John Fetterman's TikTok Whisperer
Newt Gingrich was not happy. It was the night of Dec. 6, minutes before the U.S. Senate race in Georgia was called for Raphael Warnock, and more on the Fox News show "Hannity," pointing the finger for Herschel's impending loss. Walker had started. A major culprit: TikTok.
TikTok? The Chinese-owned social media platform, which didn't even exist at the start of Donald J. Trump's presidency, should be banned "for national security reasons," Gingrich said. "But as long as it's legal," he continued, "we have to learn to compete in a place like this because that's where Gen Z gets such a high percentage of their information."
"We have to learn to be competitive on the inside," he added.
This is one: and probably the only one — on which Mr. Gingrich and Annie Wu Henry would agree.
At 26, Ms Henry – or @Annie_Wu_22, as she is known on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok – had been a relatively low-level employee since July on the senator-elect John Fetterman's campaign against Dr Mehmet Oz during the U.S. Senate race from Pennsylvania, when she took over Mr Fetterman's TikTok account.
"John already had this amazing communications team working for him, and he himself had been a Twitter guy for years," Ms. Henry said during a video call from her. apartment in the Fishtown neighborhood of Philadelphia. She wore sweats and a hoodie ("very on-brand today," she laughed). "But we were able to move his voice and his message to other platforms," she said.
And those other platforms were even "more important than 'They couldn't have been normally,' Ms Henry said, as Mr Fetterman couldn't be on the trail after his stroke in May.
Ms. Henry quickly became, according to Mr. Fetterman's director of communications, Joe Calvello, their "TikTok queen". The account racked up over 240,000 followers in three months, with three million likes and tens of millions of views. Mrs. Henry managed to make serious fun and fun; his motto - in life and on TikTok - is "kiss the grimace". In other words, let the world see you as your messy, authentic self.
'Trust the young'Of course, you have to have a candidate who is willing to let you do that. “John is not an Instagram guy” – polite, neatly curated – “nor would it be for him to put him on TikTok dancing,” she said. "But if we can use some kind of weird, offbeat sound and change our messaging to be a little, well, not messy, but not super polished, that fits who he is, who this campaign is."
Some of his successes: Video of Dr. Oz bragging about growing up "south of Philadelphia" followed by a map showing that on the other water side is… New Jersey, covered in Smash Mouth's "All Star" ("Someone once told me the world was gonna roll me / I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed ").
Another of his most striking examples: a trippy TikTok duo of heavy metal puppets in Psychostick's "Numbers (I Can Only Count to Four)" with Dr. Oz being unable to count the number of houses he owns.
Newt Gingrich was not happy. It was the night of Dec. 6, minutes before the U.S. Senate race in Georgia was called for Raphael Warnock, and more on the Fox News show "Hannity," pointing the finger for Herschel's impending loss. Walker had started. A major culprit: TikTok.
TikTok? The Chinese-owned social media platform, which didn't even exist at the start of Donald J. Trump's presidency, should be banned "for national security reasons," Gingrich said. "But as long as it's legal," he continued, "we have to learn to compete in a place like this because that's where Gen Z gets such a high percentage of their information."
"We have to learn to be competitive on the inside," he added.
This is one: and probably the only one — on which Mr. Gingrich and Annie Wu Henry would agree.
At 26, Ms Henry – or @Annie_Wu_22, as she is known on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok – had been a relatively low-level employee since July on the senator-elect John Fetterman's campaign against Dr Mehmet Oz during the U.S. Senate race from Pennsylvania, when she took over Mr Fetterman's TikTok account.
"John already had this amazing communications team working for him, and he himself had been a Twitter guy for years," Ms. Henry said during a video call from her. apartment in the Fishtown neighborhood of Philadelphia. She wore sweats and a hoodie ("very on-brand today," she laughed). "But we were able to move his voice and his message to other platforms," she said.
And those other platforms were even "more important than 'They couldn't have been normally,' Ms Henry said, as Mr Fetterman couldn't be on the trail after his stroke in May.
Ms. Henry quickly became, according to Mr. Fetterman's director of communications, Joe Calvello, their "TikTok queen". The account racked up over 240,000 followers in three months, with three million likes and tens of millions of views. Mrs. Henry managed to make serious fun and fun; his motto - in life and on TikTok - is "kiss the grimace". In other words, let the world see you as your messy, authentic self.
'Trust the young'Of course, you have to have a candidate who is willing to let you do that. “John is not an Instagram guy” – polite, neatly curated – “nor would it be for him to put him on TikTok dancing,” she said. "But if we can use some kind of weird, offbeat sound and change our messaging to be a little, well, not messy, but not super polished, that fits who he is, who this campaign is."
Some of his successes: Video of Dr. Oz bragging about growing up "south of Philadelphia" followed by a map showing that on the other water side is… New Jersey, covered in Smash Mouth's "All Star" ("Someone once told me the world was gonna roll me / I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed ").
Another of his most striking examples: a trippy TikTok duo of heavy metal puppets in Psychostick's "Numbers (I Can Only Count to Four)" with Dr. Oz being unable to count the number of houses he owns.
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