Right-wing influencers earn higher fees for sponsored posts than left-wing counterparts
Sora strangulations, Slurmcore, Bearista breakdowns, a skincare line for 3 yr olds, fitness influencers' hotness problem, MrBeast + Dealbook, Rizzwiches, how far ChatGPT will *really* go
Reuters has an excellent new investigation out examining, in excruciating detail, how right wing influencers and Trump officials have formed a powerful alliance. The piece details how the Trump admin and influencers work together to target enemies, spread lies and transform the media landscape.” All of this is happening right as the social media platform landscape is being reshaped to privilege right-wing views and censor speech under the guise of “child safety.”
One of the most important takeaways from the story is how much money that can be made on the right. The piece talks about how Libs of TikTok’s Chaya Raichick charges $250,000 for vague social media consulting services. Conservative influencer Rogan O’Handley, aka DC_Draino, who has 5.3 million followers across Instagram and X, got paid $164,000 for just a few Instagram posts in 2024 by Smart & Safe Florida, the political committee sponsoring a push to legalize marijuana in the state.
Other right wing influencers including Benny Johnson, Dave Rubin and Tim Pool were paid millions ahead of the 2024 election. One was paid $400,000 a month, a $100,000 signing bonus and a performance bonus to create “four weekly videos.” The money was from a Russian propaganda scheme.
Reuters found that top right-wing influencers earn significantly higher fees for sponsored posts than their left-wing counterparts.
This tsunami of money on the right has allowed a new class of corporate centrist Democrats to fleece liberal donors out of millions of dollars for nonsensical schemes to “create the left Joe Rogan.” Chorus, a project of the notorious liberal dark money group the Sixteen Thirty Fund, for instance, is funneling tens of thousands of dollars to a slew of liberal influencers who take part in their Democrat messaging program.
But the influencers in the Chorus program and others like it, aren’t advocating for any meaningful changes to the system. Instead, they’re taking selfie videos with Chuck Schumer, leveraging interviews with politicians to create promotional content for their podcasts, and relentlessly attacking organically popular leftist influencers like Hasan Piker.
These Chorus influencers and others like them have also launched multi platform harassment and deplatforming campaigns against seemingly anyone on the left who doesn’t adhere to their pro-capitalism centrist Democrat talking points. They’ve sought to get prominent leftist influencers deplatformed and demonetized.
All of this has resulted in a system where influencers on the left face a 24/7 barrage of attacks from both centrist Democrats and the far right, who are increasingly aligned ideologically. Just like in congress, there is little to no actual meaningful opposition to Trump and the far right’s network of influence.
This asymmetric system is why I currently have zero advertising deals(!) and why buying a paid subscription to this newsletter or supporting my work on Patreon makes such a difference. I am not getting tens of thousands of dollars from centrist corporate Democrat dark money groups, or shady right wing causes. I earn my money directly from subscriptions.
The only reason I’m able to do the work I do— not just this newsletter, but my bi-weekly videos, my Free Speech Friday series educating people on civil liberties, my podcast, my social media content, my tech policy and civil rights advocacy work, and so much more— is because of those of you who pay to support my work.