For Kenneth Walden, a self-proclaimed KHive member who was one of the influencers invited to attend the DNC this year, the time to correct perceived attacks on Harris is now. Roan’s TikTok video questioning the Democratic Party’s record on trans rights proved particularly disturbing to the content creator. In an insult-laced video addressing Roan’s disappointment with Democrats, Walden insisted she is simply an uninformed pop star who hasn’t done anything for the LGBTQIA+ community—even though uplifting queer people has been a central part of Roan’s artistry.

Roan’s misgivings about the Democrats’ commitment to improving the lives of queer people are also not entirely unfounded. While Democrats have generally been an important stopgap between trans people and an overwhelming wave of anti-queer policies, in the past few years alone, there has been clear room for improvement. In 2023, Biden riled LGBTQIA+ advocates when his administration carved out exceptions in their proposed change to Title IX that left room for schools to ban some trans athletes from competing in sports. In Pennsylvania, where Democrats control the state House and the governorship, anti-LGBTQIA+ policies continue to disrupt trans people’s lives. Even some 2024 Democratic campaigns are validating Roan’s concerns; for instance, a recent ad from Texas Senate candidate Colin Allred parroted the anti-trans dog whistles used to stoke discrimination against transgender athletes.

The interactions the Harris fans are having on the Internet may play well with the already converted, but for the skeptics, as comedian Vinny Thomas put it, “You guys are not changing any minds, u are just scaring the hoes.” In the days following the attacks on Roan, “Blue MAGA,” a pejorative used to describe cultish tendencies among some “vote blue no matter who” Democrats, began trending. One Twitter user wrote, “I had been leaning towards voting for Kamala while holding my nose out of fear for my daughters [sic] bodily autonomy… but wow blue MAGA is really making me not want to do even that.”

Not every young person on social media is completely put off by the KHive. TikTokker Christian Divyne doesn’t believe Blue MAGA is a fair descriptor for understandably panicked Democrats. Regardless of KHive rhetoric, the chances of thousands of neon green-clad youths storming the Capitol are low. However, Divyne told The Nation, that doesn’t absolve influencers of their responsibility to “hold the weight of their platform, understand what that means and use it effectively”—without making lukewarm voters feel their concerns are unimportant or that they are “dumb.”

Some disaffected Gen Z voters have seen the KHive’s anger playing out online and still feel unmoved. Kathryn LaMontagne, a law student and environmental activist, told The Nation that if the Harris campaign wants to win over young progressives, “they’ll do something with some action involved, and not just memes and having influencers argue with other people on the Internet about endorsing Kamala.”

Another young voter, who plans to vote downballot even if she doesn’t vote for Harris, told The Nation that a Chappell Roan endorsement of the vice president wouldn’t change her stance despite her affinity for the singer. “The biggest thing holding me back is the Harris-Walz position on Israel and Palestine,” the voter, who asked to be kept anonymous to avoid online vitriol, said. She added that Roan’s expression of feeling morally conflicted about Harris but voting for her anyway felt more inspiring than the online outreach from influencers she perceives as viewing the Harris-Walz campaign through “rose-colored glasses.”

Maggie McDonald, a professor of political science at the University of Kentucky who researches social media and politics, was not surprised by Roan’s thoughts on the election. She’s seen a similar civic malaise among many of her students. “For their sense of self-preservation in the short term, they want to not engage with what they see as just negative back and forth content, difficult to find information or overwhelming amounts of information,” she told The Nation.

As cathartic as it is to snark at perceived stupidity on the Internet, Harris influencers may need to decide whether they want to be agreed with or effective, especially since vocal youth support for Harris won’t necessarily translate to a vote for her. McDonald says arming young people with information on how to register and vote is a more effective way to motivate them to take action on election day.

“In reality, there are very few people, especially among young people, who are truly up for grabs and are willing to vote,” McDonald said. “The people who are able to be fired up are probably already fired up…for a lot of voters, particularly young voters, the decision is, do I stay home or do I vote?”

In their book Making Young Voters: Converting Civic Attitudes into Civic Action, John B. Holbein and D. Sunshine Hillygus found that the United States has one of the worst rates of youth voter turnout in the world. In the US, young voter turnout in 2020 was about 57 percent compared to a 74 percent turnout from voters over 64. A 2023 Harvard study indicates that young Americans could continue the trend by voting less in 2024 than in 2020. At this stage, McDonald says a candidate’s best-case scenario is converting a young American who is 0 percent likely to vote into a non-zero.

With less than two weeks until Election Day, opportunities to create Harris superbelievers are fading fast. Divyne, who was not propelled closer to voting for Harris because of influencer outreach, isn’t compelled to drill into his followers who to vote for. Instead, he has prioritized stressing that voting isn’t a waste of time. “The Electoral College system is so wacky, but on a smaller scale, everything else you vote for is a one-to-one issue. Your vote really matters for all these things, and that needs to be stated.”