By the time Jamie McDiarmid turned 21, he was already an expert campaigner for Scottish independence.
The Stirling University student spent his teenage years pounding pavements and knocking on doors for the Scottish National Party. When lockdown hit, McDiarmid decided he’d replicate those interactions on TikTok.
"I wanted to do something that took certain arguments [against independence] and tried to debunk them or take them apart," he says.
McDiarmid is just one of a growing group of micro-influencers using TikTok to influence young voters, most of whom were too young to vote in the last independence referendum, in 2014.
The app is currently one of Britain’s most popular social networks for under 18s. Its endless streams of 15 second viral pranks and dance routines are being combined with political messages — and now it’s becoming a key battleground for the Scottish independence campaign.
@jamiestir
Reply to @robyoung056 ##CANZUK ##scottishindependence ##indyref2
♬ original sound — Jamie
Part of that is down to its popularity with young voters. TikTok boasts 12.9 million UK adult users who spent an average of 16 minutes on the app daily, according to Ofcom research, which also found 31pc of 13-18 year olds used TikTok during lockdown last year.
"If the independence referendum is going to be won next time around, I think it will rely quite heavily on younger demographics," says McDiarmid.
Since 2015, teenagers have assumed a new relevance in Scottish politics after Holyrood voted unanimously to lower the voting age to 16 for Scottish and local government elections.
On Monday, the Scottish government reiterated how important it sees that demographic to securing independence, publishing draft legislation for holding indyref2 "in the first half of the new parliamentary term" which would extend voting rights again to 16-year-olds.
TikTok posts with #indyref2 — the hashtag used to promote holding of a second independence referendum — have been viewed 33.1m times, with some of the most popular videos simply setting Nicola Sturgeon speeches to emotional music or taking clips from independence marches and re-posting them with subtitles and emojis.
"For me, as someone who campaigns for independence, I know it’s all about trying to convince especially those people who are on the fence and soft no voters," says McDiarmid. "They are looking for answers so what I’m trying to achieve is trying to answer people’s questions and help win over the argument."
In January, McDiarmid launched an effort to inject more detailed debate to the platform and started posting stripped back, serious videos, explaining the different options available to an independent Scotland.
In just three months, he’s seen his viewer numbers rise rapidly and the comment sections under his videos clog up with hundreds of questions.
@wearescotland
#wearescotland #scottishindependence #indyref2 #indyref #scottishpolitics #politicsscotland #europeanunion #freescotland #toriesout #scottishtiktok
♬ original sound — WeAreScotland
Tom Dixon, managing director of Westminster Digital, a political marketing firm that has worked with Boris Johnson, says TikTok not only offers access to a key demographic for any future independence vote but it also accommodates the strength of feeling Scottish nationalism generates.
"What the SNP have done very well is made the independence argument purely an emotive one and we know on Instagram or TikTok, the argument that’s always going to win is the one that’s more emotive," he says.
Some narratives can be found repeated on the app over and over again. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg are cast as the villains of Westminster.
Videos of Mogg calling the First Minister "moan-alot" are reposted alongside the insult "Eton Boy".
Clips of Scottish MPs facing disrespect in the Commons are also repackaged and watched by thousands.
One video posted by an account called @WeAreScotland creates a montage of Scottish representatives in Westminster facing walk-outs and insults in the Commons. "This is how the Tories treat Scotland’s elected representatives," the video says. It’s been watched 575,000 times.
It’s unclear who runs the account, which is one of the most popular independence pages on the app and shares the same name as an official Scottish Government campaign. The SNP did not reply to multiple requests for comment asking if they are involved in campaigning on the app.
@indydawn4
#indyref2 #nicolasturgeon #snp #cooncilhooseoftiktok #kurtkrew #scotland #independence #politics #scotland
The swell of interest in independence on the app is not driven by politicians or political commentators with tens of thousands of followers.
Instead, it is grassroots. With 1,400 followers, McDiarmid is part of the swelling ranks of "political micro influencers", people who may only command followers in the low thousands but whose analysis is considered by researchers to be potent because it’s relatable.
These micro influencers bring anti-Westminster feeling to the fore on the app, but they also foster pride in Scottish identity: featuring rugby victories; bagpipe closeups or sweeping shots of the country’s landscape.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, meanwhile, is held up as a beacon of progressive, feminist, LGTBQI friendly politics.
"Any content with Nicola is going to do well," says another TikTok influencer who goes by the name Craig Mac.
Poll of polls: Support for Scottish independence
His @wordamentalist account mixes the same kind of emotive content, setting images of independence protests to evocative music, with clips of people being interviewed on the street about how they feel about an independent Scotland.
"I believe that people will relate to real people, more than they can relate to politicians. So hearing opinions from people from real people in the street, I think is more valuable for influencing people than politicians are," he says.
But not all trends on the platform are organic. Mac describes a close knit community he calls "Scottish TikTok" who have been learning how to coordinate their content.
"We have started doing regular Zoom calls with each other to discuss topics that are in the news at the time and types of content that may be good for each other and to all posts simultaneously to get a specific message across or get a topic trending," says the the software engineer who is in his late 30s.
For him, a key message for who he calls "Scottish independence creators" is to decouple the idea of independence from the SNP.
"The message that we all try to drive home is it doesn’t matter what side of the fence you sit on with Scottish independence, people in Scotland should have the right to have another say on the matter," he says.
Accounts that have flailed on Instagram or Facebook have had huge success on the Chinese-owned app.
The @WeareScotland page has only 561 followers on Instagram but on TikTok, it has more than 51,000, with almost 700,000 likes.
Influencers suggest this is a result of the way TikTok content is not dependent on who a user follows, instead heavily relying on algorithmic suggestions.
"I think the way the algorithm works on TikTok is that it exposes your content to quite a lot of people who are maybe interested," says McDiarmid.
Yet even efforts to bypass algorithmic suggestions make it clear that unionists are outnumbered on the platform.
@wordamentalist
Straight to the point 🏴👋🇬🇧 #scotland #scottishtiktokkens #indyref2 #independence #fyp #foryou #foryoupage #celtic #celticfc #glasgow
Dixon of Westminster Digital, claims TikTok nationalism in Scotland could present a long term threat to the union by enabling grassroots campaigners to reach future voters as well as current ones.
"It’s not just about who can vote in this election, it’s about who can vote in the next one," he says. "[Even] if there is an independence referendum in two years time, [potential voters] are 14-years-old right now."
While TikTok could fire up a new generation of Scottish voters to say yes to independence, there is always a concern that social media politics builds up hype but can have limited real-world impact at the voting booths.
Dixon points to Labour’s Snapchat and Instagram strategies in the 2019 election campaign which leveraged support from rappers like Stormzy and the huge following of the grassroots Labour movement, Momentum.
"They made the mistake by thinking that those people that were posted on Instagram accounts everyday would go to the polling station. And they just didn’t".
But trusting in that theory would be a risk. While general elections are regular events, there is no guarantee of a third Scottish independence referendum if a second doesn’t go the unionists’ way.
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