A Tokwork Orange

Medical TikTokers and the new dawn of cringe

I often think about a skit from the early 2000s comedy ‘late-night’ show, The Micallef Program. In one episode, Shaun Micallef introduces a fourteen year-old girl to read out an uncomfortably earnest open letter to John Howard, the Prime Minister of the time, that had recently been published in a national newspaper.

“Dear Mr Howard,” the girl begins, without irony and with the earnest, clumsy reading voice you probably had when reading Macbeth in front of your Year 10 class at school, “I believe you are doing a wonderful job governing this great country of ours, all of us as Australians belong under the one flag, under the one multicultural voice. We live in a beautiful land, full of rich rewards, from Uluru… to Reynella. We are, as one, sharing a common bond, which is the Spirit of Australia. But let us not forget that part of our vision for the future of this great country of ours is the dreams of the children. We, all of us, as the youth of Australia, have a voice that must be heard…