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The rightward shift in contemporary society does not come out of nowhere. There are multiple variables that shape this process, but one that is essential points to the new social media that are forcibly installing the society of the spectacle. It is enough to look at what happened on these platforms after the attack on Trump in Pennsylvania. The shot in the ear of the Republican candidate has reinforced the perception of specialists about TikTok as the main platform for the next elections in the United States.
According to Cyabra, a company that monitors online misinformation, 49 percent of the content on the social media site about the shooting encourages conspiracy theories. PeakMetrics, a cybersecurity firm that tracks online narratives, says mentions of Trump on social media spiked 17 times above the average daily amount following Saturday’s events.
Along with Instagram and Youtube, the culture tiktoker
It fosters and supports everything that entertains and amuses, in all areas of social life, and for this reason political campaigns and electoral contests are less and less a competition of ideas and programs, and more and more advertising events and spectacles. Instead of persuading, candidates and parties try to seduce and excite, appealing to the lower passions or the most primitive instincts, to the irrational impulses of the citizen rather than to his intelligence and reason.
TikTok, in particular, is perfect for endless entertainment. Its world is here, now, and hyper-speed. Sixty percent of its users are between 13 and 21 years old and were not born when the Twin Towers were attacked in New York, or when Bush’s war on terror took place, or when the housing bubble in the United States burst. The fall of the Berlin Wall is ancient history. The past does not exist for millions of producers of videos that last between three and 15 seconds, and express themselves politically in ways very different from anything seen before.
Multiple studies point to the emergence, via digital means, of the new right in the political scenarios by means of the platforms that adapted to the reels (short videos in vertical format) and the meme war. These new actors focus on the criticism of excessive state intervention, the demonization of progressivism and its self-perception as the true right
to which is added a determining element to understand the configuration of these actors: political incorrectness. This element not only functions as a glue for their discourses, but also allows them to incorporate new followers into their ranks, force common sense in reactionary directions and establish a clear dividing line between a they
and a us
that singularizes the identity of those who defend the values of freedom
.
Trump’s TikTok account, opened in June, has garnered nearly 20 million followers and 9 million likes. I like
compared to the approximately 6 million followers and 460 thousand I like
Biden’s campaign, which opened its channel in May. And this gap has only increased after the attack in Pennsylvania. An analysis published by The New York Times drew attention to the Trumpification
of the platform, finding almost twice as many posts in favor of Trump: 1.29 million posts in favor of the Republican versus 651 thousand posts for the Democrat.
The great paradox of this story is that the platform, demonized in the United States for its Chinese origin and subjected to scrutiny and threats of closure by the administration of former President Trump and President Biden, is now essential to reaching voters, especially young people, before November. If we allow Democrats, left-wing organizations, and left-wing influencers to have a monopoly on the content produced on TikTok, we will lose the next generation of Americans.
said CJ Pearson, a social media personality who co-chairs the Republican National Committee’s youth advisory council.
The world according to Tiktok is the society of the spectacle
as imagined by the French philosopher Guy Debord before the existence of the Internet. The spectacle is not only the power of the media, the hegemony of social networks or the trivialization of information and elections, but a much broader concept. It refers to any situation in which the majority of people are condemned to passively contemplate others who live and decide for them in a time when representation replaces lived reality. And so things go.
