Culture
Of:
Minna Höggren
This is a cultural article which is part of Aftonbladet’s opinion journalism.
This year’s election has been named the first Tiktok election. The parties are competing to reach first-time voters while political advertising has been banned.
How important is what is said on Tiktok? And who actually makes all the memes?
Aftonbladet Kultur has met two of those who stand behind the camera when the party leaders try to get through the noise.
88 days, 10 hours, 7 minutes and 10…9….8… seconds left until the election. The electronic board at the Moderate party office is constantly counting down the time. Nevertheless, it is calm, almost quiet in the room like this a few days before Midsummer.
– It used to be 300 something, now it feels completely sick that it is so close, says Maria Sognefors who is the head of communications for the party, when she walks by.
I have wanted to meet her and her staff because we are in the middle of the so-called Tiktok election. “The election can be decided on Tiktok” it is said.”The politician who is not on Tiktok now is screwed” and “The parties are betting on Tiktok to reach first-time voters” has been reported in recent weeks.
It is not the first time as a new means of communication puts the epithet on an election year. The presidential election in the United States between Nixon and Kennedy the year 1960 was called the television election. In 2008 we got to take part Obama’s Facebook election. First round with Trump 2016 together with Brexit 2018 are usually called the Big data elections, and now we are at a new stop in the history of political communication.
After Maria Sognefors comes the person like me really want to meet Hugo Silfverskiöld is twenty-three years old and has worked as a creator and social media manager at the Moderates since he was nineteen years old. “He is our Tiktok star,” says the press secretary when we are spoken to over the phone. “Hugo is behind everything that has gone well, but also what has gone less well,” he jokes. It is important that the ceiling is high during the creative process.
Hugo Silfverskiöld’s way into the party was via the youth association. For a period he studied media and communication at Uppsala University, but student life became a short story. Now he is one of five people who work with the Moderates’ accounts on Tiktok and Instagram, among others. He doesn’t need advanced equipment or expensive editing software, instead he shows how he edits most things directly on his mobile. A split screen in between Ulf Kristersson who gives a speech and a clip from the mobile game “subway surfers” share the space.
– It is classic Tiktok that you add something for Gen Z who do not have such a high attention span, says Hugo Silfverskiöld.
That’s it first election year where all party leaders are on the debating app which initially consisted of miming to music. The Sweden Democrats understood early on the importance of being on the platform and have for a long time dominated the flow. They have also never minded using to say the least unconventional methods to reach out. But over time, both the Moderates and the Social Democrats have begun to challenge their position.
When I some months earlier met the Social Democrats’ communications director Emelie Schröder together with Mathias Hanson who works as a digital editor, the walls of the House of Representatives at the Riksdag are decorated with Magda merch. Mathias Hansson explains that the strategies for reaching through the noise differ on the various platforms.
– Tiktok is for entertainment and is more about “having a bit of fun”, he says.
He is 28 years old and has studied at the second most credible advertising school in Sweden, Hyper Island. The school teaches “holistic perspective on digital media” and spits out everything from graphic designers and art directors. It feels a long way from cheesy street meetings and door-knocking methods.
But what is really the point of being on a platform that is all about “having a little fun”?
– You like the person you laugh with, that is absolutely fundamental for people, explains Emelie Schröder.
– You are not on Tiktok because you mainly want to get information about the election or about politics. People want to be entertained and then we have to try to get into it. At first to build a relationship, then we can also say what we want in the election, says Mathias Hansson.
But how entertaining is it really when Magdalena Andersson testing kebab sauce, pretending to be interviewed by a sports commentator or hooking the 6-7 trend? As an April Fool’s joke, a clip was published in which Magdalena Andersson presented a sequel to her book, this time a comic book with the superhero Arga Andersson. “Maggan can’t even pull an April Fool’s joke that’s funny,” it says in the comment field. It will be a like.
The parties’ new attempts to make voters laugh have not gone unnoticed. In Medierna i P1, the Center Party’s party secretary tells Hannes Hervieu that the Center “will not use Tiktok as a leisure park” but rather focus on its substantive issues. IN DN asked if Magdalena Andersson is ready to defend what was published on the party’s official Tiktok account. At the same time write off researchers Tiktok’s importance in the election campaign and believes that with every election campaign there is a “notion that a new way of communicating can fundamentally change politics” and that the platforms are attributed a decisive importance that may be exaggerated.
