“Wouldn’t it be great if there was a job where I could get paid to do stupid things?” thought Cypriot Phidias Panayiotou five years ago. And so his YouTube channel was born.
A week ago, the channel helped him win a seat in the European Parliament, unexpectedly coming in third with 20% of the vote, just behind Cyprus’ two traditional ruling parties – not bad for someone who decided to vote for the first time in his life.
One month was enough for the 24-year-old, who admits to being politically illiterate, to run as an independent and upset the decades-old mainstream party establishment.
During his election campaign, Phidias said he would not take a stance on any political issue and would know everything if elected.
“personally, [political cliches]”I’m tired of hearing political promises that aren’t kept, I’m tired of all this pretentious seriousness,” he said, among other things, as he officially launched his candidacy in late April, dressed in a jacket and bow tie and accompanied by his father, a priest.
“I once heard somewhere that if you’re not happy with the situation around you and you want to change it, you have to be the change yourself,” he said, adding that he chose to go independent because he couldn’t fit into the mold.
Recently, he has been holding special “tutoring” preparatory sessions with former Cypriot MEPs (always carrying his camera) and says he is packing for Brussels and may even try to form his own group in the European Parliament.
Cyprus is currently in shock, trying to explain this political phenomenon from a post-political and de-ideologized perspective, but at the same time expressing a deep-rooted aversion to traditional political parties. What is certain is that it is now almost impossible to hear any politician, journalist or analyst who aggressively criticizes Phidias.
“I’m going to be a YouTuber.”
Born and raised in the village of Meniko, the son of a large family and a priest, Phidias began his “revolution” when he decided to pursue a career as a YouTuber. After being discharged from the National Guard in 2019, he did not study and began traveling the world for free, begging strangers for money. In 2021, after the pandemic, he went to the United States to meet other famous YouTubers and gain the necessary know-how. In 2021, he participated in the challenge of American billionaire YouTuber Mr. Beast and won a Lamborghini worth $300,000. The Beast gathered 50 people and told them to touch the luxury car. Those who got tired and stopped touching were disqualified. After about 70 hours, the YouTuber from Cyprus used an ingenious way to meet his basic needs and won.
But the big story that catapulted his career was his mission to embrace his idol, Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of social media platform X. He finally succeeded after camping outside X’s headquarters for months and messaging Musk’s mother and other executives at the company. He has repeatedly said that Musk is his favorite person and role model, and he quoted Musk throughout his campaign.
His channel currently has around 2.6 million subscribers and earns around 50,000 euros a month.
He has set himself a variety of challenges, including being buried in a coffin for 10 days with a snake (and a camera), surviving in an airport for a week without a single euro, marrying a stranger within 24 hours, and attempting some of the most dangerous extreme sports.
However, last year, he attracted negative reactions after he posted a video of himself trying to travel for free between India and Japan while begging for money, especially riding public transport in Japan without a ticket, after which many of the related videos were removed from YouTube.
“They are mocking us.”
Suddenly, just before the Cypriot presidential elections, Phidias launched a second YouTube channel with content about Cyprus and re-emerged as a journalist interviewing presidential candidates (a model also adopted in the Greek national elections). He managed to interview 12 of the 14 candidates, excluding the two main candidates, Nikos Christodoulides and Andreas Mavroiannis.
Phidias said he would not take a stance on any political issues during the election and would learn everything if elected.
In January, he took on a new challenge: running for the European Parliament. He said his main goal was not to win, but to get as many people as possible to register to vote in Cyprus. “They’re mocking us, so let’s confuse them,” he told his audience. “One night I said, ‘Foolish Phidias, if you don’t vote, if you don’t get involved, the same fool will always come along.’ And I said, ‘Enough is enough.'”
Announcing his candidacy on television in a suit and shorts with three ties, he admitted he knew nothing about politics or the European Union but insisted he was ready to learn. “I’ve decided to make my own small contribution with my influence,” he said. “Over the next few months we’ll all be travelling together and learning about Europe and politics together.”
The collapsing party system
Vasiliki Triga, an associate professor at the Cyprus University of Technology’s School of Communications and Internet Studies, explains that Phidias has several special characteristics that make him especially endearing, including his humble background, his endearing honesty, and the fact that he appears to have made great strides in the past six months.
“He frankly repeated the main argument that the parties did not understand: he is tired, and the electorate is tired of seeing the same old Cyprus problem, high prices, the housing crisis and nothing changing.
“Cyprus also experienced a crisis, but the disintegration of the party system was delayed. In Greece, as well as in other countries that experienced economic crises, the party crisis occurred more quickly,” Triga said. The power of traditional parties has gradually weakened and is now half what it was 10 years ago. Cyprus has no culture of protest, as was made clear during the 2013 bond cuts.
“A country that learned to obey authority suddenly has protests during the coronavirus pandemic, with trash cans being burned and Molotov cocktails being thrown,” she points out. “It means something is changing. People are angry and this was a way to vent their anger. We don’t know if this will have a therapeutic effect and calm people down.” At the same time, analysts note that there was a transitional period of de-ideologization, and even in the election of President Nikos Christodoulidis, who ran as an independent, his rhetoric was very communicative and less ideological, with creative ambiguity about political shades.
“These elections saw parties carry on with ‘business as usual’ and no real message or proposals for Europe. Phidias is an apolitical man who said ‘I have no stand’, but the parties that should have a stand didn’t,” said political analyst Christoforos Christoforou.
Fiona Mullen, director of Nicosia-based consultancy Sapienta Economics, said the message parties should take from this was that they needed to use modern democratic techniques to engage voters and make them feel heard.
“But I doubt that will happen. So I am concerned that if there is no solution to the Cyprus problem, they will treat the risk to the future of the existing parties as the risk to the future of Cyprus,” she says.
As she points out, political parties know deep down that their future is bleak if they don’t change, but at the same time, they are too afraid to change their ways.
“It’s like a slow train crash. Eventually they’ll hit a wall and complain that they didn’t see the disaster coming.”
Phidias’s campaign slogan was “Enough with the parties,” he stressed independence, and he called Turkish Cypriots “our brothers,” a clear departure from ELAM’s language. After all, he received votes from all parties, young and old.
“The best mission he could have is to use his knowledge to engage young people,” Triga said, explaining that a recent trend on TikTok in Cyprus was about how cool it would be to become a member of the European Parliament.
“You can’t predict anything about Phidias. He might get bored, he might become mainstream, he might become something else,” she added. “I don’t think he has a future in politics, but you never know what’s going to happen.”
Far-right factors
Political analyst Christoforou said Phidias’ election would be “a political shock for Cyprus, but it would not upend the political or party establishment.”
“What was upended was the order of political parties. Phidias’ success was in completely obscuring the rise of the Elamites, an offshoot of the Golden Dawn. The Elamites had lost some of their support because of Phidias. There were many who had voted for Elam, not because of ideological affinity, but as a reaction, and they eventually turned to Phidias.”
Phidias’ campaign was not partisan in nature. He said he was born into a nationalist family and served in the Special Forces. He said he had attended ELAM rallies as a student six or seven years ago, due to his family’s influence. But he never got involved in politics.
