How One of the Biggest Political TikTokers Actually Makes a Living

I met Vitus “V” Spehar – the face behind News under the table – a year ago in Washington, DC. I was at the scene with On the edge film the TikTok Senate hearing along with interviews with senators and content creators for a Border video about the impending ban. And when we interviewed V outside the Capitol, V said that TikTok was useful for channels like yours – a news channel that was started because they didn’t believe traditional news sources were accessible enough for younger audiences. V’s TikTok channel now has 3.1 million subscribers.

Every weekday, V scours news sites looking for six to eight stories that he feels are important enough to share with his audience. V then condenses each story into a short snippet, crawls under a table, and creates a 90-second video that highlights the day’s events. It was this ritual, which began on January 6, 2021, that propelled V to TikTok political fame.

But this fame brings some unique challenges. Under The Desk occupies a complicated space that positions V somewhere between news anchor and internet personality. So, although V disseminates information to millions of people, they see their followers as a community – a community that they care about and sometimes give advice to. And when you add that to the huge divide in US politics, it’s a recipe for a series of backlashes that V is increasingly having to deal with.

In the latest episode of my new creator-focused video series, I spend a day with V to find out why the hell they keep doing this and, more importantly, how they feel about the impending ban that threatens their core subscriber base.