“I’ve had a really hard time pushing people over,” she confesses, adding that Instagram—where she has 113,000 followers—is her preferred platform. “The algorithms are so different, too. If it was the same across all the platforms, I would have the same following on every platform.”
Being hostage to an algorithm or an act of Congress—and the financial strain that entails—is one of the reasons why Gardner is making it a priority in 2025 to build her own news platform that she can monetize. That would free her from relying on platforms owned by self-interested billionaires or international companies that may fall out of favor with whichever administration is currently occupying the Oval Office.
“One of my big focuses this year is growing my podcast, take my content off of social media, and doing more in-person events,” she says. “Basically, I just want to become CNN, but in a very small way! That’s what those of us content creators in the news space are trying to build.”
V Spehar, Under the Desk News
To borrow a line from ABC News, more TikTok-enabled Americans get their news from V Spehar than from any other source. The founder of Under the Desk News has amassed an audience of 3.3 million followers since joining the platform in 2020, and they are certain to be a familiar face to anyone with an active Instagram or YouTube news feed. (Spehar identifies as nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns.)
Their success has provided them with the resources to expand the Under the Desk News staff in recent months. “I started making long-form YouTube content, so I invested in an editor and better video editing equipment,” Spehar says, noting that the Bytedance-owned Capcut video editing app preferred by TikTokers could also be banned. “I understood that to survive this, you would have to be stronger.”
At the same time, they admit to being pessimistic that Instagram or YouTube will make up for the potential loss of TikTok, both financially and in terms of audience reach.
“YouTube is a whole new skill to learn in terms of how to scroll through it—the algorithm doesn’t as quickly adapt to your preferences as TikTok’s did,” Spehar explains. “We are essentially cutting out peoples’ means of communicating and also their economic opportunities. And that’s the thing that gets me choked up.”
