#129: Meme War Generals
Cilla Black. Campaign Diaries. Comic Sans.
Hello
you are reading Understanding TikTok. My name is Marcus, i am a research fellow at HAW Hamburg. People often asked me about my favourite TikTok accounts. For today it is Automne Zingg.
Let’s talk about:
👔 I’ve been looking for freedom a man in finance
🫖 UK’s First TikTok Election
🤡 TikTok’s Trumpification
🐉 Foreign Information Manipulations and Interference
👔 I’ve been looking for freedom a man in finance
In 1979 British sociologist Dick Hebdige (28 years old then) published a small academic book called Subculture: The Meaning of Style focusing on Britain's postwar youth subculture styles as symbolic forms of resistance. Hebdige describes the concept of “incorporation” where phenomena (“the other”) are being trivialized and made available to the mainstream (as meaningless “exotica”). Subcultural signs are transformed into standardized consumer objects.
In 2024 New York based Megan Boni (26 years old then) was working in sales and posting comedy content on TikTok on the side under the user handle Girl On Couch. Her spoken words performance where she is “looking for a man in finance, trust fund, 6’5, blue eyes” posted on April 30 garnered 35.7 M views in a month. Shortly after the initial posting, DJs and music producers on TikTok added beats to the vocals (Know your meme), myriad variations with different lyrics spread all over. 16 days later Boni published an official version with beat, 22 days later David Guetta publicly played a remix version and on May 24 Megan Boni signed a major label deal (Stereogum).
While there is no symbolic form of resistance or subculture to be seen here at all, this use case demonstrates TikTok’s cultural relevance (as a space of play described by Tatiana Cirisano here) and the speed of incorporation cycles. Maybe the man in finance and Boni will be the song of an early summer. They will most likely be forgotten by the end of it.
🫖 UK’s First TikTok Election
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak set July 4 as the date for a national election that will determine who governs the U.K. The first week of Britain’s six-week election campaign has seen frenetic activity (AP) in UK’s “first TikTok election” (Telegraph). With TikTok now used by over 9 million people in the UK, it’s no suprise major political parties have jumped onto the bandwagon in an attempt to appeal to younger voters (Independent). How are they doing?
The Tories appear incapable of providing proper competition (Economist). This statement is not about TikTok. But it fits perfectly. Labour has beaten the Tories to the punch by 48 hours and not only that. The Conservatives’ launch on TikTok has been branded “pretty pathetic” (Yahoo) while the play- and skillful approach by Labour is applauded in the comments.
The whole campaign will be a decent use case to study memetic campaigning from Cilla Black to Rishi Sunak’s Campaign Diary to Comic Sans Carousell Postings to a now deleted post with over two million views and more than 316,000 likes, that captioned “Rishi Sunak announcing national service”, sees Lord Farquaad, the diminutive chief antagonist of the 2001 children’s film Shrek, announce: “Some of you may die, but it’s a sacrifice I am willing to make.” (Telegraph). Read more: Why the Conservatives and Labour are using TikTok differently (Tiga Consulting)
🤡 TikTok’s Trumpification
Donald Trump has been found guilty on all counts in his historic New York criminal trial, becoming the first former or sitting president to be convicted of a crime as he makes a bid to return to the White House (BBC). After the Trump Verdict, the TikTok Trial Began (NYT) with users livestreaming, discussing, and producing memes.
The social-media platform, though still regarded as a hub for Democratic voices and liberal causes, has seen an uptick of right-wing, pro-Trump influencers since the last presidential election. An internal analysis within TikTok found nearly twice as many pro-Trump posts as pro-Biden ones on the platform since November, reports the New York Times. After renewing his new-found opposition to a potential TikTok ban (Forbes) Trump has appeared in a video with his eldest son (NY Post). Donald Trump Junior (Meme Wars General. Pronouns: Your Hero) has started using TikTok on May 28.
Concerning memes and meme literacy: President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign is hiring a “partner manager” to collaborate with popular internet meme pages and content creators. According to a job listing posted last week, the role pays up to $85,000 annually and involves “engaging the internet’s top content and meme pages” from the campaign’s headquarters in Delaware (Netinfluencer).
🐉 Foreign information manipulations and interference
During the first four months of 2024, TikTok identified and disrupted 15 influence operations and 3,001 associated accounts, it said (Al Jazeera). As always we know very little but TikTok has promised to disclose more information about operations (TikTok). Let’s see how that goes.
The best sentence on the topic comes from the Washington Post. Here it is: As with other social networks and media platforms, influence operations are common on TikTok and often evade detection (Washington Post). That is it. That is the sentence.
Most of the covert operations TikTok reported dismantling so far this year originated in the same country as their target audience. Among the largest were a pro-Ukraine campaign aimed at an audience there that amassed more than 2 million followers, another one targeting Iraqis with anti-American and anti-Israeli content that had 448,000 followers, and an internal Indonesian campaign promoting one presidential candidate’s narratives to 148,000 followers (Washington Post).
And guess what: Influence campaigns also aren’t limited to foreign interests: in 2022, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp found and removed a campaign that promoted US interests to audiences abroad while also attacking US adversaries like Russia, China, and Iran (The Verge).
I have written a little dossier on the EU elections and disinformation on TikTok (in german) for the Federal Agency for Civic Education: Achtung, Desinformationen! Die Europawahl auf TikTok. And here ☝️ is my EU Disinfo Lab webinar on TikTok in the Era of Propaganda & Disinformation.
What else?
TikTok Pauses Shop Expansion Plans in Europe (The Information)
TikTok ban lifted as New Caledonia emergency ends (BBC)
Influencers are using TikTok to encourage voting in South Africa (Rest of World)
Most US TikTok Creators Don’t Think a Ban Will Happen (Wired)
The new trend is parents from the 90s dancing but Small Town Boy was closer to the heart (New York Times)
Which countries have banned TikTok and why? (Euronews)
You have reached the end. Thanks for reading. Speak soon. Here is Tylerdaclaire giving life advice at the Mersey Travel Bus Shelter