Was this year really a TikTok election?
Did the memes really get the young voters to the polls?
TikTok has taken the political sphere by storm with satirical videos of politicians prior to elections. But do the satrical videos actually contribute to their election turnout? Or is it just something to repost?
Taken from Unsplash
Campaign videos made by all parties in the 2024 UK election made headlines in what was dubbed as the very first ‘TikTok Election.’ Memes of Cilla Black singing ‘Suprise Suprise’ over the caption of ‘POV: Rishi Sunak on 18 year olds door step to send them off to war.’ But this wasn’t the only meme hashtag that surrounded former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak during the campaign.
Taken from hootoflaughter on TikTok
Over 45% of the British population using the social media app for an average of 30 minutes everyday (as according to Ofcom,) it was found in research by Detapoll, that 31% of TikTok users were more likely to vote for Labour than those who didn’t use the platform, a month prior to the election.
A report by Hootsuite revealed that between the period of May 22nd to July 1st, the Conservative Party released 29 TikTok videos gaining them 247,300 impressions, whereas the Labour Party released 96 TikTok, with 2.4 million impressions.
But did this target the 18-24 age bracket?
The turnout at the 2024 general election was the second lowest since 2001, with only 60% of the 48.2 million registered UK voters actually headed to the polls, down from 67% in 2019, and only 47% of 18-24 year olds voted for Labour, a loss of 9% from 2019.
The overall impact which the TikTok election campaign may not have engaged the voters, but it was certainly entertaining watching political parties try.