{"id":2149,"date":"2026-05-22T20:11:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T20:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/2026\/05\/22\/spencer-pratts-mayoral-campaign-is-choosing-clipping-over-cable\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T20:11:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T20:11:00","slug":"spencer-pratts-mayoral-campaign-is-choosing-clipping-over-cable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/2026\/05\/22\/spencer-pratts-mayoral-campaign-is-choosing-clipping-over-cable\/","title":{"rendered":"Spencer Pratt\u2019s Mayoral Campaign Is Choosing Clipping Over Cable"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\tThe surprising success of Spencer Pratt<\/a>\u2018s campaign<\/a> to become mayor of Los Angeles is serving as a spotlight on the changing dynamics of political media: TV, radio and traditional media are out, social media virality and clipping are in.<\/p>\n

\tPratt (who garnered national fame from reality TV and leveraged that into a sizable social media presence) is in a strong position to make the runoff, where he would likely face incumbent Karen Bass in the general election (Nithya Raman is trying to flank Bass from the left). President Trump seemed to endorse<\/a> Pratt this week, though it is not obvious that would be helpful to his campaign.<\/p>\n

\tBut while campaign expenditures from the Bass and Raman campaigns show thousands of dollars in expenses related to TV, radio and print ads, the Pratt campaign appears far more focused on social media, and in particular the phenomenon of \u201cclipping,\u201d taking moments from events and interviews and spreading them far and wide on platforms like TikTok and Reels.<\/p>\n

\tAccording to the campaign records, earlier this month Pratt\u2019s campaign spent $30,025 on \u201cClipping Culture LLC\u201d which calls itself \u201cThe #1 clipping agency behind viral campaigns\u201d and a client list that includes Yung Gravy, Selena Gomez and Lady Gaga. The campaign also spent $25,000 on Cliphaus Inc., which calls itself \u201cthe trusted, leading clipping company distributing content at the largest scale, and helping creators, artists and brands generate\u00a0billions of views\u00a0through short-form content, with unrivaled results.\u201d Its clients include Rich the Kid and Atlantic Records.<\/p>\n

\tClipping has become a fact of life, given the velocity of viral social videos, but the Pratt campaign is taking it to the next level, releasing its own clips and amplifying AI videos apparently created by fans and supporters.<\/p>\n

\tPratt\u2019s campaign has taken advantage of a slew of AI-generated videos, apparently created by fans and supporters, underscoring how generative AI and social media are transforming the nature of political media. Probably the most widely-shared video featured a digital recreation of Bass, wearing makeup similar to that of The Joker from the Batman franchise as images of L.A. in flames appear. Pratt is then featured putting on a Batman suit.<\/p>\n

\tPratt is not ignoring legacy media: he has appeared fairly regularly for interviews with local TV and local media, but when it comes to paid media, it seems clear that his campaign strategy is betting on social, even as his competitors bet that traditional media still has juice. If he succeeds, it would be a sea change moment for political media consultants, though like President Trump, it is not obvious that any lessons learned can work with other candidates that aren\u2019t as skilled at demanding people\u2019s attention.<\/p>\n

\tThe New York Times<\/em> reports <\/a>that <\/a>the Pratt campaign has not purchased any local TV airtime, while his rivals have spent about $2 million combined.<\/p>\n

\tBass has mostly avoided discussing him and taking him seriously, despite his performance in the polls and his ability to garner high-profile supporters like Haim Saban, Brian Grazer and Nicole Avant. Bass told The Hollywood Reporter<\/em> in an interview <\/a>this week: \u201cI think the tone of his campaign is very negative and it\u2019s like the tone I think you would see from a reality star. So I think his goal is to be famous and he\u2019s a lot more famous now than he was as a reality TV star.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tInstead, supporters of Bass, including some high-profile labor unions, appear to be leveraging online virality to, depending on how you look at it, oppose Pratt, or maybe to bolster him.<\/p>\n

\tAn ad that appeared earlier this month, which was financed by LA Unions Opposed to Spencer Pratt for Mayor 2026, including the AFL-CIO, declared that \u201cPratt opposes using taxpayer money to build brand new houses for our unhoused neighbors\u201d and that Pratt wants L.A. \u201cto hire thousands more police officers, rather than more social workers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tThe video indeed went viral, with online personalities like Megyn Kelly and Ben Shapiro laughing at the absurdity of it, and people like Sen. Ted Cruz sharing it.<\/p>\n

\tThe ad, which cost $221,000 according to filings, may have been a back-door effort to drum up GOP support, betting that getting Pratt into the next round with Bass could give her an easier path to victory in the general election.<\/p>\n

\tAnd it was a digital play by the unions, betting (correctly, it seems) that the surprising ad would be the subject of chatter on X and TikTok, among other platforms, primarily by conservatives.<\/p>\n

\tBut it is telling that one of the most viral anti-Pratt ads could very well have been designed to bolster him, and that his competitors haven\u2019t seem to be able to grasp the fast-moving nature of social media and clipping.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The surprising success of Spencer Pratt\u2018s campaign to become mayor of Los Angeles is serving as a spotlight on the changing dynamics of political media: TV, radio and traditional media are out, social media virality and clipping are in. Pratt (who garnered national fame from reality TV and leveraged that into a sizable social media presence) is in a strong position to make the runoff, where he would likely face incumbent Karen Bass in the general election (Nithya Raman is trying to flank Bass from the left). President Trump seemed to endorse Pratt this week, though it is not obvious that would be helpful to his campaign. But while campaign […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2150,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,28,54,977],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hollywood","category-news","category-politics-news","category-spencer-pratt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}