Can Political Memes Win You An Election?
This weekend Ireland will head to the polls to decide which political parties will lead our government and country into the abyss. In recent election cycles, social media has become a vital tool in political messaging. Social media’s role in democracy has caused controversy around fake news, data mining, misleading propaganda and is blamed regularly for the rise in Populism. These are all very concerning issues but none are as upsetting as the trend in politicians using memes to push their ideas. The results of this are usually something like the below:
Blindboy has hit the nail on the head with his comment and points out how strange these memes come across to anyone outside the the party walls. I admittedly don’t know anything about Irish politics, but I know a thing or two about memes having created them professionally only a few years ago. A meme for those unfamiliar is “An image, video, piece of text, etc., typically humorous in nature, that is copied and spread rapidly by Internet users, often with slight variations.”
With most of the memes in this blog being neither humorous or really that relateable, it’s hard to understand why politicians even bother. Is it possible that they’re putting out badly made memes not to be relevant but in an effort to have them go viral after people share them in disgust? The more these memes are seen, the more the simple message attached to them is too. They say simple messaging wins elections these days. “Make America Great Again” and “Get Brexit Done” are not exactly rallying calls but have been credited for swaying key elections. Maybe memes are just a natural progression of this simple approach?
One meme that has at the very least performed really well on Twitter in terms of likes and retweets is the Social Democrats use of the Beyond Belief Fact or Fiction (unreal show btw) meme. They use this to take aim at Fine Gael and their promises…
This meme started in 2019 and I was a fan of its many iterations so having seen it stolen for this purpose hurts. It is however, a much better way of doing what Labour tried to do on the same day. They used Fine Gaels own members to “admit” that they won’t stop wasting public money. This one is as badly thought out as it is edited together…
It's not just parties who are jumping on the memewagon (sorry) to endear themselves to the masses this year. More and more politicians are going it alone in the meme game to showcase why you should back them. Danny Healy Ray, who's Twitter genuinely reads as a parody account produces his own brand of digital content thats seen him be photoshopped into the Superbowl and compared style wise with Thomas Shelby from Peaky Blinders. There’s so many to choose from this man but I’d be lying if I said I haven’t watched the below video multiple times…
At least you could say Healy Ray's content represents his true “local cute hoor” brand that makes him irresistible to his base. Ruth Coppinger has gone a less authentic route and in a possible entrant for last years “didn't happen of the year awards” she shared a meme that was “randomly sent to her” in the wake of the UK Tory Party’s election win in December…
It's so obvious that this was mocked up crudely by Coppinger herself or the nearest young person on her team who is “good at computers”. The internet is a fast moving place and so even the use of this well known Drake meme has a very dated feel to it. Shane Ross on the other hand, a man well known for stealing Katie Taylor's homecoming and consistently praising the FAI, was quicker to react to the trending #DollyPartonChallenge. The challenge allows people to showcase themselves as being multifaceted and not just one dimensional. Politicians spend their careers trying to achieve this so Ross just had to have a go…
If the above isn't enough to give you sleepless nights then trying to decide on who you should vote for will. So can the use of memes by politicians help or impede their chances of election? The truth is we will never really know. The big winners will no doubt attribute their success to the way their key messages resonated and if part of this was through memes, then it can’t have hurt.
Memes used to be a sacred cultural places where we could escape the negative discourse around politics or subvert it with just the clever use of an image and a few words. When politicians now use them to push their own agenda it sucks the fun right out of it. For a country that has had a shortage of opportunities in recent years, we’ve always had our memes! Let’s hope it stays that way…
If you’ve figured out who I should vote for, then get in touch to let me know. My usual technique of voting based off who I recognise or who has the best smile/sounding name is really not good enough now that I’m 27. Please follow me on my Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for future blog posts that will cover more interesting topics…