The Curious Case of Lindy Li

Last March, I found myself sitting in a White House briefing with two dozen pro-Democratic digital creators, listening to high-level administration officials preview President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address.

Among the handful of administration leaders who briefed the room was Anita Dunn, at the time one of Biden’s most powerful consiglieres. It was pretty conventional stuff. She spent a few minutes talking us through the president’s remarks and answering questions from starry-eyed social media influencers who planned on publishing content cheering on the speech the next day.

I was attending on behalf of my then-employer, a pro-democracy media company, and knew most of those in attendance. There were some political YouTubers, a few up-and-coming Democratic TikTok stars, and a cohort of folks from other emerging news outlets like MeidasTouch and Betches Media. But there was one attendee I didn’t recognize: a woman named Lindy Li…