The Chaser Report - Labor vs Liberals: Who's Winning TikTok?

Episode Date: August 2, 2023

Both major political parties are trying desperately to win your child's attention through crappy TikTok memes. Dom and Charles bring you up to speed on the different styles of video being used by each party to brainwash your child. It's a story no parent can afford to miss. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gatigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report with Dom and Tom. Charles. I've got a scoop. A scoop. D-d-dun-da. Real journalism alert comes in in just a moment. Charles, you promised a scoop.

Somehow I smell a rat. No, no, no. This scoop comes via my 14. year old son Hartley. Oh, okay. Who is a fan of the TikTok. Oh, God. Okay. Yep. As everyone is, his age. And guess what he stumbled upon, which makes me worried for his mental health.

Let me guess. It's archival video. It's the Liberal Party of Australia TikTok account. Oh. It's verified. I thought this was going to be, Charles. I thought this was going to be footage of you doing a stunt from 20 years ago that he was embarrassed about it. Oh, no, no. They all go.

That Kim Beasley stunt where I got the corn. It's up to like 33 million views on TikTok. You know, that was one of the quite large collection of ideas in the history of Chaser that were mine that I feel ashamed of forever. Even my son went dead. That was a fat joke, wasn't it? We mentioned this previously on the podcast, but just as a little sidebar because it can't be mentioned enough

that shortly after that we sat down with Will Anderson in a room talking about doing the glass house together, what became the glass house. And he said, well, I like you guys because you do smart political comedy, not like those guys who just, you know, held up a corncob to get basically. It was the greatest faux par, television history. It hurt our career extensively, you could argue. He left.

He was so embarrassed. He was he stood up and left the meeting? Actually, it wasn't embarrassed? It was he just so disgusted by us that he just had to leave. I don't know which it was. Anyway, love you will. Yes. Okay, so if you haven't seen that video, go on look at how awful Charles is for fat shaming,

apparently a very nice man. Anyway, so TikTok, this is verified Liberal Party of Australia account. The Liberal Party of Australia are on TikTok. Oh my God. So this is the most popular TikTok that they've posted. They've got tons of them. I'll run through some of them.

But this is just bizarre. My son comes down and says, he runs down and says, Dad, you've got to see this. Which is, it is a TikTok. I'll just play it. Right. It's a TikTok. It's very short, as they are.

Like, because, you know, the attention span of 14-year-olds is now about, three seconds. It is literally three seconds long, but it's, the caption is me pretending I don't like the Liberals, so I fit in on TikTok, right? So they're obviously going, okay, we've got to address the elephant in the room. Isn't that an amazing piece of cognitive distance? It's just sitting there going, it's not that we're unpopular. It's that everyone's too ashamed to mention how much they love Peter Dutton. There's a army of Peter Dutton fans out there who are just the silent majority. The silent majority. We admire that he's tough but fair. But the video clip, that they're showing is Patrick Baveman.

It's the Christian, what's his name? Christian Bale. In American Psycho. Right. You know what? There is absolutely no way that they know that. No, no. But the hashtag is, we see you, hashtag Australia, hashtag Osphol,

hashtag American satri. Hashtag American Psycho. Oh, they think that's a good thing. They think it's a positive portrayal. Yeah, the psychotic killer, serial killer. And then, and then, and then, in. brackets down the bottom. So it just has this little clip of Patrick Bateman basically sitting down, looking all, you know, psycho. And underneath it just says, I'm voting for them because I'm

tired of being taxed by Labor. Which admittedly would be Patrick Bateman's position. He's very anti-taxed. But how many 14-year-olds are even taxed? Like, tax, like, who? Who are the 14-year-olds? Charles, it's the ones with trust funds. It's the ones whose parents buy houses in the names. Of course they're hating the tax. Can we just ponder? the meaning of this. Does this mean that they want to murder Labour people? Is that like, what's the logical extension of this? I think their brand

thing is, I think probably this comes from on high, this is Peter Dutton. And he's going, you know who I find relatable. That Patrick Patrick Patman character. Look, given what the polls are saying, they would have to murder a lot of people. But if they murdered a cool 5 million Labour voters,

the next election might be competitive. It's right. I mean, get cracking. It's an innovative strategy. Yeah, it's pretty high stakes. And then if someone finds out about it, you probably will lose the election after all. That's right. Okay, so then there are 1,109 comments, because you're allowed to comment on videos on TikTok. And it's very advanced.

