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Several influencer accounts that Bloomberg has reached out to include @WhitePeopleHumor, @FuckJerry (The firm behind Fyre Festivals promotional materials), and @ShitheadSteve. These top Instagram accounts have over 60 million followers. Some of these accounts have taken the opportunity to clown on Bloomberg for trying to buy their platform, but even as those screenshots and fake memes are blasted all over Twitter and Facebook, Bloomberg wins again — his face and name are everywhere.
This may well end with Bloomberg in the White House because he isn’t running a political campaign. He’s running a viral ad campaign, much the same way Donald Trump used instagram to build his personal brand, doing brief videos for years leading up to this presidential run. Bloomberg is meeting Donald Trump in the arena both men are familiar and successful with, and that’s media branding. No other candidate running on the Democrat side seems to understand this game. Sure, Bernie Sanders has several illustrators working on his behalf, but he’s not paying them. Bloomberg is shelling out millions for the best media strategy his money can buy, and he has a heck of a lot of money.
In an interview with Buzzfeed, campaign spokesperson Sabrina Singh laid out the Bloomberg campaigns digital strategy. ‘Mike Bloomberg 2020 has teamed up with social creators to collaborate with the campaign, including the meme world,’ she explained. ‘While a meme strategy may be new to presidential politics, we’re betting it will be an effective component to reach people where they are and compete with President Trump’s powerful digital operation.’
While candidates like Mayor Pete Buttigieg struggle to capture the online charismatic cult following of Barack Obama, and Elizabeth Warren awkwardly attempts to drink a beer on Instagram live, Bloomberg is leaving the image control to the experts. He’s not trying to necessarily pretend to be something he’s not. He understands he’s selling a product, and who better to sell a new generation of voters than the YouTube personalities and Instagram meme lordsthemselves? For all the talk of getting money out of politics, and railing on about buying one’s way to the White House, Bloomberg’s media operation has figured out something that Bernie Sanders and his hoards of online bros haven’t — in the end, capitalism always wins, and with an online army bought and paid for, so might Michael Bloomberg.
Stephen L. Miller is a writer in New York. He has been a Fox News contributor and writing credits include Heat Street and National Review. He is currently the host of the Versus Media podcast on Patreon.
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