Political influencers have been a large part of the political landscape ever since the 1960s primarily through the use of talk shows, newspaper editorials, and radio. Political influencers and essayists such as Gore Vidal, Norman Mailer, and William Buckley reached nationwide popularity by debating and discussing hot topic issues around the country. This laid the groundwork for future political influencers to follow. However, the popularity of the political influencer greatly increased through the introduction of social media, making themselves available to a broader, younger audience. Now, instead of a large book or essay making one's political views widespread, a single video on Youtube, no longer than half an hour, can make one's political views much more widespread, much quicker.
Colleges are the prevalent hotbeds for a new age of political influencers to visit, allowing for lengthy, sometimes heated debates over a multitude of issues. With their work and political opinions made available online through social media, young people such as college students are the ones most directly targeted. Also, the issues most debated by political influencers concern matters of culture such as trans pronouns, gay marriage, hate speech, religious freedom, feminism, and race relations. These matters, more than any other area of political debate, interest young people for their relevance in the fundamental structure of the country and their own social lives.
The most notable of this new age of political influencers include Ben Shapiro, the found of The Daily Wire; Trevor Noah, the host of The Daily Show with Trevor Noah; Jordan Peterson, a Canadian psychology professor; and Cenk Uygur, the founder of The Young Turks; among others. These online influencers typically display a highly intellectual, concise approach to their arguments that make it easy to understand in a short amount of time.
The effects of the presence of these political online influencers are that there are now more opinions to hear from than ever before, there is now a younger generation more interested in political matters concerning the culture war than ever before, and they encourage opinions, even unpopular ones, to be heard. However, many fear that the presence of political online influencers can create more division when discussing political issues and can lead to tense and volatile environments, especially on college campuses. The latter fear can be best shown when UC Berkley fierce riots when conservative personalities Milo Yiannopoulos and Ben Shapiro attempted to speak on campus. '
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