Donald Trump’s vice-presidential running mate, J.D. Vance, is on TikTok тАФ and he’s collaborating with Canadian-American┬аsocial media stars┬аthe Nelk Boys.┬а
Vance’s first post on the social media site features a nine-second video where he can be seen accepting alcohol from Canadian┬аKyle Forgeard, one of Nelk’s founders.┬а
“Yo J.D., we want to welcome you to TikTok,” Forgeard says in the video, before handing Vance a box┬аof Happy Dad,┬аa brand of hard seltzers founded by Nelk in 2021.┬а
The collaboration is part of a new initiative launched today by a group of Trump allies called Send the Vote. It’s a $20-million US voter registration and turnout program aimed at courting the kind of crowd attracted to Nelk’s content тАФyoung men. The Nelk Boys TikTok account, which has more than 4.6 million followers,┬аoften┬аrevolves around frat-like parties, pranks┬аand a whole lot of cursing.
WATCH | J.D. Vance and Nelk collaborate on TikTok:┬а┬а
The short video тАФ which seems to be the first posted to Vance’s TikTok account, where he had about 15,000 followers at the time of publication┬атАФ appears to be a teaser for the┬аinitiative. Nelk says it’s expected to have a more fulsome debut Friday on the popular Full Send┬аpodcast, with which they are also affiliated.
The collaboration is familiar territory for┬аNelk┬а.The group has worked with Trump in the past.
The group has had both Trump and Donald Trump Jr. on their podcast. The episode with Trump was eventually pulled down by YouTube because of the former U.S.┬аpresident’s lies about the 2020 election. It received┬аmore than five┬аmillion views in 24 hours.
The group has also hosted controversial figures like Elon Musk, Andrew Tate, Ben Shapiro and Tucker Carlson.┬а
The newly announced initiative comes as both major parties in the U.S. battle to attract young voters.┬а
Locked in a battle for voters
Prior to Joe Biden’s dropping out of the presidential race and endorsing Vice-President┬аKamala Harris as the Democratic candidate, there were reports that the Democrats were losing donors, said Lydia Miljan, a professor of political science at the University of Windsor.┬а
Since then, Harris supporters have organized several fundraising calls breathing new life into the Democrats’ election efforts.┬а
“Once [Biden]┬аbowed out from the race, then those same donors went flocking to her,” Miljan said to CBC News in an interview Tuesday.┬а
One of those calls featured a type of voters that Donald Trump and the Republicans have long relied on for votes: white men.┬а
The Harris campaign wants “to make the case that not only do they have the traditional big donors, but they’re going to have new voters, voters who weren’t┬аtypically associated with the Democrats,” said┬аMiljan.
It appears that Trump and Vance’s response, at least in part, is the┬аSend the Vote┬аinitiative.┬а
Nelk comes with a lot of eyeballs┬атАФ in addition to its TikTok account, the group boasts more than eight┬аmillion subscribers on YouTube. Their brand of humour has a sort of subtle conservative appeal.
Past Nelk controversies
For example, in a 2022 video the group travels to Flint, Mich., in an attempt to┬аcapture and breed bigfoot┬аin an amusement park. Forgeard┬аjokes that there might be┬аa “kind of political correctness maybe if we did get a male, just to satisfy the Democrats, like maybe have two gay Bigfoots┬атАж just for some PC media bullshit?”
The group has also courted a lot of controversy.
In 2020, during the COVID 19 pandemic, Nelk threw massive parties in “protest” of public health rules. One event at Illinois State University sparked widespread criticism for drawing a crowd of people who weren’t wearing masks.┬а
The parties led to the demonetization of Nelk’s YouTube channel. The social media site said the group’s behaviour violated the platform’s Creator Responsibility Policy,┬аwhich mandates that creators do not engage in “on- and/or off-platform behavior [that] harms our users, community, employees or ecosystem.”
Nelk’s┬аpartnership with Vance comes at a time when the Republicans are dealing with controversies of their own. The party’s attacks have ramped up against Harris, with some Republicans have referred to her as a “DEI” candidate тАФ a derisive┬аreference to┬аdiversity, equity and inclusion efforts in the workplace.┬а
Others have decried Harris for not having biological children, echoing┬аa comment that Vance made in 2021, when he called Harris and other Democrats “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives.”