Election Analyst Fancams

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Part of a series on 2020 United States Presidential Election. [View Related Entries]

About

Election Analyst Fancams refers to a trend on TikTok that became popular during the 2020 United States Presidential Election. The trend sees TikTokers create videos featuring footage, often recorded directly from a TV or monitor, of election analysts John King and Steve Kornacki working. In the videos, TikTokers often show their support for the hard work the analysts are doing, and admit their attraction to the analysts, both ironically and not. The videos closely resemble fancams, a practice among K-pop fans where they edit together and share footage of their favorite K-pop stars. As of November 6th, 2020, videos using the hashtag #johnking reached over 4.5 million views, and videos hashtagged #stevekornacki gained over 760,000 views.

Origin

It's unknown who started the trend, but the earliest known instances of election analyst fancams were uploaded on November 4th, 2020, one day after the election began (examples shown below, left and right).^[1]^[2] Many people expected the election results to be announced on this day, however, they were not, meaning election analysts like CNN's John King and NBC's Steve Kornacki continued to report on it. TikTokers began making and sharing fancams as a way to show their appreciation and support for how long the analysts managed to keep reporting, as well as make jokes about falling in love with them.

On the same day, MSNBC uploaded a video to their Twitter page in which Steve Kornacki thanks fans on social media for all their support.^[3] On November 5th, the Los Angeles Times published an article confirming that John King had slept 6.5 hours since the previous Tuesday due to the election.^[4]

Spread

TikTokers continued to post fancams over the coming days as the election results were further delayed, some gaining significant attention. On November 5th, 2020, TikToker bridgetcnolan^[5] uploaded a John King fancam, garnering over 447,000 views in a day (shown below, left). On the same day, TikToker jdoughf0sho^[6] uploaded a Steve Kornacki fancam, garnering over 147,000 views in the same span of time (shown below, right).

On November 6th, CNN published an article detailing TikTok's obsession with John King, linking the trend with fancams.^[7]