On the night time that Greece’s largest left-wing social gathering voted for its new chief, all anybody may discuss was pizza. At stake was the way forward for the Syriza social gathering, which had run Greece on the head of a coalition authorities from 2015 to 2019. As the votes got here in on September 19, one of many candidates, Stefanos Kasselakis, was holed up in his marketing campaign headquarters. Over the previous couple of weeks, Kasselakis, a former Goldman Sachs affiliate and shipowner, had emerged seemingly from nowhere to grow to be the frontrunner, and journalists have been camped exterior his workplace. As the night drew on, his workforce ordered pizzas. Kasselakis—younger, good-looking, sporting fastidiously combed hair and carrying a shirt open on the collar with rolled-up sleeves—got here all the way down to the foyer together with his companion, Tyler McBeth, to gather the pies in individual. Later, he returned handy out a number of pizzas to the journalists.

The press ate it up—not simply the pizzas, however the theater of it. As the management race rolled towards its conclusion, the pizza supply story was on the high of Google search outcomes for Kasselakis’ identify. The incident is emblematic of his marketing campaign, which catapulted him onto Greece’s political scene over a matter of weeks. He used a mastery of TikTok, Instagram, and X to create an sudden buzz round a beforehand anemic management race and rise to the highest tier of Greek politics. Political consultants say this ascent factors to a brand new—probably alarming—phenomenon in European politics. His candidacy sidestepped the conventional course of public dialogue, utilizing social media platforms to mission, even create, a tailor-made picture as he ran a marketing campaign extra akin to leisure than politics, eschewing substance and which means for the instruments of a digital influencer.

Kasselakis’ marketing campaign started with a four-minute and 21-second video posted on his social media accounts on August 29. Staring instantly on the digicam, he instructed his story as a self-made entrepreneur, coming back from abroad to construct a brand new Greek left. He appealed to Greece’s younger individuals, 220,000 of whom moved to more advanced economies during the economic crisis, and to their households, who noticed in him the profitable émigré they hope their youngsters will grow to be, stated Papachristou. Kasselakis personified the Greek dream and vowed to carry it to the individuals. He famous that his credentials embrace successful arithmetic competitions, his levels (from Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s alma mater, the Wharton School on the University of Pennsylvania), and his fluent English.

That day, Greek social media threads and dinner tables have been ablaze with dialogue. “Where did this guy come from? Maybe he is a stooge from the ruling right wing or the Americans. Do you think he is for real?” my associates requested once we gathered to look at the August supermoon that night.

Kasselakis didn’t converse a lot about insurance policies, however his message resonated with a public bored with political households and the ruling elite, notably the delivery class—that small group of largely family-run companies that retain a big affect on Greek public life. His opposition, contemporary off their summer time holidays, didn’t have time to reply. An estimated 40,000 individuals signed as much as be part of Syriza after Kasselakis introduced his candidacy.

Before the launch, Kasselakis had fastidiously scrubbed his earlier social media presence, in response to Panagiotis Papachristou, a strategic communications advisor at 4Hats company in Athens. Posts from Kasselakis’ associates indicated that he had been lively previous to this candidacy, however none of his content material was accessible. His solely two remaining Instagram posts previous to 2020 are about his canine.