Obama 2.0? How Kamala Harris’s social media strategy is shaping her campaign

Will the #KHive pave the road to the White House for Kamala Harris? Or will the coconut tree come tumbling down?

Immediately after U.S. President Joe Biden dropped his re-election bid and endorsed his vice-president to replace him as the Democratic nominee, social media users — particularly young people and people of colour — sprang into action.

From “Kamala IS brat” to coconut emojis, memes and everything in between, the past week has shown the power of organic social media movements in politics.

The Harris campaign has leaned right into it. By allowing the internet to inform its tone, Team Kamala is both echoing and updating the strategies employed by “the first social media president,” Barack Obama, who revolutionized modern campaigning nearly 20 years ago, experts say.

“It just shows how excited young people are,” said April Cisneros, communications director for the Center for Scholars and Storytellers, a youth-oriented social media research organization at the University of California, Los Angeles.

She and other researchers and academics say they’ve noticed a shift in how students and creators they interact with are viewing the election. Up to a month ago, many of them were considering not voting at all. Now, she says that’s changed.

“I think people are feeling a lot more hopeful with Kamala, and I think it shows with all of the excitement online.”

Leaning into “brat” and other meme culture was partially out of necessity, given the suddenness of Biden’s announcement on Sunday afternoon.

Less than an hour after Biden’s decision was released, the campaign’s creative director Kate Conway posted a message on her team’s Slack channel.

“Please give a wave to this message if you’re online and available to do some design work now,”