s global influence and wanted to use his talents to improve Harris’ chances of winning. His video, with comments like “Project Coconut is action,” has since been viewed more than 250,000 times.
“People think that because we’re 16 we don’t have as much life experience, but our videos reach millions of people,” he said in an interview. “As Gen Z, I feel like I’m taken more seriously on social media. Even just by opening my laptop and posting, I can support this movement.”
