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Personal U.S. Senator from California 49th Vice President of the United States Vice presidential campaigns   | ||
#KHive is the hashtag used by an informal online community supportingKamala Harris, the 49thvice president of theUnited States and2024 Democratic presidential nominee. The hashtag is also a term that is always pronounced and occasionally transcribed asK-Hive, and refers to the wider online community that is not formally affiliated with her campaign or office. The community formed prior to and during her2020 presidential campaign as an effort to defend Harris from perceived misinformation and attacks perceived as racist and sexist. The movement has been cited as an example of social media fandom orstan culture.
Sources vary on the coinage of the term.The Daily Dot saidJoy Reid first used the term in August 2017 in a tweet saying "@DrJasonJohnson @ZerlinaMaxwell and I had a meeting and decided it's called the K-Hive."[1][2] Reecie Colbert, a prominent member of the movement, toldBakari Sellers she believed Bianca Delarosa coined the term[3] but disputed a claim by Delarosa that she was "the only one who speaks for KHive."[4] She said the movement had no formal leaders but was "just a bunch of really scrappy accounts on Twitter, on social media."[3]
Usage of the hashtag increased in August 2018,[5] before Harris had announced her presidential candidacy but after she told MSNBC'sKasie Hunt that she was "not ruling it out."[6] As of July 2019, while Harris was in her presidential campaign, 38,000Twitter accounts had used the hashtag and according toVox "accrued an estimated 360 million impressions".[5] K-Hive is derived from a hashtag associated with the online fandom ofBeyoncé, the #BeyHive, which is itself a play onbeehive.[7][5][8]
The movement has been cited as an example of social media fandom orstan culture.[5][8][9]Politico andBuzzfeed News identified the KHive, alongside "Bernie Bros", the "Yang Gang", "Team Pete," and "Cuomosexuals", as part of a new wave of online political supporters that strongly support a single candidate in a semi-parasocial manner.[10][9]
The community formed prior to and during Harris's2020 presidential campaign as an effort to defend her from racist and sexist attacks and debunk misinformation.[5][7][8][11][12] It is not formally affiliated with the campaign.[5]
According toWired, the organization was expected to be helpful to the 2020 Biden–Harris campaign.[13] According to Newsy, the strength of the relationship between KHive and Harris could be used to force Biden to take Harris' point of view seriously.[11] Kimberly Peeler-Allen of Rutgers'Center for American Women and Politics told Newsy that "the urge to stick with the status quo and the same voices around the table is extremely strong, so it will take the #KHive and coalition work all across the board to make sure that Senator Harris' voice is definitely heard and taken into account."[11]
In September 2020, Alanna Vagianos, writing forThe Huffington Post, observed that "as with most loosely-organized online groups, it does not have a unified set of tactics, and bad actors are hard or impossible to control."[4] According to Vagianos, there have been claims by supporters ofBernie Sanders andElizabeth Warren that they have been cyber-harassed by individuals alleged to be affiliated with the KHive. In response to the Huffington Post article, Sabrina Singh, the press secretary for Kamala Harris, stated "The campaign does not condone doxxing, derogatory language or harassment of any kind." Some progressives have argued that there is a double standard regarding KHive from the media and some Democrats due to the substantial amount of criticism that supporters ofBernie Sanders labeled as "Bernie Bros" received for allegations of harassment.[4]
In July 2024, following a drop in support for incumbent president Joe Biden,[14] KHive saw a resurgence with many Democrats saying she should take over the 2024 Democratic nomination.[15][16] When Biden dropped out of the presidential campaign on July 21, 2024, the support for Harris's campaign reached new levels of online fandom alongside meme edits of Harris to songs off of pop singerCharli XCX's albumBrat, which had released earlier in the summer.[17][18]
Harris's supporters also use the hashtag#WeGotHerBack.[7][13] Followers of her husband on social media call themselves the#DougHive.[19]
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