Anika Begay
At the first White House Creator Economy conference, the most popular person to stop by wasn’t a TikTok superstar or a YouTube star. It was President Joe Biden, who emphasized the role social media creators play in shaping public opinion.
“Until about three, four months ago, I wasn’t paying much attention, following you guys,” President Biden said, referring to content creators. He said his granddaughter told him to take a closer look at how social media gives more people a chance to reach a huge platform.
“He called me and said, ‘Pop, you’ve got to start listening to these guys,’ being you guys. And that’s why I wanted to invite you to the White House.”
The president, and his granddaughter, are right. According to a Pew Research Center study, about half of American adults get their news on social media at least some of the time, including content creators.
“There are no editors anymore,” Biden said of the traditional press. “You want to get your name in the paper. You want to get a click. It’s not always better to get that by doing something positive.”
The very existence of a creator economy event at the White House is groundbreaking, especially at a time when some lawmakers are having trouble distinguishing between Roku and YouTube. On the other hand, the White House has made repeated overtures about the growing role creators can play in the political message. Christian Tom, director of the White House Office of Digital Strategy, has become a regular at VidCon. Biden’s reelection effort (which is separate from his administration and has since been absorbed into Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign) has gone so far as to hire a meme manager to reach more digitally native voters.
Biden has welcomed creators of informative content on crucial issues like the war in Ukraine and the effectiveness of the coronavirus vaccine.
Even at the creator economy conference, some creators speaking on panels seemed to echo the sentiment behind legislation like the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA). The bipartisan bill, backed by Biden, would impose a duty of care on social media platforms, but it could have unintended consequences that threaten privacy and digital anonymity. White House domestic policy adviser Neera Tanden spoke favorably of KOSA, while creators Lexi Hidalgo and Jackie Aina both indicated they don’t think people should be able to be anonymous on social media platforms.
While Biden touched on the topic of mental health in his speech, his main message to creators was to not take their audience’s trust for granted.
“It’s literally becoming incredibly difficult to count the number of lies that people are hearing. They don’t know what to believe,” President Biden said. “It’s playing out in ways that I think are going to change the whole dynamic of how we communicate.”
He then joked that that’s why he invited the creators to the White House. “I’m looking for a job,” he said.
The contrast between the traditional press and new media was evident during the president’s remarks. About 100 startup founders, industry stakeholders and creators, including independent newsletter writers, sat on the floor of the Indian Treaty Room, while press on behalf of traditional outlets joined the White House press corps in a separate area.
“Is that the fake press or the real press behind it?” he said. “It was a joke. It was a joke.”
At the end of his speech, Biden allowed the audience, but not the press, to ask questions.
“Any non-print […] “You want to ask me a question, you can ask it,” he said. “I might not answer. I want to stay on topic. I don’t want to get into the thick of the discussion about what’s going on in foreign policy right now.”
When a member of the press pool shouted a question at the president about Venezuelan politics, the press pool was escorted out of the room for the remainder of Biden’s visit, which lasted about 30 minutes in total. If anything, the incident only reinforced the line Biden has drawn between traditional and new media.
“The most important thing you have, and I hope you keep it, is that you trust yourself,” the president told the creators. “You trust yourself. And that makes all the difference.”
