The 2024 US election campaigns have seemingly set off a race to see which social media users can make the most bizarrely humorous memes after each political event of note.

Kamala Harris’s own special brand of memes centres around her “coconut tree” quip, being ‘brat’, and remixes of popular songs such as Chappell Roan’s Femininomenon.

It’s Donald Trump and Joe Biden, Harris’s predecessor as presidential candidate, who are facing a trend of TikTok videos where users ‘ship’ them together in a satire of cheesy romance novels.

For those unaware, the term ‘shipping’ stems from another part of internet culture where two people, typically fictional characters who are not romantically linked, are paired together in a hypothetical romantic relationship. For example, imagine Ron and Hermione together at the start of the Harry Potter franchise – which did end up happening – to Spock and Kirk from Star Trek being matched.

So, what does this have to do with President Biden and former president Trump? TikTok users, mainly Gen Z, are taking this online concept to its most ironic extreme. Those following the election will remember the disastrous debate between Trump and Biden in June – which is when this trend started emerging.

Both candidates were criticised for their lack of professionalism, using insults and even talking about their golf swings. This memorable discussion was interpreted somewhat differently by a dedicated group of satirical meme creators.

One TikTok user posted a video with clips from the debate with a love heart filter, in which Biden says to Trump: “By the way, I told you, I’m happy to play golf with you”. Another of Chappell Roan’s songs, Casual, plays in the background, implying a casual relationship. This TikTok alone has currently amassed 11.7mn views and over two million likes.

@unknownperson0152 theyre so romeo and juliet coded 🫶 #casual #chappelroan #joebiden #donaldtrump #viral #debate2024 #trump #biden #fypシ ♬ original sound – myself

Another TikTok references the most recent debate between Harris and Trump, in September. The caption ‘I miss Triden’ (a merger of the names Trump and Biden) with broken heart emojis and a further mention of ‘enemies to lovers’ sets the tone of the video perfectly. Equal parts ridiculous, and absolutely hilarious.

During the debate, Trump commented to Harris that “she is Biden” to essentially accuse Harris of having the same rhetoric and politics as the current president. However, the TikTok suggests Trump is missing Biden’s presence with a series of clips from interactions between the pair, ending with an edited image of both politicians kissing. The same Chappell Roan song plays in the background, as if it’s the anthem of Triden.

Finally, a video with over one million views presents a cartoon version of the two men, singing along to a trend song used for shipping characters on TikTok. The thousands of comments and more than 100k likes only goes to show the popularity of this new form of political satire.

I’d argue that the people making and engaging with these videos are simply returning the same tone set by the politicians themselves. The strange rivalry and barrage of insults between the two adversaries encourages people to make fun of them in a similar way.

Talking about your golf swings during a formal political debate? Fine, the internet will return that same informality to you. The amount of bickering between the two candidates made them seem 50 years into a tense marriage – no wonder this trend has emerged from their actions.

How immaturely they have acted across their campaigns is not going unrecognised by the public, and I would argue that this is young people’s new way of pointing out and satirising the lack of professionalism in contemporary politics.

Personally, I love it.

I think that holding the mirror up to these figures and showing them how bizarre their words are is wonderful. It shows that the people do have a strong voice in politics. Let’s just hope that these politicians take the message.