Is this what we need from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services?
Are cartoons, AI videos, memes & celebrity cameos the best way to educate Americans?
In its Style & Fashion section, The Wall Street Journal recently reported on all of the crazy cartoons and videos promoting Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. - your US Secretary of Health and Human Services.
The article described four 20- and 30-somethings “with a mix of political, video and marketing know-how (who) have helped turn the 72-year old Kennedy into a social media maverick.” The story states that:
Kennedy posts the videos across his various accounts, including his HHS Secretary pages, which have 2.7 million followers across Instagram and X, and his personal pages which have more than 10 million followers combined.
Now that the Administration has decided to tone down criticism of vaccines before the midterm election, the “Eat Real Food” theme has been dominating. But are “cartoons, memes and celebrity cameos” the best way to educate Americans? Does America need a Putin-like shirtless federal health agency chief to make its point? Do we need more macho imagery - a trend I’ve already documented in an earlier article? Because need it or not, that continues to be what we’re getting. Here he is pictured in an arcade game defeating a pink doughnut. Impressive.
There is apparently no end to this. Here’s what they labeled “MAHAMania SnackDown,” with Kennedy body slamming a Twinkie-looking opponent.
Here’s a silly 2-for-1 action figure promotion of him “teaming with” the Secretary of Education Linda McMahon “to ensure the next generation of doctors understand nutrition and how it impacts health.” Her degree is in French. Her official bio says she “pursued a career in business as the CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment.” Wrestling is big with this Administration.
His young digital team was very proud of this short video in which Kennedy sips whole milk and goes into a dreamlike trance in a nightclub. One X user wrote: “if your beverage is making you hallucinate chances are it's not fresh whole milk.”
I wonder how the use of these photos with his father and his uncle went over with the rest of the Kennedy family. We know that various family members have been openly critical of him. Caroline Kennedy said he was “addicted to attention and power.” His nephew, Jack Schlossberg, accused him of “dismissing science, misleading the public, sidelining experts and sowing confusion”.
But what’s the relevance of these boyhood images here?
All of these images and video clips come from Kennedy’s official X page or that of the Department of Health & Human Services - government social media sites.
Some reactions from people on X:
Our lives and livelihood are not games for you to play with.
Complete waste of taxpayer dollars. Shame on you.
When is the Saturday morning cartoon series coming out?
Kids are dying of measles and he’s posting AI videos of himself fighting a Twinkie. We’re so f***ed.
Americans can’t afford groceries.And what is the Trump administration doing about it? Posting cringe AI slop.
This government is a circus of narcissists.
Nobody needs to be told Twinkies are bad. Anti-junk food awareness campaigns don’t move population-level diet. Food environment, pricing, school nutrition, labeling, and access do. All being defunded or ignored, but he gets to take his shirt off again.
Meantime, a recent Annenberg Public Policy Center survey showed that only 9 percent of those polled were “very confident” that Kennedy is providing the public with trustworthy information about matters concerning public health.
So among the countless issues Kennedy could be spending more time on instead of all of this silly imagery:
an erosion of public trust in him and in the agencies he oversees;
broad institutional instability, including chaos with turnover in the FDA and CDC;
the troubled and troubling nomination of Casey Means to be the next Surgeon General;
pandemic preparedness;
coming up with evidence to back some of his many previous non-evidence-based claims;
measles outbreaks.
Now that would be a macho game plan.
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P.S. - If you want to see an FDA video that looks and sounds like a 3 a.m. used car salesman commercial, watch this “FDA Wrap” video featuring FDA senior communications adviser (doesn’t look so senior to me) Ben Nichols constantly pointing his finger in your face with excited, emphatic, almost breathless salesmanship for what’s happening “under Commissioner Makary.” Pitches like: “The FDA is moving faster than ever….to support the MAHA mission and your gains in the gym, Commissioner Makary is holding a major public meeting on March 27th to hear from you on supplements and dietary ingredients.” Click on the image to see the video - another example of our federal health agencies amping up the self-praise. I see many people calling it narcissism.
