Nicosia, Cyprus — One is a hugely popular YouTuber from Cyprus who seems like a happy-go-lucky guy, the other is an unapologetic far-right Spanish maverick who rails against illegal immigration, and both have become new members of the European Parliament thanks to their masterful use of video-based social media.
Phidias Panayiotou, a 24-year-old YouTuber and TikTok user with no political experience or formal higher education, has rode a wave of online popularity and public anger against the country’s political elite to win one of Cyprus’ six seats in the European Parliament.
He said he would continue to use social media as “my greatest weapon” even after he was formally sworn in as a lawmaker in Brussels and Strasbourg, France.
Phidias, who is widely known by his first name, achieved the astonishing feat of winning a fifth of the vote in Sunday’s election without the backing of any party – previously considered all it takes to win any political election in Cyprus.
Phidias shocked the Cypriot political establishment by running an election campaign without taking any political positions, making no promises or even presenting a programme for his term in office.
“It seems that now people are not looking for political positions but for real people who don’t lie and tell the truth,” he told The Associated Press in an interview in English, the language he uses for most of his posts.
While Phidias eschewed strong political stances and was already widely known for his online antics, Spaniard Alvise Pérez was virtually unknown until he used his Instagram and Telegram slams to warn of the dangers of migrants and widespread allegations of corruption among politicians, winning not one but three of Spain’s 61 seats in the European Parliament.
What Alvise and Phidias have in common is that they both used social media to their advantage and ran effective election campaigns that garnered support from young people who were previously apolitical.
“This is not just a Spanish phenomenon, and it’s not just about Cypriot YouTubers,” Stephen Forti, a history professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and an expert on the far right, told The Associated Press.
Forti said the creation of a “digital subculture” around unconventional candidates played a crucial role in the rise of Donald Trump in the US, and more recently Javier Milley in Argentina, and the far-right across Europe — but this dynamic has been accelerated by an increasingly video-centric approach on social media.
“New types of digital platforms like TikTok and Instagram are clearly accelerating political polarization,” Forti said, because they help the far-right achieve two main goals: to spread their views very quickly and to make themselves look like normal people.
Phidias has risen to fame over the past five years by posting outrageous videos in which he shows him blowing a fortune in Vietnam, living for free in an airport for a week and being buried alive for 10 days.
Phidias said this online footprint of more than 5 million followers across all social media platforms helped him greatly when he decided to enter the race, as through trial and error he learned how to play around on social media and understood what makes a video “viral” online.
“At first, I didn’t like what I saw in politics, so I think if you don’t like what you see, you need to be the change you want to see,” Phidias said.
By his own admission, his online popularity has simply given an outlet for a section of Cypriot voters deeply disillusioned with the corruption of a party system that has for decades operated on the basis of favouritism to vent their anger and criticise the country’s political class.
“I’d be lying if I said it was just because of social media, I think that was the biggest factor, but it was a reflection of who I really am,” he said.
Nicholas Papadopoulos, leader of the centrist Democrats, whose party lost its only seat in the European Parliament, told Cyprus state radio on Tuesday that the vote sent a clear “message of disappointment, protest, despair and anger” and targeted the country’s entire political system.
Political analyst Haridimos Tsoukas echoed Papadopoulos, saying one in five Cypriot voters wanted to make their point by “sticking out their tongue at the political establishment, not just in protest but in an ostentatious expression of disgust”.
Alvise, who used the pen name, also capitalized on the irreverent vibe. He campaigned under the name “The Party’s Over” and used a logo of a cartoon squirrel wearing a Guy Fawkes mask, a symbol of anti-establishment movements that have long been associated with various anti-establishment movements. Fawkes was the Englishman who tried to blow up Parliament on November 5, 1605.
Forti said Alvise, like Millais, wanted to connect with young people by projecting a fun, rebellious image, but warned that the fun exterior was crafted to convey a hardline message.
Alvise is an avowed admirer of El Salvador’s President Najib Bukele and has said he wants to build mega-prisons like the one the Central American leader is trying to build. Many of his posts focus on stoking fears about immigrants, even as the country’s economic officials say it needs more foreign workers to shore up its public pension system.
“To ship tomatoes from a tomato field you need more papers than an illegal immigrant needs to enter the country,” Alvise told a roaring crowd after “The Party is Over” won more than 4 percent of the vote in Spain, garnering 800,000 votes.
Alvise shocked Spain’s far-right Vox party, which won six seats in the election but likely would have fared better if Alvise hadn’t started this lawless business.
While Alvise’s comments signal a trend toward illiberal governance, Phidias sees his unexpected victory as a sign of a democratic shift toward a more direct connection between voters and their constituents. He said social media empowers citizens by giving them a real, direct say “and not just listen to what the TV says.”
“Viewers can comment on videos, share videos, make videos and respond to them. So it’s more like a direct democracy,” he said of his approach.
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Wilson reported from Barcelona, Spain.
