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Billionaire Tom Steyer shelled out $75,000 to celebrity gossip powerhouse The Shade Room and meme account Foos Gone Wild as he tries to win over young voters, filings reveal.
Hedge fund titan Steyer has poured more than $190 million into his own bid for California governor — and he’s sparing no expenseon online adsto cast himself as a progressive billionaire to social media-addicted Gen Z voters.
That included a $25,000 payment to The Shade Room, thewildly popular gossip accountthat posts “culture, news & convo” and boasts 28 million Instagram followers.
The account shows two posts about Steyer’s campaign — onehighlighting his planto block the merger of Warner Bros and Paramount, and another promoting his endorsement byBlack Women’s Collective PAC, citing his views on “reparations, HCBU investment and economic empowerment,” for black women.
“The PAC says Steyer engaged the data directly, speaking specifically to the economic vulnerability of Black women and the systemic gaps affecting Black girls in schools, healthcare, and mental health systems,” the post read.
The $25,000 payment was listed as “online communications” in Steyer’s latest financial filing, which covers spending through May 16, and disclosed at the bottom of each of the two posts.
Another popular meme account,Foos Gone Wild, was paid $50,000 for a chummy interview with Steyer in which the billionaire joined anonymous host Mr. E for a chat about holding ICE accountable and grabbing food at a taco truck.
The paid spot, which Foos Gone Wild didn’t initially make clear, included an awkward “sock check” in which Steyer showed off white tube socks he hiked up high on his leg. The sock check is a long-running Foos Gone Wild gag to gague whether someone is “down” or “lame.”
Foos Gone Wild quietly added a disclosure to the post after being called by social media creators for not making the payment clear.
Source: California Post – Breaking California News, Photos & Videos
