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Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are becoming inspirations for TikTok comedians
Many young adults are getting their news from TikTok as political comedians have gained popularity ahead of the elections.
During this tumultuous election season, TikTok gave us viral dances to campaign slogans remixed with a beat. It also gave us a good laugh, driven in part by comedians using the platform to add humor to a controversial presidential race.
A growing share of adults in the US get their news via TikTok, according to an American newspaper Pew Research Center analysis published in September, which showed that almost 40% of young adults regularly receive news on the short video platform.
Both Donald Trump’s and Kamala Harris’ campaigns have used TikTok to reach online audiences, even though the app has now become Chinese-owned political issue in itself. Trump joined TikTok in June and so did Harris’ nascent presidential campaign given a big boost through fan compilations in the app.
Another group taking advantage of TikTok’s widespread reach? Comedians.
While many waited to see who would play the main characters of the election “Saturday Night Live”, some people have been doing their own thing in viral TikTok videos for months or even years.
USA TODAY spoke with three TikTok creators who are posing as this election’s top candidates. They shared the belief that political comedy should make a statement and talked about their approach to their skits. For those who’ve ditched traditional news outlets for social media segments, here’s a behind-the-scenes look at what they might see instead.
Kamala Harris’ smile, ‘n’kay?’ Meet comedian Allison Reese
Maybe you recognize it Allison Reese a comedian who lived in Los Angeles, before this election. She started doing an impression of Harris in 2019, when Harris first ran for federal office.
“I do impressions and stuff, and rarely do I get the chance to do that for someone who looks like me, especially politically,” she told USA TODAY in an interview. When Harris became vice president during the pandemic, she continued. Now she has more than 315,000 followers on TikTok alone.
Most of her skits feature her take on the film Harris’ laugh and sentences strung together by a rhetorical “n’kay?”
But her impressions then took on new meaning Biden dropped out of the race and Harris had just over three months to try to convince the country to vote for her as the next president.
“I just never really thought it would be like this… and the weight of that… I take it very seriously,” Reese said. “I really try not to hit. I really want to hit when I do things.”
Reese recalled “SNL” skits about Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton that had a major impact on people’s perception of them. She said her views of Harris as the competent one in the room resonate in her impressions, even as she touches on some of Harris’ quirkier moments and attempts to recruit mid-level voters.
“You’re supposed to be counter-cultural. That doesn’t mean you’re offensive. Like, that means you’re opposing what we’re seeing,” Reese said.
“Trump was born as a teenage girl” by a teenage girl
Kiera Nusbaum has amassed more than 110,000 followers on TikTok for skits in which she lip-syncs to Trump’s own words, often with the caption: “Trump was born a teenage girl.” One of her videos has been viewed almost 22 million times.
Nusbaum herself is a teenage girl. As a 17-year-old freshman at a private college in Southern California, she will miss being old enough to vote for several days, though she says she has been paying attention to politics since 2020.
“Since I can’t vote, I feel like this platform is the best thing I can do to make an impact,” Nusbaum told USA TODAY in an interview.
She said she made the first video after watching the presidential debate with her classmates. She thought Trump was immature and kept thinking it would make a good skit, but she didn’t expect it to go viral or become her platform at all.
Now, after her morning class, she dons the red feathered robe, scrolls through the comments suggesting new Trump lines to imitate, and films the videos in her dorm room. Nusbaum said some of her followers are Trump supporters, and she hopes her videos bring humor to political discussions to find middle ground in a polarized climate.
“If it reaches that audience, I just hope they can recognize the hypocrisy in condemning the behavior of teenage girls when it is reflected in the person they idolize.” Nusbaum said. “I just hope it can be seen with…some kind of nuance, focused on the irony of the situation.”
JD Vance has extreme eyeliner and extreme politics in Sam Wiles’ videos
Sam Wiles is a comedian living in Los Angeles. He said he doesn’t consider himself an impersonator, but he does consider himself a politics junkie and a Vance lookalike. Wiles’ TikTok account, which has more than 60,000 followers, features Vance’s sketches with big eyeliner and honking political suggestions from outside.
Wiles told USA TODAY that he read Vance’s book “Hillbilly Elegy” and followed Vance’s political trajectory after the book’s success. When Vance was selected as Trump’s running mate this summer, Wiles found social media videos as a good medium to show comedy sketches about Vance.
“I was just trying to write a stand-up about him because I find him so detestable,” Wiles said.
Despite many viral moments of Vance throughout this campaign, Wiles isn’t monitoring his reporting as closely, instead writing his own skits.
“I often go off the vibe… it’s more fun to live in a world where it’s a little dumber and a little less slick,” Wiles said. “I find a major fraud very funny.”
Like Nusbaum and Reese, he believes that political comedy should be political, but he wasn’t sure if his videos will have a broader impact than making people laugh.
What else you need to know about the 2024 presidential election
Speaking of comedy, one comedian caused controversy in the last week of the campaigns. Tony Hinchcliffeknown as “Kill Tony,” called Puerto Rico a “floating pile of trash” during a Trump rally at Madison Square Garden, drawing criticism from both sides of the aisle and which costs Trump at least one statement of support. Biden also came under fire for appearing to call Trump supporters “wastewhile condemning the comedian.
In one presidential race Polls repeatedly show that it’s a toss-up: every moment matters.
Trump and Harris have been busy campaigning in the US swing states with only a few days off until the elections. Because of the country’s Electoral College system, the race will likely be decided how Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada and Arizona vote.
USA TODAY has also covered the most consequential elections nationwide outside the presidency. Follow us for election news.
Kinsey Crowley is a trending news reporter at USA TODAY. Reach her at [email protected] and follow her on X and TikTok @kinseycrowley.