The anti-politics of 'Upworthy'

Upworthy says it’s not focused on elections. Really.

The viral media site, which curates video and content with a headline style that has become a meme in its own right, describes itself as “social media with a mission.” Since it launched in March 2012, Upworthy has drawn big traffic — about 53 million visitors in February — with sharing-friendly content. And it does its news aggregation with a point of view that is decidedly progressive and left-wing.


Upworthy has hit the sweet spot of political messaging, according to some observers, by effectively couching its progressive-leaning politics without emphasizing partisanship and tapping into the wide swath of young voters Republicans and Democrats both covet. And thanks to emotionally-driven clickbait headlines, the site is also able to reach out to the universe of people who normally aren’t interested in politics. For some GOP media strategists, Upworthy has become a cause for concern.

Some of the recent items under Upworthy’s politics section include “Watching The Arizona Bill Go Down In Flames Isn’t Just Cause For Celebration. It’s A Sign Of Change,” “5 Ways Your Life Is Going To Change Because Of Obamacare,” “3 Anti-Immigration Myths That Take Seconds To Debunk For An Actual Economist” and “A Senator Asks A Panel Of Experts To Defend Walmart. It Gets Awkward.”

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“We do have a point of view,” the site says on its “ about” page. “We’re pro-gay-marriage, and we’re anti-child-poverty. We think the media is horrible to women, we think climate change is real, and we think the government has a lot to learn from the Internet about efficiency, disruption, and effectiveness.”

Executives at the site may say they’re not interested in traditional politics.

“When we curate, we focus on important issues that we think will resonate with millions of people,” Peter Koechley, co-founder and co-CEO of Upworthy, said in a statement. “Sometimes elections factor in – if the issues at the heart of the debate align with our editorial focus – and sometimes they don’t.”

But media observers and Republican messaging experts say they don’t see that hands-off approach from the site at all. With Upworthy’s extensive reach to a young audience of possible voters, coupled with a distinctly progressive slant, some GOP media strategists say the party should be scrambling to figure out how to combat a site that makes progressive content go viral.

“It has the potential to be more dangerous to the livelihood of the GOP at the presidential level than the entire editorial board of The New York Times,” said Republican strategist Ford O’Connell. “It has the potential to nudge progressive voters to the ballot box in national elections. This is one giant liberal activist social media machine.”

The content is chosen to strike a chord and go viral with the audience that Upworthy states on its site it’s aiming for: “Basically, ‘The Daily Show’ generation. People who care about what’s going on in the world but don’t want to be boring about it.”

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This year alone, Upworthy, which declined POLITICO’s requests for interviews, has posted 45 items tagged specifically as “politics,” featuring content framing political issues with Upworthy’s progressive point of view. And that’s not counting the items centered on policy issues with a political bent that can be found instead in other categories such as “diversity,” “economy,” “military” and “immigration.”

The meme-ified Upworthy-style headline often promises that an item will completely change the way a reader views the world. Examples: “A Politician Loses It And Restores My Faith In Humanity,” “Politics Aside, President Obama Just Beautifully Articulated What America Is,” and “Congress Did Something So Spectacularly Creepy That It’s Too Unbelievable To Make Up.”

Eli Pariser, former executive director of MoveOn.org, and Koechley, former managing editor of The Onion who also worked at MoveOn, launched Upworthy with money from investors who included Chris Hughes, one of Facebook’s co-founders and current publisher and editor in chief of The New Republic.

The site has grown tremendously in two years, according to Quantcast, peaking at nearly 90 million unique visitors in November 2013. It got 67 million in December, about 48 million in January and about 53 million uniques in February. Some have chalked up the drop in visitors to a change in Facebook’s algorithm — Facebook has been critical to the social media site becoming a sharing juggernaut — while others have pointed to Upworthy “fatigue” or the change as just part of the up-and-down life of any social platform. But the numbers are still huge.

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And media observers and political messaging experts say the site is able to spread left-leaning stories without being overtly partisan, and in doing so, grab the attention of both young voters and the realm of people who aren’t invested in politics.

“Even though they are relatively liberal, they don’t write about partisanship in the headline,” said Kjerstin Thorson, an assistant professor at USC’s Annenberg School for Journalism & Communication. “You can spread a piece of content that’s actually making sometimes quite a partisan argument without looking like you’re asserting your opinion.”

And, Thorson, who focuses on how young people use and make decisions about what to share and post on social media, added that it might not be obvious to many sharing Upworthy’s content that “they’re spreading something that’s quote unquote liberal.”

“They’re spreading something that means something to them in the moment and that they think people like them, people that they’re friends with, will enjoy seeing,” she said.

And in creating viral content in that fashion, Upworthy is essentially trying to “really ensnare a lot of people who don’t follow politics very closely,” O’Connell, the GOP consultant, noted.