The first comment, the top comment with 675 likes is, then why we still got taxes with liberals in power, which I think is just so simple. Well, isn't it also true that John Howard and extremely high-taxing prime minister, Very far ago, anyway. And then the second one is there is no way this is real. It has to be said. I can assure you it's not. You serious?

And then the third one, the third. That was my first theory was this couldn't possibly be an official account. It's not. I promise you. I looked into it. This is honestly the Liberal Party's honest, actual tick to-toe. Then the third comment is, I don't pay taxes. The thing is, Patrick Bateman.

The other point about Patrick Bateman is that he was fantasizing about, like, you don't know whether actually killed them or not, right? It's quite a complicated little piece of literature there by Brett Estinellas. And I suspect all that they've done is they've glommed onto the bit where he likes killing. It's just like the simple analysis of. It was actually a satire. My point is, American Psycho is a satire of yuppies. It is not pro-yuppie.

It's not an endorsement of the lifestyle. Okay, so let's go through. So the Liberal Party so far has... Because the other funny thing about that video is it then has authorized by a... Hurst, Can we call A. Hurst and work out if they're aware what American Psycho is? This is a 16-year-old intern, isn't it? But then this is, so this is their TikTok account. They've had 649,000 likes.

Oh, well, does it, no, that's actually shit on TikTok. Because there's about 100 trillion people on TikTok now. But we should go through some of the other videos. Please, if they're all as good as this. They're all, there's great. So there's this one, me trying to convince me. myself that I can afford my trip to Bali. So, and it's, it's a clip of Rocky, like, running down the street, sort of training, right?

Am you trying to convince myself, the problem is they're cut out so quickly? Are you trying to convince myself that I can afford my trip to Bali, brackets, labor's in power, so I absolutely have no chance. So, so Rocky's just running down the street? Yeah. It's very strange. Yeah, part of the problem is, is, like, in TikTok, screen language, like, often Hartley will show me a TikTok and I'll have no idea what's going on.

And he'll go, I don't worry about it, Dad. Because, like, there's so many memes and meanings and layer, lay, layer, yeah. But Charles, is every meme on TikTok now, or is it just a liberal account, a film from the 80s and 90s that the average young person would have absolutely no idea what it was? Well, they're not going to know that that was rocky, are they? Oh, yeah. Well, it is true. One of the comments on that video was, I think a 60-year-old is managing this.

That's the right question. All the reference points are incredibly ancient. Can I also say, this is very unfair of the Liberal Party. They've done a video, they've done a photo. You can do these like slide shows. Oh, yeah, yeah. And they've done it. Like Instagram.

They've turned it into Instagram. Yeah, they've turned it into Instagram. And they've put the world's fattest photo of Anthony Albanese. It must be from at least sort of five or six years ago. Before he went glamorous. as a thing to, like they seem to be obsessed with labour. The thing about, he's got good suits now, but I don't know he's styling him. Maybe I'll see if the stylist could give me a bit of a glow-up,

because that would be a huge challenge. I'll tell you what, though, we wouldn't in The Chaser make fun of someone who's fat, would we? We learned our lesson. We learned our lesson. The Chaser Report, less news, more often. Hang on, so Labor's got 1.9 million lines. I'm seeing. So Labor is dramatically more popular, are they?

Well, why would you even, like, if you were a youngster, why would you like either of them? I mean, I suppose, like, this is so weird. Random shark fact number 24. This is from the Liberal Party account again. Random shark fact number 24. And then the next slide is sharks aren't down to pay $6.50 for butter, right? Oh. So this is to appeal.

Let's just go through the psychology of this. It's all cost of living stuff. It's all cost of living stuff. Who are the 14-year-olds? Like, unless I'm wrong, and maybe there's sort of 30-year-olds who are worried about $6.50 butter. Also, if you're repelling to 14-year-olds, don't you say, oh, God, $27 for a bottle of Logan Paul's prime hydration?

That's what they're paying. It's insane. That would be more with the kids. And the caption that they've put is, under Labor, it seems like no one is winning. Hashtag shark. Hashtag shark fact. Aren't the sharks winning? I don't sharks killing humans at a higher rate?

