The First Democratic National Convention To Invite Content Creators Was Marked By Uncomfortable Tension

If you only caught the highlights, last week’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago looked like a glamorous, four-day-long coronation for Kamala Harris. But outside the United Center, protests raged, and delegates from the Uncommitted Movement waited for a chance to speak as part of the party, which they never received.

On the ground, the tension was more than just palpable, according to Kat Abughazaleh, a content creator who makes fun of conservatives on TikTok when she’s not analyzing them for her job at Mother Jones. It was downright uncomfortable.

"That night, when we were sitting on the concrete [outside the convention], the CNN-Politico grill – that was a pop-up there – was having a big party,” she told Aftermath. “And so you were hearing 'Espresso' by Sabrina Carpenter and seeing all these people dressed up having a party while we were just sitting there waiting for this call to say that, you know, you're still welcome in the party despite your race."

As far as Abughazaleh knows, she was the only Palestinian American among 200 content creators invited to the DNC – a first for an event that has historically catered to press and politicians. But unlike the press, who ostensibly attended to inform the public about those with their wrinkled, unsteady grips on the levers of power, creators at the DNC did not share a specific, unifying purpose. Some were there to ask tough questions and offer commentary, while others did dances and peppered public figures with softballs about which dishes they’d describe Harris and Trump as. A few even spoke on the main stage about matters like immigration and reproductive rights.

Nonetheless, press and creators were credentialed using the same tiered system – which identified attendees with titles like “producer,” “editor,” and “reporter” – leading to resentment between the groups as a result of some high-profile creators getting more access than your average journalist. Around 15,000 journalists attended the convention, and unlike creators, they had to pay for workspace and accommodations, according to the New York Times.

Creators also had access to special fifth-floor creator spaces and exclusive events like a yacht party hosted by the Harris campaign. Additionally, the DNC circulated a list of potential interviewees among creators, which Aftermath has viewed. This included numerous politicians like California governor Gavin Newsom, Democratic representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and senator Cory Booker, but also celebrities like former NFL player Marshawn Lynch and comedian Hasan Minhaj. All of this gave some journalists the impression that the DNC was rolling out the red carpet for a bunch of unserious upstarts while cold shouldering The Fourth Estate.

Meanwhile, content creators felt like journalists weren’t taking them seriously despite the sizable audiences they’ve amassed, which in some cases go toe-to-toe with or even surpass traditional media. (For example, leftist politics streamer Hasan Piker spent part of his time at the convention commentating over an NBC news stream to augment his own coverage. At the time, NBC had around 24,000 concurrent viewers on YouTube. On Twitch, Piker pulled in more than double that.) And so the tension calcified: Some journalists believed that content creators didn’t belong at the DNC unless they were going to act like journalists, and some content creators thought journalists were overestimating their own importance and using it as an excuse to adopt holier-than-thou attitudes. 

Journalists and content creators bickered throughout the week, mainly via “passive-aggressive tweets and TikToks,” Wired reporter Makena Kelly, who attended the DNC, said on a recent episode of the Aftermath Hours podcast.

A creator who was granted anonymity on the basis that they were not authorized to publicize information from private chats and communications relayed messages from a DNC creator WhatsApp group to Aftermath. 

"Should I just piss off the press more by posting the video tour of my suite at the Waldorf Astoria?" read one message from a creator to the group.

"Creators are shallow?” read another. “I'm pretty sure it was us creators who gave our merch to an intern and bought her dinner when a press member made her cry."

This is illustrative of another difference between press and content creators: While journalists are still human beings – and many have knowingly stepped into ethical quagmires – most would turn up their noses at the idea of buying things for the staff of an institution they’re supposed to be holding accountable. But creators are much more used to openly transactional relationships with the companies and organizations about which they’re producing videos, podcasts, and streams. Some of this is direct; while the Harris campaign did not pay creators, the New York Times reports that other Democratic groups – like a nonprofit called the Hub Project and an “influencer advocacy network” called Good Influence – covered travel costs for a handful and, in some cases, paid for posts with specific talking points in them. 

Creators to whom Aftermath spoke said that many viewed their purpose at the DNC as promotional – to get the word out about the shiny new Harris/Walz ticket, rather than to hold politicians’ feet to the fire. At one point Abughazaleh told other creators that she was looking for Democratic Party surrogates to talk to about Palestine. Some were wary of her approach.

"Someone replied 'I just don't know if it's a good idea, if we're trying to promote and endorse Kamala Harris, to talk about this. It's a very controversial issue,'" Abughazaleh said.

Austin Show, a Twitch streamer known for his livestreaming riffs on popular game show formats, viewed his role similarly in DNC collaborations with “I’ve Had It,” a comedy podcast, and a cameo on Piker’s stream.  

"I was hoping to talk about [and] elevate the Harris/Walz ticket in any way I personally could – just being a part of the broader group of folks elevating the Harris ticket, any opportunity I could [find] to talk about how scary the Trump administration would be in a second term,” Show told Aftermath. “That's what I was hoping to accomplish, [to add] my perspective, the perspective of a queer person that our rights are on the line in this election." 

Show’s situation is also emblematic of another challenge creators faced: When political content isn’t what your audience is used to, how do you contort your approach to fit your surroundings? How do you avoid alienating portions of your audience with subject matter they might find divisive? Show opted to keep DNC videos off his main channels and instead bolster on-site efforts of collaborators while saving tales of his experiences for Fear&, a podcast he does with Piker. 

"It wasn't really native to me,” said Show. “I was going like, hey, how can I elevate other people's content – go on Hasan's stream or collaborate with other people that are more native when it comes to political content. I really enjoy it, but it's not really native to my social channels. I'm definitely not a stranger to talking about politics. I just like to do it in places that have more of an audience for it."

