With the next Democratic debate set to take place next week, we’ve been looking back through our last few debate debrief analyses to see if we could make any predictions for the night’s events. 

While we’ve seen many interesting moments and insights, one trend that has remained consistent across every debate we’ve analyzed has been the noise generated by candidate Andrew Yang’s supporters.

Using data from the Zignal Labs platform to learn a little more about the #YangGang (Yang’s self-named fan base), we found that many of Yang’s supporters on Twitter have a lot in common.

Here are some of the most interesting shared characteristics we observed about the #YangGang.

Blue Hats Galore

Right off the bat, we noticed that many of the accounts that expressly support Yang (and Andrew Yang himself), use the “🧢” emoji as a part of their Twitter name or bio. Representing Yang’s famous blue “MATH” hat, this emoji is one of the most obvious calling cards of the #YangGang on Twitter.

Hashtags for Everyone (and Everything)

#artistsforyang                               #notleftnotrightbutforward                   #yangforceone
#blackwomenforyang #registerforyang #yangforsouthernmayors
#breakdancingforyang #returnofthemath #yanggangintl
#getyangonellen #switchedtoyang #yangmemes
#houstonyanggang #teachers4yang #yangsclimateplan
#letyangspeak #textbankingforyang
#mathcat #truckersforyang
#momsforyang #whyyangbeatstrump
#myyangstory #yangaholic
#nashvilleyanggang #yangdanceparty

 

Digging deeper into the conversations Yang’s supporters are having on Twitter, we found that the #YangGang employs an unusually large set of hashtags (see above table for a curated selection of these hashtags).

While #YangGang is by far the most popular, Twitter is teeming with an incredible diversity of hashtags in support of Yang, including everything from #andrewyangfacts (self-explanatory) to #yangsurfing (whose top tweet shows a video of Yang crowd surfing at an event).

Many of the hashtags are affinity hashtags, which help people that identify with specific groups find other like-minded individuals who also support Andrew Yang.

New Yang Stans

Another trend we observed was that there seem to be a large number of accounts that (in their own words) were recently created expressly to follow, promote and rally support for Yang. Common characteristics of these accounts are 1) including Yang2020.com (Yang’s official campaign website) in their Twitter bio, and 2) using a picture of Yang in their profile or banner picture on Twitter, further increasing visibility for the cause.

We’ll see if this trend – and the others we discussed above – continue as the race to 2020 marches on. 

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Want more while you wait for our analysis of next week’s debate? Test your knowledge on deepfakes, take a read through our latest Story of a Hashtag analysis on #TeamTrees and learn how you can become the adoption champion your team needs.

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