Influencers are increasingly using TikTok to complain about the economy and their financial future, giving rise to fears among Joe Biden's team that his 2024 election chances could be imperiled by the platform.
Hashtags such as 'Silent Recession' are gaining traction online, which the White House worries is undermining their message about 'Bidenomics' showing positive signs.
Generation Z - those born after 1996 - and Millennials combined could account for as many votes next year as the Baby Boomers and their elders: the groups that have made up a majority of voters for decades.
As a result, the White House is trying to dispel the narrative of a failing economy.
Biden met with about 60 TikTok creators to explain his student loan forgiveness plan, and campaign staff sent videos to key creators, for possible sharing, of young people crying when they learned their loans had been forgiven.
But the student loan promise remains mired in the courts.
The Supreme Court struck down the loan forgiveness program in late June, but his administration has found ways to cancel more than $48 billion in debt since then. It has not, however, received credit for its efforts.
A few political campaign posts promoting Biden's jobs record have managed to rack up thousands of likes, The New York Times noted. But the 'Silent Depression' posts have received hundreds of thousands of likes.
One content creator, William Dawson, has received 157,000 likes for his August video complaining about the state of America's economy. He said that, during the Great Depression of the 1930s, 48 percent of people aged 25-29 lived at home, but now that figure was 52 percent. He said one such person in 1930 made $88,000 a year, adjusted for inflation, compared to $35-45,000 today.
'New cars are unaffordable; new houses are unaffordable,' he said. 'To move to a new place and rent somewhere else is unaffordable. It's terrible what's going on.'
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