They're trying to sort of integrate. Like the kids are talking about sharks. Yeah. What do we do? It's a jam effect about how much butter costs. Because 40-year-olds buy butter. Actually, I don't even want to know what they're doing with butter. Charles, do you remember, is this the same meme lord?

This is incredible. Is this the same meme lord who did the shittest post a couple of elections ago? Do you remember it was Star Wars Day? and they put a picture of like Scott Morrison as a Jedi and it went, The economy is strong with this one. It's just the shittest attempt to try and cobble, you know, pop culture together with politics.

But Charles, I'm looking at the Labor TikTok. Oh, no. And the Labor TikTok is, can you guess what that's like? I mean, the first few posts. It's going to be awful, isn't it? Because the other thing is, I found out I was talking to a staffer for Albo. And the one thing that they said is,

No, Albo thinks his social media game is good. Oh, no. Yeah. I mean, it's just notoriously bad. The ALP TikTok is boring and earnest. Every second post is about it. Yes. And here's one.

They've got a picture of like a, a graphic of a little battery jiggling. It says, community batteries save your money. That's the way to get the youth on board. Well, but except that does sort of like my, like, there is a sort of earnestness to the youth now, though. Yes, there is. But imagine, but I mean, what's the youth who's interested in the environment? He goes, oh, Labor are good on this policy area. There's even a picture of tenure.

It's a fossil fuel-loving environmentalist. It just says texting their Australian public to let them know that the Albania Labor government has made the biggest investment in the environment ever. And then it says, you wouldn't want to leave tenure on red. So what I'm gathering is that even they know that Tanja Plibesec is more popular. Ah, yes. Well, that's a very good strategy, isn't it, to just. have all of your Labor Tic-T-T-T-Tox just being Tanya Plybysi.

So, okay, well, that was a shit attempt to humor, but the difference is that at least the Liberals are trying and failing hilariously to be funny. I would rather read the Liberals memes than the Labor ones about batches. Yeah, so maybe you're right, maybe the Libs are going really well. So this one is, Nicholas Cage, going, everything is literally so expensive, I don't know how it could get worse. And then another actor smiling and being the Labor Party and going,

What's he doing in that thing with Nicholas Cage? And the Labour Party person saying, we're going to tax you more. So it's just... Yeah. Anyway. I mean, the cost of living stuff makes sense. But, yeah, I don't see how these people are paying tax. Oh, you know what it is.

You know how Labor let all the tax concessions for low-income earners expire, basically? They're all those concessions under Morrison and so on. No, I think that they're worried about the stage three tax cuts not going through. I think the type of people who follow the Liberal Party of Australia on TikTok. Oh, they've all got... They're all in the... top tax bracket. Yeah, they're all pulling in $248,000 a year.

Of course they are on their little share portfolio as well. They're in E-9. And so they rather incoherently are worried about the price of butter going up to $60.50 and don't want, you know, anything done to their stage three tax cuts. Well, Charles, what does the shark think? That's what I want to know. So I'm gathering that the liberal one is far more entertaining. It is.

Because on every single post. I just found another, is that Patrick Babin? Oh, no, that's... It's Christian bail. But it's from a different movie, maybe. But the point is, there's someone in Liberal Party headquarters who's amusing themselves at this point. And that's more than you can say for Labor's. No one in Labor headquarters is posting those things going, I've done a good job today.

Whereas some deluded little shit in the Liberal headquarters is going, smashed it with the shark one. Patrick Bateman, that's going to get the kids on board. Well, that's all the news from TikToks, or the, you know, the political version of TikTok anyway. Charles, I've just looked on TikTok, and the chaser, to my great surprise, is actually relevant on TikTok. Oh, yeah, yeah. And we have more likes and followers than the Labour Party and the Liberal Party put together. I know.

Which tells me that we should run the country. Yes. There's no other conclusion that I can make other than we're clearly more popular and therefore more willing. Yes. And they're more rightful. More down with the kids. More down with the kids who are going to elect us to run. To run at the run in Australia.

And under us, butter will still cost $6.50. Oh, to cost more. We can't run an economy? Although, I'll tell you what, there'll be an inflatable avocado for every Australian. Yes. And they won't cost more. They cost decreasing amounts of money every time you log under that. Chase a Shop.com.

Don't go there. Our gears from road. We are part of the Iconaclass Network. More scoops tomorrow.