By Vincent Ng
Less than half of the Americans ages 12-39 are fully vaccinated, only 48% of 12-17 year olds are fully vaccinated. On the other hand, more than two thirds of people above 50 years old are fully vaccinated. With all the anti-vaccine activists spreading misinformation. Convincing the rest of the population and mostly the young people is a big problem.
To combat this, the white house has reached out to a bunch of influencers to help connect to the younger people and to try and convince them to get the vaccine. These influencers include tiktokers, youtubers, twitch streamers and much more. All of these figures have millions of people following them online. Some states have also started this but they've decided to target some smaller influencers with 5-10 thousand followers.
One person that has been contacted is Ellie Zeiler, a 17 year old TikTok creator with over 10 million followers. She received an email in early June from an influencer market agency. The email asked if Ellie Zeiler wanted to participate in a White-house hosted campaign that encouraged people to get vaccinated. Ellie Zeiler agreed and joined a board filled with other influencers to help the challenge of getting young people vaccinated
Renee DiResta, a researcher who studies misinformation at the Stanford Internet Observatory thinks that the plan to call in a bunch of influencers is a great idea but it might not be enough to convince everyone. She says that anti vax people are talking everyday about not taking the vaccine which might have a stronger impact.
Some of the influencers working with the white house that have already spread the message Christina Najjar, a 30 year old tiktok star known online as Tinx has posted a video that has her asking questions and getting answers about the vaccine with Dr. Faucci. The Biden administration also collaborated with Olivia Rodrigo who then spoke about how important the vaccine was and urged everyone to get it.