Fidias Panayiotou, a YouTuber from Cyprus recognized for bizarre stunts, has been elected to the European Parliament, in line with the Cyprus Mail on Monday. The 24-year-old secured third place in his election with 19.4% of the vote, as reported by the BBC, which implies he’ll turn out to be one of many six Members of the European Parliament to symbolize Cyprus.
Panayiotou has over 2.6 million subscribers on YouTube, the place he posts stunt movies like getting buried alive in a coffin for 10 days and spending 10 days wearing a VR headset. One other fashionable video from 2023 reveals Panayiotou flying to Texas to satisfy (and hug) his hero, Elon Musk, at SpaceX. The YouTuber’s video hugging Mr. Beast has over 15 million views.
Panayiotou seems to be having enjoyable on his YouTube channel with some outrageous stunts, however he was pressured to apologize final 12 months after making an attempt to journey throughout Japan by practice without paying.
Panayiotou has no earlier political expertise and reportedly by no means voted earlier than this 12 months’s election. Native media in Cyprus spoke with an elections skilled within the nation who famous the social media star’s victory was historic, if solely as a result of it was so uncommon in lots of respects.
“That is perhaps the primary time a very impartial candidate has been elected, with out having any relation in anyway with a political celebration, however with social media as his solely weapon, and nothing else,” Yiannis Mavris is quoted as saying by the Cyprus Mail.
Younger folks have been an enormous a part of the YouTuber’s election to the European Parliament. Panayiotou gained 40% of the votes from voters aged 18-24, in line with the BBC, and 28% of votes from folks aged 25-34, serving to him safe a seat. Turnout in Cyprus was roughly 59%, up from simply 45% in 2019, and the BBC credit Panayiotou with the large uptick.
It would clearly be attention-grabbing to see if any comparatively apolitical YouTubers attempt to observe in Panayiotou’s footsteps in the US. There’s been hypothesis up to now that Mr. Beast (actual identify Jimmy Donaldson) may be concerned about operating for president sooner or later. When Donaldson was requested immediately about it again in 2022 he simply said “We’ll see” and “Perhaps in like 20 years.”
Will folks be voting for Mr. Beast to turn out to be president in 2040? Weirder issues have occurred, clearly, just like the election of a neo-fascist actuality TV star who’s at present operating neck-and-neck within the polls with Joe Biden to turn out to be president once more. Actually, many Individuals would in all probability contemplate a Beast presidency preferable to the present U.S. political panorama. Even when he phases a weird Saw-like game each evening for his personal amusement.
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