In the wake of the 2024 Presidential election, there were endless conversations about who could be the “Joe Rogan of the Left,” a question that ignores one of the key factors of Rogan’s appeal with his audience: he doesn’t come across to them as an overtly partisan political commentator. Observers of the online media ecosystem have noted for some time that spaces that are viewed as “apolitical” or “non-political”—gaming, fitness, you name it—are often dominated by conservative ideology, though it is not overtly expressed by the creators in those spaces. Now there is research to back that.
A study first reported by Wired from researchers at Columbia and Harvard followed 4,716 Americans aged between 18 and 45 to see how several months of consuming content from creators influenced their political engagement and leanings. One group was rewarded for following a number of progressive-leaning creators, some of whom predominantly cover politics and some of whom were considered predominantly apolitical but with progressive views. That group saw political engagement increase and more approval of progressive policies. But another group, rewarded for following non-political creators, saw their politics shift to the right.
The researchers also found that creators who are considered apolitical or less likely to talk predominantly about political issues had more influence on the political opinions of their audiences than those who are considered political figures. In fact, apolitical creators were found to have about three times the influence on the political beliefs of viewers than partisan political creators.
There’s a counterintuitiveness to the idea that the non-experts have more sway in the minds of viewers than people who position themselves as authorities on policy and politics. But the researchers theorize that the apolitical creators tend to have more trust with their audience, who don’t perceive any sort of underlying motive informing their views.
The research certainly feels like it is backed by what we saw happen during the 2024 election cycle. Donald Trump and his surrogates went on a full-blown online influencer media tour, hitting just about every major podcast imaginable. Notably, many of the hosts of those shows are not viewed by their audience as political actors, even if they do talk about politics on a regular basis.
Joe Rogan remains the poster boy for this. But during Donald Trump’s victory speech, surrogate Dana White called out a slew of similarly “apolitical” creators who happily lent their platform to Trump and his orbiters during the campaign, potentially swaying the votes of their audience, largely younger men who are, at best, politically disaffected. That list included the Nelk Boys, Adin Ross, Theo Von, and the hosts of Bussin’ With The Boys.
Earlier this year, Media Matters analyzed the online creator space to identify the underlying political influences that appear in supposedly nonpolitical spaces. It found of the 320 shows it analyzed, 72% had a right-wing bent. The right’s dominance is exemplified in the “comedy” category, where 15 shows with a cumulative 117 million followers are all dominated by right-wing voices. That includes the Joe Rogan Experience, This Past Weekend with Theo Von, and the Nelk Boys’ Full Send Podcast.
If there is any glimmer of hope progressives could take from the research, it’s that online creators can push people left. They just need to figure out how to establish trust with audiences that are not explicitly looking for progressive politics. Silly and simple as it is, the fact that creators like Rogan insist that they are independents rather than partisans does seem to create a sense of authenticity with some viewers, and allows them to claim to come to their positions via “common sense” rather than being ideologically driven. Hasan Piker seems to be one of the few on the left to have identified this, and the Democratic Party kicked him out of its convention, which does not bode well for the party’s ability to identify this dynamic.
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