Gen Z discusses the election on TikTok. Feel free to stay on Facebook.

Politicians and pop culture go hand-in-hand. There are moments that become just as widely known as the candidates themselves, whether they mean to or not.

There's Bill Clinton on late night television playing the saxophone. There's Tina Fey's 2008 impersonation of vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin, and the infamous “I can see Russia” interview. There are the Trump years, and political comedians like Stephen Colbert and Trevor Noah who helped us make sense of the absurdity.

And now there is TikTok, the short-form video app heavily populated by Gen Z. As the first full generation of digital natives, our comedic tastes have been shaped by social media. It's probably why there's a video of someone ambushing President Joe Biden with an a capella rendition of a Lana Del Rey song going viral.

“Red, white, blue is in the sky, summer's in the air and baby, heaven's in your eyes,” croons Harry Daniels, the 20-year-old TikTok star known for surprising celebrities with music-less, slightly pitchy renditions of their songs. It's cringe, but that's the point – and the viewers respond to it.

For Gen Z, this is a TikTok presidential election. The rest of you are free to keep living your social media lives somewhere else. I hear Facebook is still around.

The 19-second TikTok, which has 16 million views and 3.6 million likes as of its posting three days ago, surpassed the number of likes on every single BidenHarris HQ TikTok combined.

It's a moment in time that will probably remind more young people about the election than the rest of us care to admit.

“Absurd” is the way I'd describe the election conversation on TikTok. “Immature” may be a less kind descriptor. There are news outlets and media personalities providing content on the 2024 presidential race, but the jokes are what get people's attention.

There's Biden's own TikTok, which spends more time trying to meme the presidency than posting a campaign platform. There are livestreams of Trump versus Biden “battles,” where two users will compete to win likes, comments and “gifts” for their candidate of choice. And then there's Daniels, holding Biden's hand and singing a Del Rey hit from 2012 because it's his brand.

It's good for us to laugh with Biden, maybe even at him. We spent the last decade laughing at Trump's every move because it was the only way to survive his presidency. We still exist in that space as a nation, where eyes and laughs can be good for furthering a campaign.

TikTok can be a way for young people to criticize politicians, too. For all the videos the Biden campaign puts out, there are videos criticizing him. In the same vein, there are MAGA accounts on the site, while others choose to criticize Trump. That's the beauty of social media: anyone can share their opinion on what's happening in our country, whether they are praising or criticizing it.

It's no coincidence that all of this conversation is happening on TikTok, an app that both Biden and Trump have been critical of in the past. More than 60% of TikTok is comprised of Gen Z users. It's the reason Biden's campaign is pushing him to have a TikTok presence in the first place.

There's still a chance that TikTok gets banned because of its ties to China. The bill that rushed through a House vote is now in the Senate, where Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is trying to get his colleagues to pick up the issue. Biden has said he would sign it if passed, which won't fare well with his youngest constituents.

Follow USA TODAY elections columnist Sara Pequeño on X, formerly Twitter, @sara__pequeno and Facebook facebook.com/PequenoWrites