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Fidias Panayiotou, age 24, from Cypus, made headlines in Bengaluru in December of 2023 for travelling in the Bengaluru metro by avoiding getting a ticket and bragging about it. Today, the same person is sitting in the European Parliament as one of its 720 members (MEP). In what traditional media has mostly ignored, this is the world’s first, a YouTuber has occupied a significant position in a legislative body.
The stunt in Bengaluru was for his YouTube channel, named ‘Fidias’, currently with 2.65 million subscribers. He has had similar incidents in Japan to get more eyeballs on his content. This should still not deter you from his rise as a politician in Cyprus, for we have elected far worse people in our country in the form of gangsters, rapists and terrorists.
He has admitted that his initial premise was not to get elected but to educate the youth, a stunt copied from Youtubers like Max Fosh and Niko Omilana in the UK. Like most of his other YouTube videos, he finds heavy inspiration from other successful English-speaking YouTubers. Despite having no prior political experience, he garnered the third-largest number of votes in Cyprus in the European elections, 19.4%, as an independent candidate, offsetting traditional parties.
An Instagram poll was used by him to decide whether to vote for or against the appointment of Ursula von der Leyen as the European Commission’s President for the second term. This regular interaction and feedback with his fans is termed ‘direct democracy’. He openly admits that he doesn’t know everything but is actively learning along the job. It’s a refreshing tone from the standard political mumbo jumbo we hear. Mistakes are embraced as part of the journey while teaching a younger demographic about the EU parliament’s internal workings.
This is not the first time an outsider has shaken the political landscape. The people of Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland, elected a comedian as their Mayor as part of the reaction to the 2008 Icelandic financial crisis. The current prime minister of Ukraine, Zelenskyy, was a comedian and actor without a political background. Atypical leaders have emerged in democracies when the general population is pessimistic and tired of the political climate. Even the conventional political leaders of today, arose from movements like the emergency and the recent anti-corruption movement in India.
Influencers influencing politics is also not a surprise to the younger generation. There are political live streamers on Twitch that provide constant commentary every day. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), a prominent American left-wing politician, played games with other Twitch streamers to reach the younger demographics. Rahul Gandhi has successfully used social media and his own YouTube channel to reform his previous image during his Bharat Jodo Yatras.
However, Fidias’ case is unique because there was not widespread despair in Cyprus about the politicians; it was a statement of giving a chance. This is the first time an actual influencer has jumped into mainstream politics purely with the power of fans. This will not be a singular case. Content creators are naturally inclined towards politics because their platforms provide a powerful way to shape public opinion and engage with large audiences on social issues, making them influential voices in political discourse.
One such example is Jimmy Donaldson, more famously known as Mr Beast, who has the most subscribed individual channel on YouTube and has expressed his desire to be the President of the USA in the future. He cannot stand in the upcoming November US elections as his age is below the eligibility criteria! He has even called for lowering this age limit.
The BJP, which was at the forefront of using social media, has felt the impact of Youtubers on its performance in the 2024 Loksabha elections in the form of Dhruv Rathee and other left-wing influencers. We also saw the rise of right-wing influencers to counter this emergence. The next step for many of these would be to jump into the field directly. This could be good for India as all the seven millennial MPs elected in the 18th Lok Sabha come from families that have tasted politics before.
How successful these transitions will be is an entirely different question. Fidias now has to confront technological challenges like bots and people outside the EU voting on his polls, which influence his decisions. Indian politics, which is deeply ridden with nepotism, casteism and crony capitalism, will not that easily accept an outsider into its midst. Transparency, engagement and accountability that sculpt influencers are just words in a speech but are never to be practised in politics.
I don’t know if the Bengaluru police will still progress on the case of Fidias, but I am sure the new generation of influencer-turned-politicians will be here sooner than you think.
These pieces are being published as they have been received – they have not been edited/fact-checked by ThePrint