Cypriot YouTuber Fidias Panayiotou became famous when he coaxed a hug from Elon Musk.
In June he was elected to the European Parliament, where he lets his more than 2.65 million followers decide how he will vote.
During his first week on the job, he has already hitched a ride to Strasbourg and voted no to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
Cypriot Fidias Panayiotou, known as “Fidias”, has made a name for himself on YouTube with his 2.65 million subscribers. In his humor and “prank” videos, he has said, among other things, that he spent ten days buried alive and trained as a Shaolin warrior for a week.
At the end of 2022, he broke through after giving himself the task of hugging Elon Musk and 99 other famous people.
Announced candidacy on social media
Panayiotou calls himself a “pro at making mistakes” on social media, where he announced his candidacy for the European Parliament in April. He has stated that his goal was never to be elected and that the purpose of the candidacy was to motivate young people to vote in the EU elections.
In the EU elections, he received enough votes to win one of Cyprus’ six seats in the parliament. On Tuesday, he made his first day as an EU parliamentarian.
The followers decide the politics – On Tiktok
On social media, the followers have been able to follow the newly elected member of parliament throughout the candidacy and now also from the parliament. On Youtube, the audience has been able to see him hitchhiking to Strasbourg and now it is the viewers who decide how Panayiotou will vote in the parliamentary votes.
On June 9, Panayiotou created a poll on Tiktok whether to join the Green Party group in parliament, or whether to remain independent. Tiktok users thought he would continue to be non-partisan and so it had to be.
Since then, the followers have had to decide more votes, which led, among other things, to Panayiotou voting against the re-election of both the Speaker and the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.
“The world’s most democratic politician”
In a video posts on Instagram, Panayiotou claims that 10 percent of the total population of Cyprus participated in the Tiktok poll on his party political future. He therefore describes his method as a form of “direct democracy” and refers to himself as “the world’s most democratic politician”.
“The Phidias Effect”
Panayiotou received 40 percent of the votes of Cypriot voters aged 18-24 and 28 percent of the 15-34 year olds. He ran as an independent candidate, without any party political affiliation.
In the 2019 European Parliament elections, participation in Cyprus was 45 percent, but increased to 59 percent in 2024. According to BBC several analysts believe that Panayiotou’s candidacy contributed to the increased turnout and call it the “Fidias effect”.