Religious content has long been a mainstay on social media, where Christian influencers can garner millions of views. And much of the online reaction to Hallow’s TikTok ads has been positive. Yet, Alex JonesHallow’s CEO, said he knew some people were surprised when they came across the company’s social media ads.
“We are not positing any sophisticated or specific targeting,” wrote Mr. Jones, who is not to be confused with the conspiracy theorist of the same name who ran the Infowars website. “Each platform has its own algorithm for determining its stream. We know there are some comments from people who are surprised to see these posts in their feed. We certainly don’t want to impose anything on anyone.”
Jessi Hood, a library circulation coordinator in Roanoke, Va., who does not consider herself religious, was another person who met Mr. Wahlberg and Hallow on her For You TikTok page. “I roll my eyes half the time when I see him», Ms Hood, 24, said, noting the actor’s criminal past. (At 16, Mr. Wahlberg was convicted of assaulting a Vietnamese man and served 45 days in jail.)
Mrs. Hood downloaded Hallow out of curiosity. “My first thought was like, Oh, that’s weird. Is this an app meant for prayers and you have to pay for it?” he said. She posted some screenshots from Hallow on X and then deleted it from her phone.
In his email, Mr. Jones, the Hallow executive, provided anonymous quotes from alleged Hallow users glowing about the platform. For others who find Hallow ads on social media, there’s less interest: “Tiktoked to a video of Mark Wahlberg asking me to pray with him…and I can’t think of anything I want to do less, actually,” Brandi Howard. 32, published in X.
But given that Mr Schneider visited Hallow’s website and that Ms Hood downloaded the app (only to delete it), the TikTok campaign appears to be piqued.
