I pride myself in being well-versed in meme culture, and even refer to myself as a “meme queen” online. Last year, I checked the “Meme Documentation” Tumblr page daily, and I continue to educate my friends on the impending doom of the Great Meme Depression.

While memes can make us laugh, they are not a good basis for education about politics. Over the last year, memes have made light of real issues and reduced serious politicians to characters we assume we know. Young people need to stop wasting so much time making memes and start actually contributing to the political process.

Memes have officially made the 2016 election basically just a vote to see which of these caricatures you’d rather have running the nation. What commonly shows up on my Twitter and Instagram is text posts depicting Republican nominee Donald Trump often referred to as a “racist potato.” Democratic nominee Bernie Sanders, once known as a feisty democratic socialist, is now viewed as a cute paternal figure. Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, who used to be a feminist icon, is now an old bag who doesn’t believe in real liberal values. And Ted Cruz, poor Ted Cruz, is now the Zodiac Killer.

So long are the days of actually comparing Trump and Cruz’s policies. Now, you’re deciding between the creepy bully and the whiny murderer.

But what’s worse than anything is the fact that although social media reflects one viewpoint, the polls say something completely different. Logging onto Twitter, it’s overwhelmingly obvious that young people admire the honest charisma Sanders brings to his speeches. But where are the young people at the caucus? Where is the landslide victory expected online? The harsh truth is that young people, and even moms on Facebook, spend more time making memes for RTs than they do lining up at the polls to caucus for their candidate.

This isn’t just on the left side of the aisle either. Trump has a mere 63 percent approval rating according to the Huffington Post, although he has continually led the polls and dominates news media.

I’ll be the first to admit that I never thought I’d have to actually care about Trump, but conservatives and liberals alike need to recognize how the constant meme-making does nothing to actually impact any polls. Just because your vote for the return of the McRib failed, that doesn’t mean your vote isn’t worth anything.

So yeah, it’s funny to say Ted Cruz murdered a bunch of people in the 1960s, but come on, you’re only killing your chances of electing a good president.