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The Guardian - AU

National

Elle Hunt

Memes to an end: how the internet Photoshopped the Australian election

A Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union meme posted to Twitter. — An Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union meme posted to Twitter. The union has carved out a name for itself in the Australian election campaign with its sometimes unhinged posts to the social media site. Photograph: Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union

Writing in Overland about memes and their role in this election campaign, Osman Faruqi said they fulfilled one of two functions.

The first was bite-size, shareable message to be dispersed by and among the party faithful that reaffirms their views. The second was something more off-the-wall and sometimes satirical, highlighting the ridiculousness of politics while at the same time pushing a view itself.

@Kimbo_Ramplin @coaic #NX He wasn't born in Australia. Always wanting to phone home. GO HOME and stay there mate! pic.twitter.com/RsXSFs8i6z
— Pete Kretin (@Mitehouse) March 25, 2016

Faruqi may be the only person to have thought about it that hard. Mostly, memes just liven up the timeline, prompting a retweet at best, a facepalm at worst and – most of the time – a favourite or humourless “lol”.

The Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union carved out a name for itself early on in this interminable election campaign with its sometimes unhinged posts to Twitter.

17 days until the election!

Reminder: there's only one party that made this guy Deputy PM. #auspol #agile #inspo pic.twitter.com/uO8p4mDJe9
— The AMWU (@theamwu) June 15, 2016

16 days until the election!

Reminder: there's only one party that doesn't care about the Australian steel industry. pic.twitter.com/wQLvAnvvjc
— The AMWU (@theamwu) June 16, 2016

19 days until the election!

Reminder: there's only one party that doesn't want Safe Schools. #auspol pic.twitter.com/nnN17BGkFG
— The AMWU (@theamwu) June 13, 2016

The organisation’s communications director, George Simon, told Triple J’s Hack that its Twitter account was maintained by “a group of young people experimenting with creative content”.

“We’ve been given creative licence and we’ve taken dank and we’ve doubled down,” said Simon.

Simon’s bosses were baby boomers, he told Triple J, and as such did not have a clue what was going on. “They appreciate the fact we’re getting all this popularity but ... they just don’t get it,” he said. “We see dank memes, whereas they see a frog on a unicycle.”

The AMWU had taken some risks, he concluded – “but clearly it’s paying off”.

waddup pic.twitter.com/SB1BkzhQEL
— The AMWU (@theamwu) May 15, 2016

And, of course, where there are pioneers, there will always be imitators.

And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you meddling Unions! #auspol #ausunions #ausvotes pic.twitter.com/Za3vnSsZEw
— AWU (@AWUnion) June 3, 2016

On Facebook, where all memes go to die, the ALP Spicy Meme Stash circulates pro-Labor memes while Innovative and Agile Memes covers the Liberal party’s bases. Earlier in June the ALP Spicy Meme Stash declared war on the Innovative and Agile Memes, reportedly over a stolen meme.

(The Liberals’ page was accused of ripping off the Labor page’s punchline, 10 Pranks That Went Way Too Far – which first appeared under a screenshot of a headline about Tony Abbott’s being made prime minister. It’s a matter of principle, you’ve got to assume.)

Egregiously, embarrassingly bad examples of both forms of meme abound at #auspol, the name given to the community of Australian politics aficionados on Twitter – the worst often those created or endorsed by the politicians themselves. (Scott Morrison has even started presenting them at press conferences.)

A Liberal party graphic comparing Labor’s 10-year economic plan to the album booklet for Taylor Swift’s 1989 for some reason was derided by Faruqi as “history’s worst meme”.

What does it mean?

But bad memes are far from unique to any one party, as much as each likes to call attention to the other side’s bad content. One Twitter user has taken it upon himself to document the worst of the genre from both sides.

@WoefulAuspol – which bills itself as collating the most “terrible” memes “by brokens from the Right and Left” – has been tracking the worst memes of #Auspol since January 2015.

Do not meme gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and meme at close of day;
Meme, meme against the dying of the light.
— Woeful Auspol Memes (@WoefulAuspol) September 15, 2015

The account’s creator, who asked to be identified only as Adrian of Canberra, told Guardian Australia that he set it up in January 2015, when he noticed sledging over bad content from both sides of the political spectrum.

“I just went about collecting really bad memes to try and prove that both sides can be as terrible as each other. I tried to keep it 50/50. But I’ve just posted what I could find or what people have submitted.

Ayyyyy pic.twitter.com/J2cEDL8l2v
— Woeful Auspol Memes (@WoefulAuspol) May 10, 2016

“I try to only post earnestly bad memes, and stay away from the ironically bad fun memes.”

Guardian Australia asked Adrian to share his observations – as well as the defining examples of the genre.

‘My favourites are the ones about who is making deals with who’

This is what happens when you let those Socialist Alliance members faunicate all over Bourke St. pic.twitter.com/XTprR2wT9y
— Woeful Auspol Memes (@WoefulAuspol) May 9, 2016