\n\t\u201cWhat\u2019s going on y\u2019all? Congressman Chistian Meneffee here, and I am in DEE-lus, Texas right now!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tRep. Christian Menefee is not doing an interview with a cable news station, or talking to a reporter. He\u2019s riffing energetically into the camera of Erika Harrison, a Houston-based attorney and part-time blogger. They\u2019re in a cavernous industrial living room in Dallas, Texas, and Harrison is one 10 progressive influencers staying in this quirky, mismatched house that seems like it was built for content creation. Several of the others are close by, fiddling with camera settings on their phones, pairing wireless clip-on microphones, and unfolding tripods. When Meneffee is informed he has to leave the house in 10 minutes, the creators scramble to get a clip recorded with one of the youngest members of the Congressional Black Caucus.<\/p>\n
\n\tMenaffee blitzes through half a dozen social videos in the amount of time it takes most people to pick up their lunch, and departs. Everyone is satisfied.<\/p>\n
\n\tA few miles away, Republicans from all over the country are assembled at a first-of-its-kind midterm convention, an emergency gathering to reassure Donald Trump that the party still likes him<\/a>, that it\u2019s absolutely his performance that will be on the ballot this November, and make a convincing case to voters as to why they should be allowed to maintain control of Congress.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tOver the course of the two-day conference, the 10 creators \u2014 who were put up in the rented house by MoveOn, a progressive public advocacy organization \u2014 met with Democratic lawmakers, attended counterprogramming events, networked, collaborated, and, most importantly, posted. The house was part of an effort to punch back at the highly sophisticated, well-funded network of right-wing content creators that drivel political conversations across social media. Democrats have largely failed to develop a similarly effective network, which has been an increasingly troubling issue for the party as the vertical video revolution continues to break and reshape news consumption, commentary, and journalism. One approach to flipping the script is to go local.\u00a0<\/p>\n \t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWe\u2019re not worried about audience sizes,\u201d says Jordal Uhl, who runs MoveOn\u2019s creator program and brought the house together. (Disclosure: Uhl and I briefly worked together at Media Matters.) \u201cI think we could have easily just called up a bunch of national creators with really large audiences if we just wanted to play a numbers game, but that doesn\u2019t help the creators in Texas continue to grow. It doesn\u2019t help them in their work.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe creators came to Dallas from all over the state \u2014 from the Rio Grande Valley and South Texas, and from the Texas Triangle of Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, and Houston. They are majority-minority, reflecting the ethnic and cultural wealth of the state and its large Black and Hispanic populations. Their followings range from 9,000 to over 2.8 million. Their content is just as varied. Some focus almost exclusively on their city or region of origin, combining local lifestyle and cultural content with political explainers about policies and events impacting their communities. Others structure their content like the modern version of a local news station, with major national stories covered in the context of Texas politics. Many have covered or outright created content with James Talarico<\/a> and Gina Hinojosa, the Democratic candidates for Senate and governor who are running digitally native campaigns that have actively courted<\/a> influencers.<\/p>\n \n\tIn putting together the group of creators, Uhl says he wanted to \u201cleverage the voice and the audiences of Texas-based creators.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tThe house served as a daytime retreat for content, with the creators entertaining visits from Rep. Menefee and Tarrant County Commissioner Alisa Simmons. Outside of the enclave, they met with Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, who visited the state to participate in Democratic counter-programming to the convention, and harbored Texas Democrats in Chicago in August of last year amid a quorum break<\/a> attempting to block Republican gerrymandering efforts. The group toured the \u201cDonald J. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Reading Room,\u201d a traveling exhibition highlighting the connections between Trump and Epstein through the information outlined in the trove of so-called Epstein-files. They attended Democratic press conferences and interviewed local officials and party leaders. All in all, the creators turned out 62 pieces of content, 5.3 million views, and over 400,000 likes across the two days they were in Dallas.<\/p>\n \t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cThe RNC is just like a goldmine for craziness that you can react to,\u201d Uhl says. \u201cWhat we wanted to do was try to take away some of the attention that Trump and his MAGA allies were going to command in Dallas for the RNC.