Sunak’s comments about how he is “guided by doing what is right for our country, not what is easy” are seemingly standard for a political speech, but he notably added that “I can’t say the same thing for the Labour Party”. Meanwhile, with Labour’s 1997 election anthem, Things Can Only Get Better by Northern Irish group D:Ream, being blasted through the street on top of Sunak’s speech, the tone of the election battle to come was set. Not, by any means, a tone of wit and tactic – but one of passive aggression.

The parties took to TikTok and other apps soon after the election announcement, a move to be expected in order to appeal to younger voters. The introductory video from the ‘ukconservatives’ account was fairly normal, describing the party’s plans to introduce a 12-month national military service for 18 year-olds or, alternatively, monthly volunteering.

This focus on its plans, however, did not last long. Soon after, a large part of the Conservatives’ TikTok page became about Labour’s policies, or as they would say, the lack thereof.

A lot of this social media war hinged on meme culture in the attempt to pander to young voters, with Labour subverting the popular ‘stonks’ (meaning good) and ‘not stonks’ (bad) meme format and applying it to the two parties.

One of the more long-winded posts from Labour detailed an almost mock-documentary style video of the many weak things in the world. They mentioned anteaters for having the weakest bite force of the animal kingdom, talc for being the softest mineral, before building up to Sunak being a ‘weak leader’.

Labour also made a ‘Rishi Sunak being a totally normal guy for one minute’ video where instead Sunak’s sports mistakes and awkward conversation were put on the spotlight. Another of its videos, titled ‘POV rishi sunak’s searches pt2’, pushed its campaign further into political irrelevance in comparing Sunak’s voice to the character Will from the popular British show The Inbetweeners.

In response, the Conservatives posted its own ‘Top 5 Keir Starmer being normal moments’, bringing up instances where Starmer stumbled over his words, such as saying the phrase “tech brother” and even judging his breakfast choice. The tagline ‘Keir Starmer is a totally normal man’ and the music choice of ‘comical piano, an embarrassing failure’ highlight the strategy of demeaning the opponent, choosing to focus on criticising Starmer’s awkward moments and mannerisms.

@ukconservativesKeir Starmer is a totally normal man. #keirstarmer #ukpolitics #generalelection #conservatives♬ Comical piano, an embarrassing failure(1002995) – Makotti

Starmer’s breakfast wasn’t the only thing under attack by the Conservatives social media, with his boxing skills even becoming a target in a reply to a TikTok comment with the tagline ‘fancy our chances tbh’.

Although the success of both accounts was contested, with The Telegraph declaring how Labour was ‘already winning the TikTok election battle’, I argue that the quality of the videos didn’t really matter at all. Both revealed a petty, playground approach to politics, placing emphasis on insulting and one-upping the other party as opposed to constructive political discussion. Counting up the videos from the TikToks of both parties reveal that over half of the videos are about the other.

To me, these videos made me lose a little bit of faith in these politicians, rather than be inspired to support them. The obvious intentions from both parties to gain more popularity from young voters for the election undercut the value of the videos, making them feel disingenuous. The actual content of the videos, particularly the memes, come across as awkward from my perspective – evoking the feeling of your uncle trying to use new slang at a family get-together.

Following the election results, the parties’ TikToks seem eerily quiet. After an impressive 10 videos released by Labour during the voting period of increasing strangeness, no more have followed.

With hindsight, since the end of the campaign period, the videos end up seeming even more bizarre, such as a series of posts by Labour editing the Conservative politicians Liz Truss, Sunak and Jacob Rees-Mogg lying next to the viewer in bed, warning those watching that this is what would happen if they did not vote for Labour and the Conservatives won.

The Conservatives have also, understandably, refrained from making more videos. There’s not much content that seems appropriate to post after facing one the largest defeats in almost 200 years.

But, reflecting on the campaign, it is honestly a little disappointing to see how even my school classmates can treat each other more respectfully in debates than the highest-level politicians of our country, but I suppose that Labour photoshopping Sunak’s face onto a WWE wrestler is entertaining.