Anyone who's been on TikTok in the past month knows Andrew Probyn doesn't run the press conference — but he's still allowed to arrange a video call with the woman who turned him into a meme.

The ABC political editor's terse exchange with Prime Minister Scott Morrison in March has become fodder for the video platform's short videos, with users adding their own music, filters and effects.

Brooke Taylor, or @sooklyn, was one of the first users to jump on the trend, with her original video amassing more than 1.5 million views.

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Speaking over Skype, Ms Taylor told Probyn she made the video because she couldn't get the exchange at the press conference out of her head.

But she never thought it would gain the traction it did.

"I just put [the press conference] on in the background, made the video, posted it, left it, didn't think about it," she said.

"Came back and there was like 100,000 views and I thought 'oh no I've exposed myself'."

Ms Taylor said she was then inundated with messages from people telling her the clip had appeared on TV, and the momentum grew from there.

Poking fun at politicians is as old as politics itself, but with hundreds of thousands of Australians confined to their houses and glued to the news during the coronavirus shutdown, many have more time than usual to get creative.

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Ms Taylor told Probyn she had always been a political news junkie, because decisions made by those in Parliament directly affected her job in the mining sector.

"I've always been on top of reading all the news, watching all the press conferences — even the ones you get yelled at," she said.

"So it wasn't much of a change to me when [the coronavirus pandemic started].

"Before that not many people paid attention but now they've got a lot more time on their hands and they care a little bit more."



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TikTok a more 'relatable' way into politics

It's not just videos of Probyn and Mr Morrison that have connected with people on the site.

A video by user minorfauna to the misogyny speech given by former Prime Minister Julia Gillard has been viewed more than 800,000 times and even got the attention of the woman herself.

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Ms Taylor said she thought the reason these kinds of videos were connecting with a younger audience on TikTok was because they made what happens in the nation's capital more accessible.

"[Politics] are part of their life but it's kind of funny so it's like 'yeah we can relate'," she said.

"You're making funny content but you're still getting out the message you want to get out in the end.

"It's just broaching it through the backdoor instead of the regular way that you would."

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