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tA host of political influencers and \u201cnew media\u201d figures were at the Republican convention. Podcaster Benny Johnson made an appearance, as did X troll Gunther Eagleman, Lydia Shaffer (AKA \u201cConservative Barbie\u201d on social media), and scores of other recognizable faces in the MAGA digital universe were given special credentials and VIP treatment.\u00a0Democrats have been trying to keep up with the right\u2019s sprawling ecosystem of creators \u2014 from creator networks like Double Tap Democracy<\/a>, to Brian Tyler Cohen\u2019s Chorus Creator Incubator Program<\/a>, to the $20 million Speaking with American Men<\/a> project \u2014 but the party is still playing from behind when it comes to social media influence.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cThere\u2019s been such an investment in digital from the right,\u201d Kat Vargas, a creator whose Instagram account HowdyPolitics has over 100,000 followers, tells me. \u201cIt\u2019s building that community online and really driving action. And we\u2019re just really far behind on our side. We don\u2019t have that investment, so like when you\u2019re talking about scale, it\u2019s hard.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tVargas points to the meteoric rise of Sara Gonzalez, a Houston native who was plucked out of virtual obscurity by right-wing media conglomerate The Blaze, and now boasts almost one million followers across her various social media platforms. There are dozens of similar cases at the national level, with heavily funded right-wing media organizations and outlets like The Blaze, The Daily Wire, Veritas Creative Media, and Turning Point USA acting as incubators for emerging conservative talent.<\/p>\n \n\tVargas got her start covering the Texas legislature. She, like many of the local and state level creators attempting to shape politics in their communities, is DIY-ing it. \u201cWe have nothing for creators on the left to plug into, especially at the state level,\u201d Vargas adds.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tFor many of those in the MoveOn house, content creation is a part-time hobby. They have to pay their own way and take time off of work to attend major political events. Vargas relayed to me that while the 2024 Democratic National Convention attempted to place a heavy emphasis on independent content creators, unless they were being sponsored, they had to pay their own way to attend the event. \u201cA lot of people that got accepted to go couldn\u2019t because it just wasn\u2019t equitable, and unfortunately, those are some of the voices that we needed there the most.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tThe level of access being granted to creators by parties, organizations, and even candidates has become a point of friction between traditional media and the growing class of political and media influencers who exist outside of newsroom culture and standards. Creators have become national figures in their own right and a significant presence in the 2026 midterm election cycle. Twitch streamer Hasan Piker and his incendiary style of commentary, for instance, has become a focal point for Republicans, moderate Democrats, and media critics.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tDuring an informal chat over giant platters of Chuy\u2019s tacos, the creators debated their evolving role in the information space, virtually all of them agreeing that they don\u2019t see their role as a replacement for journalism. \u201cWe\u2019re just providing a more one-to-one news experience,\u201d says Saadia Mirza, a Houston-based designer who posts a combination of Texas-focused, and national news analysis to her 300,000 instagram followers. \u201cI think people think we\u2019re in the space of wanting to replace media or wanting to replace these politicians, and that\u2019s not what we\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tLater that day, the creators puddled together on the house\u2019s large couch and armchairs \u2014 like a group of friends sitting down for a movie night or Love Island watch party \u2014 to watch the Republican convention\u2019s primetime speeches. They whipped their phones out to record a few seconds of the screen before dipping out to another room to record a quick reaction video. Open laptops displayed half-edited videos (Capcut vs. Adobe Premiere was a running debate). The creators pull up news articles to screenshot and reference in videos, react to posts and clips from journalists I\u2019d seen just a few hours before at the convention center.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tMirza\u2019s video<\/a> reacting to Trump lunging<\/a> and raising his voice at ABC News reporter Rachel Scott as he departed Dallas garnered over 100,000 likes and 14,000 reposts on Instagram, and nearly three million views across Instagram and TikTok. \u201cLess than two hours ago he had a room full of you fuckers with your hands up pledging allegiance to his orange ass,\u201d she said of a cultish pledge<\/a> Trump had RNC attendees recite to him on the convention\u2019s second night.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tA video posted by JC Frias reacting<\/a> to the RNC\u2019s decision to display a barely clothed thirst trap<\/a> of Piker on the jumbotrons of the convention center racked up over half a million views. \u201cI don\u2019t know, if you ask me they\u2019re not doing themselves any favors. I think more people are just going to become democratic socialists,\u201d he says while laughing into the camera.<\/p>\n