'Gen Z For Change' TikTok Influencers Attempt To Use Internet Fame To Aid Unionization Efforts And Push For Progressive Politics Online

A group called Gen Z for Change is attempting to leverage social media clout to organize digital protest actions and provide news to a very young and very large audience. The group is centered around TikTok and is essentially a collective of young, progressive influencers from many corners of TikTok who use their platforms to inform their audience and advocate for change.

Recently, actions taken by Gen Z for Change have included crowdsourcing efforts to support unionizing workers at Starbucks and the Krogers grocery chain. Both corporations are seeking to hire scabs (workers that replace striking workers who want a union) and so Gen Z for Change created a parcel of code that people online could use to spam those companies with fake applications, preventing them from finding the real ones.

Gen Z For Change’s novel approach of using digital technology to organize old-school civil disobedience marks a mobilization of social media that brings to mind the actions TikTokers and K-Pop stans took to reportedly tank a Trump rally in 2020. As the organizers point out, the lack of security measures taken by companies and governments to counter protest actions (like spamming and flooding forms with false information) offers an opportunity for new kinds of activism.

Gen Z for Change has also organized in-person protests, including a statewide school walk-out in protest of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill in March.

Other posts on Gen Z For Change feature influencers giving news reports from a progressive perspective on topics that are arguably undercovered in the mainstream media — such as the robot dog program on the U.S.-Mexico border, bills in Republican states that would restrict abortion access or corporate-friendly actions taken by members of Congress.

The TikTok account of Gen Z for Change itself has over 1.4 million followers, but collectively, the dozens of influencers who associate with the group have a much broader reach. Leading members of the group have been followed by prominent Democratic politicians such as Alexandria Ocasio Cortez.

The group has close ties with the Biden Administration, having coalesced as a collective in support of his campaign against Donald Trump in 2020. In February, members of Gen Z for Change were briefed on the war in Ukraine, an event which was spoofed on Saturday Night Live. They shared what they learned directly from the President’s team with their audiences in videos that dispelled misinformation.

However, although the influencers are aligned with the Democrats, Gen Z for Change has stated that it's not a tool of the Biden Administration. The group has also posted TikToks highly critical of the President, in particular his refusal to take executive action to forgive student debt.

The group might be compared to other political advocacy organizations for young people in American history, like the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which advocated for Civil Rights in the 1960s and organized actions of civil disobedience such as freedom rides. Spamming and disrupting businesses and governments online could be seen as the digital equivalents of in-person nonviolent actions like lunch counter sit-ins, in which activists sought to disrupt “business as usual” in order to pressure decision-makers.

Also like the SNCC, Gen Z for Change seems to have a highly decentralized and participatory leadership structure. Unlike the SNCC, however, Gen Z for Change has close ties with an established political party, working hand-in-hand with the White House to try and counter disinformation.

However, Gen Z for Change also promotes itself as a nonprofit ideological news outlet, which the SNCC wasn't. About two-thirds of the content produced by the TikTok account is news-related or editorial. A major part of its mission is to provide quick, easy-to-digest information about current events for young people. Gen Z for Change aims to circumvent traditional media channels whose coverage may be impacted by considerations like profit, laws and institutional traditions.

In this sense, a better comparison might be the universe of conservative talk radio, another mission-oriented news outlet that took advantage of a new medium. After the repeal of the Fairness Act in 1987, which deregulated the American radio and allowed people to editorialize on air, a series of conservative radio talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh and Mike Pence invented a new kind of political opinion journalism, reorienting and rejuvenating the Republican party. Many attributed the success of the GOP in the 1994 midterm elections to Limbaugh and other radio stars. More recently, liberal talk shows like The Young Turks have similarly used new mediums like podcasts to reach listeners.

Whether Gen Z for Change will be ultimately successful in its endeavor to reach viewers on platforms like TikTok and affect real-world change remains to be seen, but they've undeniably grown at a rapid pace.