Andrew Yang’s Political Traction on the Internet
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/20/technology/andrew-yang-internet-democratic-primary.html
With the beginning of the democratic debates, the tech savvy entrepreneur Andrew Yang becomes the new underdog for the democratic presidential candidate. Up against Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, and Beto O’Rouke, Yang is the fringe candidate who stands little chance in the face of the more well-known and politically active candidates. However, while he may not have had even ten minutes of speaking during each of the three debates so far, Yang’ popularity has sky-rocketed from the internet as his online follower community, the “Yang Gang,” produces memes, videos, and songs based on his campaign. Through the internet, more people have shone the spotlight on Yang and have spread his campaign to even, as Yang notes, “quarters I wouldn’t have expected.” Yang has even received support from those whose ideals he is morally against. Through Yang’s internet popularity, he has garnered the fleeting attention of media outlets and television channels. While the internet doesn’t represent voter composition, it indeed reminds voters, and other presidential candidates, to not count Andrew Yang out of the running just yet.
The internet, the world’s largest information network, has an overwhelming presence in our lives. Donald Trump capitalized on the internet’s ability to spread contagion rapidly, resulting in a presidential candidacy no one expected, especially from a democratic point of view. Similarly, Yang is using the internet or, rather, was given the opportunity to use the internet as his primary political platform. The “Yang Gang” creates content for Yang’s online presence, spreading through social media. With each view of a video or song or redirect to Yang’s online content, the tie between websites that are connected through this redirect becomes stronger. This allows people browsing one website to stumble upon even the most obscure content, and in this case, to stumble upon a fringe candidate, who people pay little attention to historically. For Yang, this enthusiastic support in the digital world must be taken into the real world and his voters for him to shake up the presidential campaign.