As political polarization intensifies, agencies struggle to find brand-safe gaming influencers

Siragusa’s comments were the latest of many political statements made by once-apolitical content creators within recent memory. Over the past year, the leading esports organization FaZe Clan endorsed Donald Trump, and creators who had previously focused on gaming content, such as prominent Twitch streamers Zack “Asmongold” Hoyt or Steven “Destiny” Bonnell, pivoted to spend most of their time discussing current events like the U.S. presidential election and the conflict in Gaza. (Hoyt and Bonnell did not respond to requests for comment prior to the publication of this story.)

And this newfound political outspokenness seems to resonate with consumers. During the 2024 election cycle, 52 percent of U.S. consumers welcomed creators posting about politics, according to a Jan. 2025 survey by the influencer marketing agency Billion Dollar Boy. 

“This shift is partly due to the ever-present influence of social media, where audiences expect authenticity and engagement on various topics. As a result, finding creators who completely avoid political discourse has become more challenging,” said Sami Barnett, the senior director of gaming for the marketing and creative agency TMA. “It is unlikely that we will find creators who avoid politics completely, so we typically aim to stay away from creators whose platforms are focused solely on politics.”

As creators and their fans warm up to politics, influencer marketing is on the rise. Last year, 75 percent of brands increased their investment in influencer marketing, according to Hubspot’s State of Influencer Marketing Benchmark Report. By the end of 2025, eMarketer analysts anticipate that influencer marketing spending in the U.S. will reach a total of $9.29 billion.

Although some creators’ fans have welcomed their political evolution, it has made marketers’ jobs more difficult. Most brands are still unwilling to show up next to politically outspoken creators, fearing potential controversy and blowback, according to three agency executives who spoke to Digiday for this story. As a result, influencers’ growing willingness to be more politically vocal has shrunk the pool of potential creators for brands’ and agencies’ influencer marketing campaigns.

“It’s been a lot more difficult to find brand-safe influencers now than it was even just two years ago,” said Dario Raciti, managing director of Omnicom’s gaming and esports group Zero Code. “Some of those influencers feel free now to speak up more often than they used to in the past. People like them because they are very true to themselves, but with that also comes a risk that some brands just don’t want to take.”

In addition to throwing a wrench in brands’ influencer marketing campaigns, the rise in political discourse among digital content creators can sometimes affect other potential creator revenue streams. After debates over the Israeli military action in Gaza led to accusations of anti-Semitism against Twitch creators, advertisers such as J.P. Morgan and AT&T pulled their spending from the platform, causing some creators to report a drop in advertising revenue.

“My revenue after that for ads dropped off by half,” said Twitch streamer Kruzadar, who requested to keep her real name private to protect her personal information. “That’s a loss of two or three grand a month.”

And although content creators’ audiences appear to be broadly warming up to political content, going mask-off with their ideology still risks burning elements of creators’ audiences, for better or worse. Twitch streamer Shaun Bolen, for example, noted that his top three donors had dropped off immediately once he started vocally supporting gay rights in 2021, resulting in a significant, but not existentially threatening, drop in the channel’s overall revenue.

“These were people that had tipped tens of thousands of dollars over the course of four or five years,” he said. “Our biggest donors were right-wing people.”