When Vice President Kamala Harris assumed the role of presumptive Democratic nominee after President Joe Biden abruptly ended his re-election bid, there appeared to be a surge on social media of organic grassroots support for Harris.

It now appears, however, that at least some of that supposed support is "astroturfed" and inauthentic, paid for by the Harris campaign or its Democratic allies, according to the Daily Caller.

At least one young online influencer has revealed an offer received to produce and be paid for pro-Harris content, and it was previously exposed how Democrats were paying young influencers to routinely promote and support the Biden administration and its agenda on social media.

Email suggests Harris campaign paying for social media support

The Daily Caller observed that in the immediate wake of VP Harris' ascendency in the 2024 race, there was a sudden rush of viral social media posts that highlighted positively framed clips of Harris speaking or pushed memes intended to make her seem cool and relatable to young voters.

Yet, some of that content seemed fraudulent and now comedic content creator, Steve "Mudflap" McGrew, has revealed that he received an emailed offer to produce pro-Harris content in exchange for monetary compensation, a screenshot of which he posted online for his followers to see.

"They trying to get ME to be a paid shill for Kamala. GFYS! But let this be a lesson … they are PAYING people to pretend to support" Harris, McGrew wrote in an X post.

The email, from a purportedly nonpartisan company known as LaunchViral that ostensibly links social media influencers with collaborative business opportunities, offered McGrew an opportunity to be paid by the Harris campaign, plus a $150 bonus incentive, to produce pro-Harris memes and other positive content on TikTok and Instagram.

The only apparent requirements other than professing support for Harris would be to dutifully tag and mention Harris and the campaign in the posts and to "encourage your fans to share, like, and follow Kamala" on the particular platform.

Targeting Gen-Z voters

According to a young conservative commenter, Chrissy Clark, who previously worked for the Daily Caller, the Democratic Party is "doing all this dystopian s--t" to try to influence the upcoming elections and manipulate Gen-Z voters into believing that VP Harris is "cool and approachable" and worth voting for.

There is a valid reason behind the fraudulent effort, though, as it was estimated last year by Tuft's Circle that approximately 41 million Gen-Z members, ages 18-27, would be eligible to vote in 2024, with more than 8 million of them being first-time voters, and nearly half being minorities like Latino, black, Asian, or multiracial.

Historically, election turnout by young voters tends to be low, but at the same time young voters can also be highly influential and influenced, and while Gen-Z appears to be relatively diverse ideologically, young people tend to vote more for Democrats than Republicans, making them an ideal target for the Harris campaign.

That undoubtedly explains the overt effort on social media to transform Harris "from cringe to cool," to borrow the words of CNN commentator Van Jones, and to convince young voters that she is worthy of their support at the ballot box.

Young influencers were paid by DNC to support Biden in 2022

To be sure, this isn't anything new, as the Daily Caller previously reported last year that the Democratic National Committee was exposed for paying for young content creators and social media influencers to openly promote and encourage support of President Biden and his administration.

One such example involved liberal influencer Harry Sisson and his collaborator, Chris Mowrey, who worked for a firm known as Palette Management that was revealed to have been paid more than $200,000 during the 2022 cycle. Sisson and Mowrey initially disputed the claims that they'd been paid to support Democrats until the "receipts" of the financial links were published online.