Others tried to jam a square peg into a round hole, to varying degrees of success.

"There was this yacht party the first day,” said Abughazaleh. “Two people that I actually really respect, that do great content, were doing a TikTok dance there, and they posted it after the DNC with a comment about 'We don't want private conversations. We want Palestinian representation' – all this stuff. But they were still dancing on the yacht in the background. That just felt kind of emblematic of a lot of this."

The yacht party, it turns out, was a lightning rod for conflicted feelings. 

"There are people who were posting a lot from that yacht party and interviewing these people who were on there,” said Kelly, “but there are creators I spoke to who were like 'Yeah, [I went to the party], but I didn't post a lot of pictures from it because it felt weird with everything going on.' So I don't think it's lost on everyone."

Every creator to whom Aftermath spoke supports a ceasefire in Gaza, but the extent to which they directly covered the pro-Palestine protests around the DNC varies. Abughazaleh devoted significant focus to them, advocating for the DNC to bring a Palestinian American speaker on stage and livestreaming the Uncommitted Movement sit-in that took place after the DNC refused their request. Show, meanwhile, stuck to the “I’ve Had It” podcast’s content plan, which was more focused on asking public figures comedically-oriented questions than interviewing protesters.

One Twitch streamer, Austin "Gremloe" MacNamara, wasn’t able to get credentialed for the DNC ahead of time, but he still opted to travel out to Chicago to cover the protests. His approach was similar to that of other streamers who’ve attended previous pro-Palestine protests: Spend time in the space, let protesters speak for themselves, and show viewers that these things are not unruly, inhuman mobs, but rather groups of people with reasonable demands – on-the-fly communities united by a common goal. There is still something to be said for articles and videos that succinctly depict what protests are about, but this unedited approach has allowed viewers to better understand the quiet moments – the mundanity, even – of movements they’ve been told to fear by traditional news outlets.

"Too often [protesters’] narrative is told for them,” MacNamara told Aftermath, “and I wanted to let my audience see it authentically for themselves while taking time to teach them about how protests work, such as the legal observers and marshals. The creators that were given credentials were entirely in their own bubble; those of us who weren't couldn't even see that bubble. There's a profound sense that access journalism is deeply entrenched in the Democratic party. We aren't taken seriously, especially those of us who are critical of the party."   

The DNC did accept applications from and invite some creators on the left who’ve been openly critical of the Democratic party, but MacNamara doesn’t believe it was necessarily trying to give dissenting voices a seat at the table and demonstrate that it was taking their concerns seriously. Instead, he thinks the party was mostly trying to appeal to The Youths, and some of the most prominent political creators – like Piker – happen to lean further to the left than traditional news sources. 

"I don't think the Democratic party cared about the creators beyond appealing to the youth vote,” MacNamara said. “It seemed more of a cynical identity politics play than an embrace of new media. The only prominent oppositional content creator that was given significant access was Hasan Piker, and it seemed like he was kicked out before Kamala took the stage."  

Piker was, indeed, removed a few hours early from a DNC suite in which he was told he was going to be able to stream – and interview big names like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar – until the end of the final day, but at the time, the reason why was unclear. The next day, Piker claimed on Discord and during a stream that it was because he had been wearing a Palestinian flag and interviewing Uncommitted Movement delegates. However, he stopped short of providing a source for this information, saying that he couldn’t reveal who confirmed his suspicions on this front – only that they had. 

"Did I confirm it? I did. Also, you saw it happen," Piker said during his first stream after the DNC, noting that he’d heard there was some friction between the Harris campaign, who wanted him there, and the DNC, which was iffier on the matter. "They didn't say 'Fuck off, you're done, we're revoking your access, you need to leave the premises.' ... But they made it as impossible for me to stream as possible."

The DNC did not respond to a request for comment from Aftermath about why Piker was removed from his suite on the final day.

Even so, during the stream, Piker went on to say that he was still “overall very, very happy with everything” and that, final day aside, he felt like he’d been granted “insane access,” in some cases on level with major networks like CNN and MSNBC.  

From a pure numbers standpoint, granting somebody like Piker that kind of access makes all the sense in the world. Again, his biggest broadcasts compete with those networks in terms of viewership. Many of his viewers rely on him as their primary news source. But over the years, Piker has repeatedly emphasized that he’s not a journalist, despite occasionally conducting interviews amid lengthy 8+-hour broadcasts. He views himself as a political commentator. Other content creators who at least dip their toes into the murky waters of politics label themselves similarly: They are hosts, entertainers, or outsiders with a penchant for occasionally breaking down current events. 

But for viewers, the purpose they serve – especially at events like the DNC – is growing increasingly similar to that of journalism, sometimes even covering blind spots invisible to traditional press after years of working within entrenched systems. This comes with its own challenges: Creators might be able to talk about subjects like Palestine more freely than, say, a New York Times reporter, but they’re also not constrained by any particular code of ethics, except those enforced by their audiences.

Abughazaleh thinks the key, at this point, is for creators to recognize the difference between what they do and what journalists do – and to communicate it regularly. 

"I think getting over yourself and stressing that difference is really important, because otherwise you're kind of like Tucker Carlson -- not in ideology, but he'd always say 'This is a news show' over and over again.”

That said, Abughazaleh also believes that sometimes creators end up in the same territory as journalists, and when they do, they need to recognize how important that work is no matter who’s doing it.

“I consider myself more of a creator, but I also do original reporting,” she said. “I'm currently working on a video that's requiring interviews, all this stuff. I would describe that as journalistic work. I would not describe one of my commentary videos as that. We just need to be really honest about it, and everyone needs to get over themselves and also recognize how important the press is."