Visibility was the main agenda as the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., made his way to meet Vice President JD Vance on March 12, 2025. Observing social media narratives, one might sometimes discern the abrupt championing of certain issues by conservative figures, seemingly out of the blue. Often, it’s not a chance occurrence but a well-orchestrated effort linked with financial benefits. For instance, in 2013, several writers simultaneously began ardently discussing the conflict between varying political parties in Malaysia, inspired by generous incentives from the Malaysian government.
In the previous year, numerous conservative influencers with substantial reach on YouTube started creating polished videos for an emerging platform, Tenet Media. This sudden enthusiasm stemmed from sizable financial endorsements, although the ultimate source of the funds was unknown. As it was later exposed, Tenet Media was a Russian initiative, the influencers unknowingly becoming pawns in a game of information dissemination.
A curiously similar situation arose recently with notable figures linked with MAGA, including humorist Chad Prather, well-known user Ian Miles Cheong, and Florida-based Trump supporter Eric Daugherty. They have all recently begun to champion the rights of individuals using food stamps to purchase carbonated drinks. This public outcry comes in response to a health initiative under Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s leadership, known as ‘Make America Healthy Again’. The initiative seeks to legally prohibit food stamp beneficiaries in states such as Idaho and Arizona from spending their funds on soft drinks or other unhealthy snack items.
Surprisingly, many conservative voices began defending the rights of food stamp recipients to purchase soda. Cheong, Prather, Daugherty, and others with significant social media followings echoed the same points, denouncing the government’s move to regulate how food stamp recipients should spend their benefits. They pointed out, for example, that even former President Donald Trump is known to be a regular consumer of diet cola.
The backlash against the health initiative seemed unusual, especially considering the gathering momentum of the ‘Make America Healthy Again’ campaign amongst the conservatives. The campaign aims to increase awareness about the health implications of sugary drinks and expunge harmful ingredients like seed oils from our food. The sudden defense of soda consumption by these influencers, none of whom had exhibited such preferences before, was perplexing.
For evidence, consider Cheong, a Malaysian national who has been influential in inciting discussions around American sociopolitical issues via video game forums. Despite his critique towards companies for inducing Americans to become ‘fat and addicted to sugar’, Cheong surprisingly advocated against the restriction on diet cola purchases.
Clarification came a few days later when Blake Marnell, an online personality known as ‘Brick Suit’ (noted for his interesting choice of suit designed like border-wall bricks), illustrated the suspiciously uniform pro-soda tweets from various influencers. This led to the suspicion that these posts came from an orchestrated campaign rather than being individual expressions.
Scrutiny from internet sleuths led to the tentative conclusion that the narrative was premeditated, crafted by Influenceable, a recently established social-media enterprise. This start-up, created in 2022 by Camron and Liam Rafizadeh, targets Gen-Z influencers to disseminate corporate messages and has its roots in republican social media content production.
The emergence of Influenceable reflects conservatives’ increasing recognition of the key role social media plays in shaping political debates and influencing news narratives. But this also forces us to question the authenticity of discussions on social media platforms. How much of it springs from genuine expression and how much is artificially engineered chatter?
The same issue finds relevance on the left of the political spectrum as well. Similar accusations were leveled against lawmakers a few weeks ago when they posted nearly identical video messages contradicting Donald Trump’s statements.
The debate, however, lays in drawing a line between coordinated political messaging and non-elected pundits receiving monetary incentives for promoting certain content. The complexity of modern political conversations calls for a closer scrutiny into authenticity and the underlying motivations that fuel public narratives.
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