Beyonce, Eminem, and Rogan
How the major celebrity moments resonated on TikTok
A lot happened on the campaign trail and online over the weekend, and with just over a week to go until Election Day, we wanted to quickly share additional insights into what we’re seeing on TikTok for several of the campaign’s key moments. Here we go:
Beyonce was a bit of a bust
The Bey-hive may be upset to learn that while it made for a stellar rally and a solid jolt to the political news cycle, Beyonce’s marquee endorsement of Kamala Harris in Houston on Friday night was not a huge hit on TikTok.
The most viewed video featuring the Beyonce rally on TikTok was this clip shared by @MSNBC, which has received over 11 million views. Other top performers were this quick video from a rally attendee (viewed over 5 million times), and this @cbsnews clip of Queen B’s speech.
Over on the @kamalahq account, the Beyonce rally content was decidedly *not viral,* a handful of clips received modest success - several million views in total:
Maybe there’s a simple logistical reason for that: having a high profile celebrity moment occur after 9pm ET on a Friday night (of Halloween weekend, no less) could have pushed down the view counts.
…But Obama and Eminem made it happen
By comparison, content from former President Obama’s Michigan rally the night before with rapper Eminem performed much better - both for the campaign’s own accounts and across TikTok. This video of Obama rapping has over 40 million views, and this clip of Eminem introducing Obama has been seen over 13 million times.
A video of the Eminem-Obama intro posted by @kamalahq has racked up more than 12 million views, and this one of Eminem’s speech has been seen 5 million times. @thedemocrats also shared a video of the Eminem event, receiving over 5 million views.
Trump’s three hours with Rogan
On the Right, Trump’s much hyped, high-profile, three hour-long interview with Joe Rogan failed to really resonate on TikTok, although it was widely seen and listened to on other platforms like YouTube.
The most watched clip from that interview shared on TikTok was this video of Trump and Rogan talking about the former President’s ear scar, which has now been seen over 16 million times. Another was this clip of Trump mentioning an off the cuff plan to get rid of all income taxes (and institute massive tariffs instead) which received about 14 million views. Another clip from @couriernewsroom that showed Rogan “caught off guard by Trump’s incoherence” received about 4 million views, and this hit from @kamalahq about Trump losing the 2020 election was watched more than 3 million times.
For three hours of content, one would expect a whole lot more viral clips to be moving around the internet. Instead, it seems like Trump has done so many of these shock-jock style podcast interviews recently that the format is becoming a little stale for him, and viewers on platforms like TikTok may be starting to tune out.
That’s all for now, we’ll be back in your inboxes on Thursday with a full roundup of data and analysis from TikTok this week. 💥