When I ask the Moderates what separates a successful post from a failed one, the answer comes without a doubt.
– The key question is: if it’s fun, it works. Says Hugo Silfverskiöld.
– It is when it is not very fun that it might become a little cringe.
Hugo Silfverskiöld believes that you have to understand the platforms to understand what kind of humor works on the app, and that you have to “have a little humor yourself as a person”.
– Not everyone has it, he adds.
The journalist Emanuel Karlsten says in an episode of Culture News Special that the new regulation of political advertising (TTPA) forced a type of “embarrassing content”. Also, because there is an abundance of facts and information, it is easier to compete with the nonsense.
The tram set obviously fulfills an important function. I would almost like to say that it so often shines with its absence that it feels radical to engage in something that falls under the category of “nonsense”. Our longing for something other than hard facts is perhaps not exactly a sign of freshness, but the fact that there are now more parties offering this “something” than a few election years ago must still be regarded as positive.
In addition, it is easy for the media to focus on what is deviant. Traditional content from debates and heated exchanges is also published on both the accounts of the Moderates and the Social Democrats. Hugo Silfverskiöld believes that it is some of the material that works best and that also focuses on substantive issues. Even the Social Democrats highlight content that is far from the fun category.
– It could be a Member of Parliament standing in a gray suit talking about child support and suddenly it has seven hundred thousand views. Not because it’s a funny clip at all, but because it has something important to say, points out Emelie Schröder.
In the middle of the conversation interrupts the press secretary and says that we need to go to the kitchenette where Magdalena Andersson is about to appear to record a Tiktok.
When the party leader comes through the door, she stops and waits for instructions. “What should I do?” Magdalena Andersson asks straight into the room before she is instructed to sit down to answer a few quick questions about the retirement allowance.
Everything goes so fast and I am impressed that Magdalena Andersson has such good self-awareness that she interrupts herself when she notices that she is speaking too slowly. It’s incredible to see an old dog that not only learned to sit, but also roll around and beautiful paw. I’m so impressed that I want to shout out the same cheer as Regina George’s mother does in “Mean girls”: You’re doing amazing sweetie!
I ask Magdalena Andersson if she herself thinks she has been guilty of content that falls under the “cringe” category.
– I hope I haven’t done that too many times, but I’m certainly not without guilt in this, she replies.
The creators who are behind the camera themselves rarely appear with name and picture on the parties’ official accounts. Rather, they devote themselves to other things than seeking the limelight. Emanuel Karlsten says i Culture News Special that it will probably take an election year or two before we see a new generation of politicians emerge in this new media landscape. At the same time, the parties and virtually all companies are becoming increasingly dependent on young people with a high internet presence.
When I talk to Hugo Silfverskiöld about what he thinks about this, he says that he wouldn’t be sitting here if it weren’t for the shift that took place in the communications departments and in politics. In this way, he has become indispensable.
– You have to have the antenna on all the time. Even if it’s twenty-two, you’re lying scrolling and about to pass out on the couch. Maybe that’s when you see a trend that we can spin on.
I’m thinking about Hugo, Mathias and their colleagues of the same age who – despite their age and relatively few years on the labor market – have more power than they would have had if they had worked in political communication a few election years ago. They possess skills that their managers and senior colleagues themselves lack, which creates an unusual dependency relationship. Whoever is expected to understand the platforms also gets a lot of responsibility to decide what is on the right side of okay.
I wonder how to balance the fine line between wanting to challenge and cutting through the noise without crossing any kind of boundary. Like the Moderates, combining clips from “Sex and the city” with election promises about chemical castration of pedophiles seems okay. An AI-generated image of Ulf Kristersson in Felicia-mask – also okay (Hugo says people told him “that was the best post they ever made”). A four-year-old ice cream picture on May Day – not okay.
– There I would say that it became quite clear that it was received in a way that was not intentional. We didn’t want people to get upset of course. We thought it was an easy, lovely summer picture.
Suddenly Ulf got Kristersson to answer for having mocked the labor movement, and to answer the question whether he had eaten ice cream or not. A lesson that has been learned is that they now print when images used are from a previous occasion in order not to end up in a similar situation in the future.
The electronic clock on the wall now shows one hour less until the election. It may be true that new media is attributed an unnecessarily great importance. At the same time, the nonsense is also scrutinized unnecessarily hard. But the fact that what is uploaded has consequences far beyond the creators’ screens is hard to ignore. There is still time to fuck up.
