How Theresa May became an unlikely TikTok star and why Gen Z love her
From Taylor Swift and Harry Styles to Zendaya – young people are quick to obsess over celebrities who combine endless talent with good looks.
Now add one more person to the list: Theresa May.
Yes, you heard that right. The former prime minister is making waves among pimply Gen Zers on TikTok.
Just a simple search of her name on the social media app and you’ll be flooded with endless videos of the former Tory leader.
They’re not playbacks of her speeches or discussions of her policies, but bizarre edits that both idolise the ex-PM, and take the mickey a little too.
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Shots of Baroness May walking and dancing rake in tens of thousands of likes and comments.
Some of them gush that she was a ‘wonderful prime minister’, while others say: ‘I’m a Labour supporter and I even liked her as PM she was underrated.’
Metro decided to find out what’s going on and how the former PM – who resigned with record popularity levels in 2019 – is suddenly a hit with the new generation.
Nostalgia for May
Six years after she left Number 10, Baroness May’s new young fans might be engaging in what’s called ‘defensive fandom.’
According to Dr Steven Buckley, a Lecturer in Media Digital Sociology at City St George’s University, this is when people are aggressively protective of their beloved character, band or public person, but in a more standoffish way.
He told Metro: ‘The person creating the content does not want to acknowledge they’re a fan, but they’re acknowledging that Theresa May has valuable things to say or that they admire her principles.
‘They’re not necessarily emotionally connected with the celebrity, but they just want to acknowledge that this person may deserve a second look.’
What Baroness May’s new fans often point to is her LGBTQ+ record.
While she was the Prime Minister, she committed to improving rights for trans people, including possibly allowing gender self-ID, and initiated a crackdown on ‘gay conversion therapy’.
As her successors became more critical of LGBTQ+ people, Gen Zers are thinking back more fondly of her legacy.
As one TikTok commentor put it: ‘For a Conservative she was actually a very compassionate and socially-liberal woman. A very decent prime minister.’
Another said: ‘Politics has been so bad that in hindsight, she was actually a pretty good PM.’
It’s not just LGBTQ+ issues, however. Baroness May’s time in office looks a lot different now following the chaos of the Covid pandemic, Partygate and cost-of-living crisis that followed her premiership.
Dr Buckley explained: ‘The core demographic of TikTok users would have become politically aware at the tail end of the Cameron regime, which brought Brexit, then they had Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak.
‘Out of all of those leaders, I can imagine Theresa May might seem the most sane or legitimate or authentic to many young people.
‘Society seemed to be on one track and then the pandemic flipped a lot of that.
‘You’ve now got a new generation of people that are between the ages of 16 to 29 who want to go back to “simpler times”.
‘That simpler time happened to be when Theresa May was in office.’
Weird posting
Many of the ‘fan’ TikTok edits of the ex-PM focus on the traits she was derided for while in office.
We all remember her bizarre dancing displays and her moniker the ‘Maybot’, which poked fun at her rigid way of communicating and slightly awkward demeanor.
Now those personality quirks are seen as ‘genuine elements of authenticity’ that appeal to younger people.
Plenty of the posts aren’t any sort of fandom at all, they’re just mimicking genuine edits for beloved celebrities, Dr Buckley said.
He explained: ‘It is just ‘weird posting’. This is where people are adopting fan editing techniques that are used for more traditional celebrities, particularly for K-pop.
‘The actual content creators are probably just doing it because it’s seen as an odd thing to do and will get engagement and attention.’
The conservative algorithm
TikTok is full of political content that you don’t see on Instagram or Facebook. That’s because owner Meta downplays political content in their algorithm, Dr Buckley said.
‘TikTok are very happy for political discussions to happen because political content does drive engagement,’ he said.
But experts have said that the political videos the platform does show you are far more likely to be right-leaning rather than left-wing, because of a so-called ‘conservative algorithm’ that promotes that viewpoint.
Alessia Bacigalupo, a researcher in political psychology at Kent University, said: ‘Conservative spaces online are a lot bigger than liberal spaces.
‘We also see now younger people, especially boys and men, are turning to the right of the political spectrum more than women.
‘So this fuels the insane amount of views that these influencers on the conservative side get. That is how the algorithm feeds itself.’
That’s where Theresa May comes in.
She’s one a number of conservative women leaders across Europe who are winning fans on TikTok.
Once you’re locked in to the conservative algorithm, you might also see edits of former German chancellor Angela Merkel or Italian PM Giorgia Meloni.
Bacigalupo said: ‘These women can fulfill the conservative image even better than men.
‘They often have less scandals and can win more general support, from other women as well.’
Does it matter?
TIkTok edits of a former PM are all fun and games, but could they actually shift how the site’s young users think politically?
The edits don’t appear to have pushed up Theresa May’s own personal popularity ratings, which has hovered around the 20 per cent mark for years, according to YouGov.
That’s because these sort of ‘fan’ videos are ‘very shallow pieces of content’, Dr Buckley argued.
The thousands of likes and comments are seen as ‘vanity metrics’ which are ‘largely meaningless’.
However TikTok can have a real-world impact. Just take the New York mayor election campaign by left-wing candidate Zohran Mamdani.
His viral videos helped energise supporters and communicate a clear policy platform.
Dr Buckley said: ‘Those policies were the fundamental thing.
‘It doesn’t matter how kind of snazzy your TikToks are, if the fundamental content is boring to the people that you’re trying to win over, then you’re not going to succeed as a politician.’
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