ABC News In-depth (8 November 2019). "Could Boomer Memes Win Election Campaigns?"
https://www.youtube.com/embed/8VlNHVOxIRw
Point: "The new Conservative digital campaigners, both New Zealanders in their 20s, also flew around the world to promote the interests of clients such as Glencore, one of the world's biggest miners, while concerns - which they strongly denied - were raised about some of their behaviour in the office. The pair's arrival comes after their success helping Australia's rightwing coalition unexpectedly win the country's general election, where they were praised by local media for their understanding of how to fight online campaigns. Purposefully low-quality memes based around popular shows such as Game of Thrones were used in a bid to drive interactions - good or bad - at any cost, on the basis that this would boost the reach of future Facebook posts. 'We'd make them really basic and deliberately lame because they'd get shares and lift our reach; that made our reach for the harder political messages higher,' an anonymous individual told the Sydney Morning Herald, dubbing the strategy 'boomer memes' as the content appealed to older audiences. In recent days, the Conservatives have begun purposefully posting badly-designed social media material, at one point urging MPs to back a Brexit deal using the often-derided Comic Sans font. The Tories' political opponents lined up to mock the image, inadvertently sending it viral and ensuring it was seen by a wider audience" (Waterson, J., 2019). Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nj-YK3JJCIU&t=119s Issue: "One of the most concerning trends we're seeing is a rise in astroturfing. This refers to masking the sponsors of a message to make it appear as though it originates from ordinary citizens or grassroots organisations. ... It presents itself as a grassroots movement, but an ABC investigation revealed this group is working with Freshwater Strategy – the Coalition's internal pollster. Emails obtained by the ABC show Freshwater Strategy is 'helping orchestrate a campaign to boost public support for the gas industry ahead of the federal election'. Other examples we've encountered in our monitoring include groups with benign-sounding names like Mums for Nuclear and Australians for Prosperity. These labels and the ads they are running suggest grassroots concern, but they obscure the deeper agendas behind them. In the case of Australians for Prosperity, an ABC analysis revealed backing from wealthy donors, former conservative MPs and coal interests" (Parker, C., Angus, D., Newton, G., Clark, K., & Andrejevic, M., 2025). More: http://trigg.gr/tag/EpistemologyAmateurShittyMemes Bibliography: Workman, M., & Hutcheon, S. (2019, November 7). "How the boomer meme-industrial complex helped shred Bill Shorten’s campaign". ABC News. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-08/topham-guerins-boomer-meme-industrial-complex/11682116 Waterson, J. (2019, August 1). "Revealed: Johnson ally’s firm secretly ran Facebook propaganda network". The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/aug/01/revealed-johnson-allys-firm-secretly-ran-facebook-propaganda-network Parker, C., Angus, D., Newton, G., Clark, K., & Andrejevic, M. (2025, April 28). "What political ads are Australians seeing online? Astroturfing, fake grassroots groups, and outright falsehoods". The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/what-political-ads-are-australians-seeing-online-astroturfing-fake-grassroots-groups-and-outright-falsehoods-255225
