Cringe, actually. A young person's guide to how not to do politics on social media

Latest in, from Number 10: Keir Starmer’s TikTok team was planning to have the PM pay tribute to a scene from the hallmark Christmas film Love Actually – but they were blocked from using the music due to copyright concerns. Of course, that we will not bear witness to the bastardisation of a national treasure (by a PM who will seemingly never have a proper “Love Actually moment” by standing up to Donald Trump), warrants a collective sigh of relief.

But let it be said once and for all: it’s not easy to be an establishment politician online. The trolling, the arbitrary scrutiny, the unintelligible lingo. The incessant nagging from your comms team, no doubt breathing down your neck and muttering: “Nowadays, this is all that matters.” Eventually, you throw your hands up. You do as they say, hoping that this, and not your astounding incompetence, will make a difference. I matter, your Instagram reels will scream into the void. I am relevant! 

And then you question why your parties’ social media content bombs so spectacularly. Innocent bystanders might ask, in the same vein: why do politicians’ attempts to connect with young people online inspire so much cringe? As a 22-year-old who has built multiple social media accounts from scratch, I’m here – below – to walk you through the best examples of what not to do on socials… and one of how to nail it.

But first, how important is all this anyway? According to Eugene McCarthy, a member of the Green party’s social media team, it’s not make-or-break. Although it is true that younger audiences react well to content about policies and stances, he thinks that New York mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani – whose team perfected their social media output in the run-up to his election – won because his videos helped mobilise people to “get off their arses, get outside and knock on doors”. The 100,000 people who ended up campaigning on his behalf were not on their phones, but galvanised to get off the screen. Social media is just a good means to this end. 

The research supports this. The Guardian reports that Reform has 14 times as much engagement on TikTok than other parties, but McCarthy tells me that TikTok engagement is not very representative, and that the platform is increasingly used by over-35s. Further, Reform polls lowest by far with 18- to 24-year-olds, which suggests that, despite a plethora of far-right Facebook groups that organise flag-raisings or migrant dinghy-puncturings, social media is not the decisive factor when it comes to youth support. 

Banseka Kayembe, founder and director of Naked Politics, a media platform promoting political education for young people, says it is “tempting” to believe that Mamdani’s success can be accredited to his “slick” videos: “It's why some political commentators earnestly thought the whole ‘Kamala is brat’ thing was going to win her the presidency.” It seems that pouring resources into social media could actually cause gen-Z voters to turn away from parties, seeing them as cringey, desperate and, worst of all, inauthentic. A top comment on Keir Starmer’s new TikTok account asks: “Do we get taxed from watching this?”

“Politicians often make the mistake in thinking that to be young is to be unserious,” says Esther Horner-Aird, an organiser with the UK Youth Parliament. Kayembe agrees, saying that the focus on comms in political parties comes “at the expense of actual policies that appeal to young people”. The recent budget demonstrates how Labour has little to offer young people, making “little movement on the minimum wage, capping how much young people can save in ISAS or pensions”. Social media campaigns, he says, reflect a desperate attempt to “reverse the mass of younger people deserting the party”. 

Being pandered to by establishment politicians when my generation knows we will never own a house, much less live on a healthy planet, doesn’t feel like fair play. In a recent Charli XCX remix on the Labour party TikTok account, shots of a young Rachel Reeves are captioned: “The first female chancellor for 700 years”. Labour seems to think it can slay-ify criticism, all while young people are pushed further away by its flaccid realpolitik. My advice to British politicians: want to win internet points? Keen to get in with us? Start behaving like adults. 

In this video, we watch Ed sashay into the camera, in the style of the “POV” trend (a four-year-old fad in which reaction videos are filmed so as to express a, usually humorous, “point of view”). Except it feels more like a video that millennials speculate is in the style of the POV trend. You can imagine, on the group call where this was planned, someone un-muting to say “my niece explained this hilarious new TikTok thing to me…”. 

The reel received traction: the internet emerged to laugh at Miliband rather than with the poor chap. One comment, with 18,000 likes, says: “I use Labour as an example with my clients of how not to use social media.”  Another, with 20,000, reads simply: “There’s still time to delete this.” 

Cruel, but right on. I am normally sympathetic to Miliband, but the secondhand embarrassment this vertical video triggers makes me yearn for his sarnie-chomping days. 

The only thing that could knock Ed’s attempt out the park, of course, is the incredibly uncomfortable watch that is Keir Starmer doing the “6-7” dance in a classroom two weeks ago. If staged, it demonstrates the same bad strategy, and if unprompted, I can confirm that brain-rot has infected the highest echelons of British society. Thankfully, he gets told off by the teacher, who says: “You know, children get into trouble for doing that in our school.” 

