december 23, 2019–january 5, 2020 | new york 49
a mommy influencer in Louisville, Kentucky, is hawking a cucum-
ber face wipe on Instagram. She leans into the camera and presses
a moist tissue to her chin. She tells her audience she swears by it. Later
that day, she’s back online to conscript her blond toddler son into
a sponsored post for a children’s book called Pete the Hungry Pig. Her
name is Kaelin Armstrong Dunn, and she is 29 years old. She has five
children, a husband, and pets. She shills relentlessly. Chex. Duracell. An
invention that detects alcohol content in breast milk. At 46,500 follow-
ers, Dunn qualifies as a top-tier micro-influencer and is tantalizingly
close to the sponcon big leagues. ¶ Ninety-nine percent of the time,
Dunn stays on brand. Except in early November 2019, a few days after
the face-wipe post, she publishes an uncharacteristic #ad for Kentucky
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andy Beshear. “A few reason [sic] I plan to vote for Andy
Beshear is because he’s not Matt Bevin, he’s a democrat and he wants to fix the pension plan for for
[sic] ALL teachers and not just SOME!,” she writes. In the photo, she is holding a child. “He also
wants to get rid of right to work, he’s pro union, and my favorite he gets his kids their shots !”Dunn may well support Beshear, who defeated the Republican
incumbent, Matt Bevin, the next day by a mere 5,086 votes. But
she plugged him online because a Manhattan-based tech entre-
preneur named Curtis Hougland paid her $100 to. Hougland, 52,
runs a 13-person start-up that hires social-media influencers to
do cheerful propaganda for political clients—in this case, the Ken-
tucky Democratic Party. Once their posts are out in the wild, his
firm, Main Street One, plucks high-performing content and turns
it into digital advertising. On Election Day, the party ran Facebook
ads featuring Dunn’s Instagram post.
“People don’t want journalistic content—this idea of ripping
a headline from the Grand Rapids paper and making it into an
ad,” Hougland says. Instead, his idea for 2020 will be to mobi-
lize this influencer brigade against the president. “So if Trump
said to the people of Youngstown, Ohio, ‘Don’t sell your homes
or mortgages, because your job’s going nowhere’ and then the
GM plant closes? At that moment, you gotta be ready with your
creator network.”
Hougland’s shop, which began operating earlier this year,
announces itself with the high-minded tagline “We Fix Internet
Discourse.” Hougland, sandy-haired and cherub-faced, has aresistance crusader’s faith that the forces standing in the way of
Democratic victory are partisan fake news and foreign disinfor-
mation. “We’re not going to make up information,” he tells me.
“We’re not going to use bots.” Just the opposite, he argues. What
could be more real than a first-person testimonial? (So what if
it’s pay-for-play?) And while his righteous indignation can seem
at odds with his current venture, he’s one of the few Democrats
pushing the envelope on the staid left-wing internet. For many
progressives, the question seems to be whether they can have an
impact online without further messing with democracy. In other
words, how far will they go to win?a decade ago, in the era of proverbial hope and change, the
internet was Democratic territory. Like Hollywood, like the
music industry, it was run by media elites and young people, ren-
dering it seemingly impenetrable to conservatives. Maybe it was
complacency, or maybe it was a certain vital energy shifting to
the weirder, darker corners of the social web rather than the ad-
agency-approved mainstream of microtargeted emails, but
there’s a consensus that Democrats lost the internet in 2016. Or,
really, lost Facebook, which has become tantamount to losing theTSIn a world of fake news and dank memes, thismeans they’re no longer very good at the internet.BY SIMON VAN ZUYLEN-WOODPhoto-illustration by Delcan & Co.TRANSMITTEDY ___ DD ___ AD ___ PD ___ EIC ________ COPY ___ DD ___ AD ___ PD ___ EIC2619FEA_OppositionResearch_lay [Print]_36426188.indd 49 12/18/19 4:41 PMdecember23,2019–january5, 2020 | newyork 49a mommyinfluencerinLouisville,Kentucky, is hawkinga cucum-
ber face wipe on Instagram. She leans into the camera and presses
a moist tissue to her chin. She tells her audience she swears by it.Later
that day, she’s back online to conscript her blond toddler son into
a sponsored post for a children’s book called Pete the Hungry Pig. Her
name is Kaelin Armstrong Dunn, and she is 29 years old. She has five
children, a husband, and pets. She shills relentlessly. Chex. Duracell. An
invention that detects alcohol content in breast milk. At 46,500 follow-
ers, Dunn qualifies as a top-tier micro-influencer and is tantalizingly
close to the sponcon big leagues. ¶ Ninety-nine percent of thetime,
Dunn stays on brand. Except in early November 2019, a few days after
the face-wipe post, she publishes an uncharacteristic #ad for KentuckyDemocraticgubernatorial candidate Andy Beshear. “A few reason [sic] I plan to vote forAndy
Beshearis because he’s not Matt Bevin, he’s a democrat and he wants to fix the pension plan for for
[sic] ALLteachers and not just SOME!,” she writes. In the photo, she is holding a child. “He also
wantstoget ridofrighttowork,he’s prounion,andmy favoritehegetshiskidstheirshots !”
Dunnmaywellsupport Beshear, who defeated the Republican
incumbent,MattBevin, the next day by a mere 5,086 votes. But
shepluggedhimonline because a Manhattan-based tech entre-
preneurnamedCurtisHougland paid her $100 to. Hougland, 52,
runsa 13-personstart-up that hires social-media influencers to
docheerfulpropaganda for political clients—in this case, the Ken-
tucky DemocraticParty. Once their posts are out in the wild, his
firm,MainStreet One,plucks high-performing content and turns
it into digital advertising. On Election Day, the party ran Facebook
ads featuring Dunn’s Instagram post.
“People don’t want journalistic content—this idea of ripping
a headline from the Grand Rapids paper and making it into an
ad,” Hougland says. Instead, his idea for 2020 will be to mobi-
lize this influencer brigade against the president. “So if Trump
said to the people of Youngstown, Ohio, ‘Don’t sell your homes
or mortgages, because your job’s going nowhere’ and then the
GM plant closes? At that moment, you gotta be ready with your
creator network.”
Hougland’s shop, which began operating earlier this year,
announces itself with the high-minded tagline “We Fix Internet
Discourse.” Hougland, sandy-haired and cherub-faced, has a
resistance crusader’s faith that the forces standing in the way of
Democratic victory are partisan fake news and foreign disinfor-
mation. “We’re not going to make up information,” he tells me.
“We’re not going to use bots.” Just the opposite, he argues. What
could be more real than a first-person testimonial? (Sowhat if
it’s pay-for-play?) And while his righteous indignation can seem
at odds with his current venture, he’s one of the few Democrats
pushing the envelope on the staid left-wing internet. For many
progressives, the question seems to be whether they canhave an
impact online without further messing with democracy. In other
words, how far will they go to win?a decade ago, in the era of proverbial hope and change, the
internet was Democratic territory. Like Hollywood, like the
music industry, it was run by media elites and young people, ren-
dering it seemingly impenetrable to conservatives. Maybe it was
complacency, or maybe it was a certain vital energy shifting to
the weirder, darker corners of the social web rather thanthe ad-
agency-approved mainstream of microtargeted emails, but
there’s a consensus that Democrats lost the internet in 2016. Or,
really, lost Facebook, which has become tantamount to losing theIn a world of fake news and dank memes, thismeans they’re no longer very good at the internet.BY SIMON VAN ZUYLEN-WOODPhoto-illustration by Delcan & Co.