Election Memes: Hits & Misses Graded

As Australia begins voting in the federal election, we're awash with political messages.

While this of course includes the typical paid ads in newspapers and on TV (those ones with the infamously fast-paced "authorised by" postscripts), political parties and lobby groups now compete especially hard for our attention online.

And, if there's one thing internet users love, it's a good meme.

Indeed, as far back as two elections ago, in the 2019 campaign, the Liberal Party discovered the power of so-called "boomer memes", and harnessed them effectively to help secure a third term in government.

The other parties have since caught on though, and are battling hard to win the messaging war in a way that will resonate with voters, especially those who are inclined to ignore a typical political advertisement.

What makes a good meme?

The best political communication often contains a few key elements.

First, it should be developed with a clear understanding of context, purpose and audience. If the target audience can't get the message pretty much straight away, then it's not much good.

It should also spark some sort of emotional reaction. It should make voters feel something and motivate them to act, or change their voting intention.

When it comes to political memes in particular, they need to make some clear reference to widely known cultural material. This might be a trending event in popular culture, or fit into an established meme format.

And, of course, the best memes are fun. As the quote, often attributed to American funnyman Andy Kaufman, goes: "if you can make someone laugh, you can make them think".

Below, we have collected some of the major Australian political parties' recent efforts on the meme front during the 2025 election campaign, and assessed their effectiveness. We graded them from "A" for best down to "D" for worst.

Grading political messages

We'll start with the " diss track " the Liberals released earlier this month.

We'd give this one a "D" grade. It focuses heavily on cost of living and might spark an emotional reaction from voters who feel pain when going to the shops. But, it's highly unlikely to hit the mark, given it was released on a minor platform, and rap music (with its Black American roots ) doesn't exactly gel with the Liberal Party's overall image and ethos.

One SoundCloud user probably best summed up the vibe here, by referencing another famous internet meme : "how do you do, fellow kids?"

The Liberals did much better, however, with their version of the popular AI action figure trend that's sweeping the Internet.

We'd give this one a solid "B+." It features some clever one-liners, makes use of a current trend, and makes its point easily and quickly. We knock a few points off for the redundant focus on "cheaper power" This would have been better as two separate issues rather than repeating one twice.

Instead, we give Labor's version a "C-".

It looks only barely like the prime minister. He is shown as neutral rather than smiling. And the accessories chosen feel forced.

Although both memes tap into a trend, their shelf life will likely be short. This is in contrast to political ads like the below.

Rather than jump on the latest, short-lived trend, this ad draws on cultural material that's more than three decades old but considered classic. The juxtaposition of a widely seen children's cartoon with a political ad provides a surprising contrast. And the strategic editing drew more than a few giggles out of us.

We'd give this one an "A-." It still relies on audio, which is often disabled by default, to get its point across but is solid, overall.

This ad by the Greens, however, misses the mark.

We like Lady Gaga as much as the next person, but the cultural connection here seems dated and forced. Rather than focus on one key message, the ad instead mentions five separate policy positions. It also doesn't work without audio. We'd give it a "C-."

The Labor Party had more of a hit with this meme, though:

It appropriates the Venn diagram, a well-established meme format, which requires a degree of creativity and intelligence to pull off successfully. It makes a clear point, but also doesn't bash its audience around the head with it. So, we'd give this a "B+".

One of the best memes we've seen recently, however, comes from a Facebook page connected to The Greens:

The Simpsons has become a kind of lingua franca of the internet over the last decade or more, and has been the genesis of many, many popular memes , including during the last federal election .

This meme not only taps into that existing internet culture, and gestures towards one of the show's sweetest-ever moments in recounting the circumstances of Maggie's birth, but also cleverly draws on and repurposes one of the attack lines being used against the Greens ("Can't vote Greens. Not this time") by the lobby group Advance Australia. It's a clever piece of communication and one of the few "A"-grade memes we've encountered in the campaign so far.

Your turn

Keep an eye on the memes you encounter in the next few weeks in the lead-up to the election on May 3. Which ones do you find effective and why?

But memes are only part of the story. Also consider the positions of the candidates and parties and their substantive policies . Memes, good or bad, can only go so far.

T.J. Thomson receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He is an affiliated researcher with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making & Society.

Stephen Harrington receives funding from the Australian Research Council, for the Discovery Project 'Understanding and Combatting "Dark Political Communication"'. He has made occasional donations to candidates for The Australian Greens.