Lana Condor and Ross Butler deliver the message to vaccinate against COVID-19

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From left, Lana Condor, Vice President Kamala Harris and Ross Butler urge their followers on Instagram to get their coronavirus vaccines.

The White House is amping up its outreach to Gen Z by using the media favored by that young group. A day after teen pop star Olivia Rodrigo. 18, visited President Biden to tape messages to her fans, urging them to get the coronavirus vaccine, Vice President Harris interviewed two young bright and popular AAPI stars. 

Lana Condor and Ross Butler, costars in the Netflix movies in the To All The Boys I Ever Loved trilogy, to reach out to the same youthful audience.

Butler recounted his experience being diagnosed with coronavirus in March 2020. “I had it really bad,” he said. “I had all of the symptoms before we knew what the symptoms were.” He got vaccinated to protect himself from having a repeat experience. Condor wanted to protect her loved ones, too. “My mom has an autoimmune disease,” she explained. “I (needed) to get this vaccine because I love her more than anything in this world and I want to be around her safely.”

Both Condor and Butler posted the interview on their Instagram accounts. Below, is Rodrigo's first message on Instagram:

The emphasis on Gen Z marks a switch in messaging that may be more effective with social media users. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's most recent data, just 2.6% of 12-to-15-year-olds and 7.8% of 18-to-24-year-olds are fully vaccinated. By comparison, nearly triple the number of 25-to-39-year-olds are fully vaccinated and 14% of 40-to-49-year-olds. 

A recent study  from the University of California, San Francisco found that about 25%  unvaccinated people ages 18 to 25 said they "probably will not" or "definitely will not" get the vaccine.

The vaccine is now available in every state for people 12 and older, but Gen Z and  millennials remain hesitant for various reasons, from not feeling any urgency to believing disinformation — messages that are sometimes spread by elected officials, who young people traditionally do not listen to.

Also, at the pandemic's beginning, the emphasis was on the elderly, the most vulnerable to the coronavirus, leading many people to believe that the virus didn't have an effect on younger people. That belief persists even though it has been shown that COVID-19 does not discriminate by age. Healthy young people may be more resistant to the virus but they are not immune.

So the White House changed strategy to get their message to Gen Z.  Instead of depending the traditional outreach tools such as PSAs, press releases and official announcements, they have decided to switch to youthful celebrities and social media influencers to deliver the vaccination message -- short and snappy -- in the media they are most familiar to their millions  of followers such as Tik Tok, Instagram, Twitter or Snapchat.

Experts say the more people share urge their friends or fans to get vaccinated on social media, the more it helps motivate others in their circles to also get theirs. Whether it’s an individual with a circle of friends, a micro-influencer with a few thousand followers, or someone with millions of followers across multiple platforms (like Rodrigo, Condor and Butler), there is a relationship of trust between the influencer and the influenced that is less and less present with traditional (old) media and their readers or viewers.

An example of the short and the on-point message from Butler that Gen Z and Millennials can clearly understand: “I had COVID, and I’m young and healthy and it sucked.”