In a very “how do you do, fellow kids?” move, Donald Trump’s “inner cycle” is reportedly paying teenagers, some as young as 14 years old, to post right-wing memes on social media. The Huffington Post provided evidence that since “the 2020 election, these meme moguls have quietly collected payments to run ads” for the former-president’s shady “Election Defense Fund,” GETTR, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and because it wouldn’t be conservative nuttiness without Mike Lindell, MyPillow:
Most of the ads come in the form of memes with captions urging people to click customized links inserted into the memers’ Instagram bios, which lead to the promoted parties’ websites. The memers typically earn a small “conversion” fee for each person who uses their link, doled out by third-party marketing agencies working with big-name clients. Given the massive reach of several of these pages, often boosted by Instagram’s powerful recommendation algorithms, this can quickly add up.
“There’s a lot of money to be made,” one of the meme teens told HuffPo. No kidding: a recent campaign for GETTR, the app launched by Trump’s former shady spokesman Jason Miller that was quickly overrun with horny images of Sonic the Hedgehog, saw The Youth make $0.85 for each conversion with a limit of $21,250. Fourteen-year-old me would have bought so many Shrek toys with that $21,250 (then again, fourteen-year-old me would not have been sharing Mike Lindell memes on my Instagram).
There’s, of course, a lot of shadiness to this stealth meme blitz:
He and other memers who’ve been paid to run ads promoting one or several Trump-affiliated entities have also posted content spreading false information about the COVID-19 vaccines, urging their followers to defy mask mandates, calling for the deportation of female politicians of color and alleging that President Joe Biden is a pedophile. Some have additionally run ads for separate clients selling fake vaccine cards, QAnon apparel and toilet seat projector lights that shine open-mouthed photos of Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris or former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton into one’s toilet bowl.
The next time your aunt with questionable politics shares a blurry meme on Facebook of Batman slapping Joe Biden with a speech bubble about “fake news,” just know that it was probably put there by a teenage boy with support from a former-Trump staffer.
(Via the Huffington Post)