And Republican strategist Bruce Haynes of Purple Strategies said the site has been particularly effective in pushing progressive political content, giving those backing a particular policy “the opportunity to put your issue on the rocket ship quickly and connect it to that audience.”

Some political figures have emerged as particular favorites of those at the site, most notably Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who Upworthy’s Adam Mordecai called “my favorite senator in the world” and praised as having “one of the most impressive resumes in financial politics. She’s a wonk. She knows her facts.”

And the “ most Upworthy” topics of 2013 included dozens of issues touching on the political spectrum from income inequality, gay marriage to health policy to politics itself. Even on the stories not particularly focused on elections or politics, “there’s very much an underpinning of where they stand on issues,” said Amy Vernon, a former journalist turned viral content and social media expert.

“There’s no mistaking it. It’s very liberal leaning, very left-leaning, and unapologetically so,” she said. “It seems like other websites’ forays into political coverage has been more traditional — like BuzzFeed, for example, their political coverage is really a very traditional approach to politics, in terms of the voice, the tone and the depth.”

Upworthy takes a different spin, as a news aggregator trying to promote what they find to be “meaningful” content.

“This is the first time where I’ve seen one of these sites where the content is substantive,” Vernon said. “And I find that very interesting because instead of just having cat videos go viral, having a video go viral that actually has some depth to it, is perhaps a little more hopeful.”

The content isn’t always simply what they find to be “meaningful,” though. Upworthy also has sponsored content — but “these partnerships, by design, completely align with our mission of lifting up important content,” according to the site. The AFL-CIO sponsors a series on work and the economy, dubbed “Workonomics,” for instance, that features items such as “Nearly 1/3 Of All Campaign Dollars in 2013 Came From A Tiny Group Of People. Care To Guess Who?” and “When You Give Tax Breaks To Rich Folks Because ‘They Will Make Jobs!’ What Really Happens?”

With all its content, political or not, Upworthy is going after an audience that is looking for something different than what traditional media outlets offer with video. According to a recent study, 43 percent of 18 to 24 year-olds didn’t watch any live TV during the one week survey period, and 40 percent of 25 to 34 year-olds said the same, POLITICO reported last month.

And that’s what some GOP messaging experts said scares them the most about Upworthy. The site seems to have a handle on the next generation of voters. It gets great traffic numbers. And it also curates simple, emotionally-driven content with a left-wing, progressive bent.

“It seems to us like the classic thing that Obama and Organizing for Action are trying to do, which is to take people who may seem pretty non-political and try to activate them,” Tim Graham of the conservative Media Research Center said. “You know, try to nudge them. These aren’t people who are going to read political books or blogs, they may just need a little bit of a push. They’re not looking to rehash the talking points you’re going to find on the floor of the House. They’re trying to do something different — it is the tech equivalent of saying, my brothers and sisters aren’t as political as me, so how do I reach them?”

“It’s heavy on emotion and very light on reason,” Graham said.

Upworthy’s longevity to 2016 isn’t certain, obviously — will a viral site of its nature that’s already widely parodied really last, some observers wonder? The site’s headline style has spawned parody Twitter accounts such as @ UpWorthIt and @ UpworthySpoiler, and the Upworthy Generator churns out headlines mocking the site’s signature style such as “Think We’re Winning The War On Terror? Maybe You Should Listen To This Extroverted Pianist” and “You Will Get Upset When You See What An Unknown Blogger Found.” For some observers and readers online, Upworthy fatigue is real, and the feel-good, hopeful clickbait headlines are already played out.

“A, how long can it be sustained? And B, is there a sense of credibility associated with that style of headline?” asked Ronald Yaros, associate professor of multiplatform and mobile journalism at the University of Maryland Philip Merrill College of Journalism.

Either way, take a look at the money: In September, the site announced it had received $8 million in a new round of funding. It’s got the cash to keep making a play for viral content, whether or not the Upworthy fatigue is pervasive or just a blip, into 2014 and beyond.

And as Paul Levinson, a professor of media and communications studies at Fordham University, pointed out, sometimes a single video can change the tone of an election.

“All it takes is one story when you get into an election cycle,” he said. “When you think about 2012 and the video of Romney lashing out at 47 percent of the people — it was Mother Jones, but any site that’s active and out there can indeed have a major impact.”

And Upworthy can reach those who aren’t typically interested in politics — after someone clicks on one heartwarming, uplifting headline, they can easily get sucked into the site and fall into the more overtly left-wing content.

“They’re like, ‘If you’re not going to go find politics, we’re going to bring politics to you,’” O’Connell said. “That’s very smart on their part. I’m sure it’s not going to make people on the right side of the aisle all that thrilled.”