Here’s to wishing your jurisdiction were wider, Miss.

Verdict: Please, just stop.

The Tories have both feet firmly planted in 2017, when marketing departments discovered visual memes ahead of the general election. Much of the Conservative account’s content is comically reactionary: gifs spliced together, clips of Labour politicians’ speeches cut to expose their broken promises (before-and-after shots aimed to put us off the horrifying medical procedure of a Labour government), presenting Rachel Reeves as a TV traitor and, more frequently, piece-to-camera content featuring Kemi Badenoch speaking in front of her devoted green-screen gaggle of white boys. 

The problem is not just how the Conservatives react, but what they react to. Constituents, young and old alike, are tired of juvenile content – of takedowns, cheap shots and roasting. Yes, we know how awkward Starmer looks doing … well, anything. But a thousand meme-templates of him putting up Christmas lights is not going to make you more appealing, Tories. It’s definitely not getting young people feeling a sense of urgency, knocking on doors, or donating.

McCarthy says the Conservatives at least match their format to their audience, generally preferring to go with “well-produced video over snazzy TikToks”, which matches up to their traditional values. On the other hand, “Labour will do TikTok trends but the message is about restoring British values,” he says. “But older people don’t get those trends and younger people don’t give a shit about the flag.”

Verdict: Lacking in substance but at least on-brand.

Reform seems to understand, and make full use of, Farage’s cult of personality, and he even has his own bespoke TikTok. The content is him speaking, often directly to the camera, and a docudrama-esque back catalogue that rinses the same metaphors over and over. Although the film released after the Budget features one woman and an all-white cast, it successfully creates the illusion of compassion for the working class – potholes, high-vis vests, affectionate drudgery. In other clips, Farage is more often than not holding a pint – viewers don’t know it is a Westminster pint – slowly walking into the bright spotlight, complaining about oat milk. Elitist as he is, he is not trying to be younger than his age, or partake in the latest online fad. This carefully curated strongman doesn’t need to roll around in the online trough with the rest of us. 

Verdict: I wince to say it, but Farage comes off as the maverick to the Labour/Tory wet-wipe.

Polanski goes further to show this. Despite being, like Mamdani, a poster-boy for the left (or what’s left of it), he prefers to share his responses via screengrabs, earnest-Twitter-keyboard-warrior style. He is smug about the negative media coverage, and his supporters find it funny how much neoliberals care about small-town-hypnotist Zack. 

Overall, his online presence isn’t very exciting, but perhaps that is the point. In fact, other news outlets and activist accounts rally to his defence when he is attacked online by the likes of Rory Stewart, and vox pops of him speaking on LBC or Question Time find their way onto Instagram and TikTok independently. He has an online army of people with a soft spot for his hopefulness, while mainstream parties place their leading politicians, rather than other activists and influencers, as faces of their social media. The Greens’ more organic and distributive approach seems to be working. And when Polanski does do a social media campaign, it comes across as earnest and true to his Glee-loving theatre-kid disposition – take his recent “backstage Christmas Carol” skit – and not a trend shoehorned into a plea for attention.

Verdict: Things are looking good for the Greens, whether or not they choose to properly embrace social media.

She doesn’t have a lot of followers – yet. She’s not a big hitter (although she is the Holyrood justice secretary). And she isn’t campaigning for anything that we know of. So why did one of the West Lothian-born SNP member’s occasional TikToks go viral? In one, she holds her phone camera up to the mirror the wrong way round, bares her signature bright violet pixie cut, and, holding stern direct eye-contact, says: “There’s one appointment I never cancel – and that’s the hairdressers.” The rest is slightly unintelligible to anyone unfamiliar with the Scottish town of Bathgate, but she ends the 10-second clip saying: “Shop local.” 

“Diva with a mildly threatening aura,” a comment with 14,000 likes reads. “MOTHER!” screams another user on a video of hers announcing that it's “maccie and cheese day in the Scottish parliament” and captioned “Hope this isn’t too cheesy for tic tok” (sic). 

It’s clear that Constance’s TikTok isn’t part of a brand strategy, probably does very little for her career, and is very obviously the work of a first-class Scottish aunty playing around with the latest tech. And it’s near-perfect. My official prediction is that she's our next Zohran – or at least, the British Curtis Sliwa.

Verdict: That’s how you do it.

Anandita Abraham is a freelance journalist based in London. She has been published in The Guardian, Prospect Magazine, and The Oxford Mail and is currently doing a paid internship with the Nerve.