Zelensky’s Social-Media Savvy Makes Him an Online Star

 

 

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has become an online star amid the Russian invasion of the country.
• His short, simple selfie videos have inspired reactions from far beyond Ukraine’s borders.
• His newfound fans have created fancams and memes, prompting disagreements about tone.

A video begins with Russian President Vladimir Putin walking down a nondescript hallway. He looks side to side as he moves, nodding. He’s expressionless.

The camera flickers as Tyler, the Creator’s “NEW MAGIC WAND” plays. Suddenly, the bass drops with a quick flash. The shot turns to slow-motion clips of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky smiling, striding along a bright road flanked by waves of people cheering him on.

This clip, uploaded Saturday to TikTok, is one of many in a burgeoning micro-genre of “Zelensky edits.” The flashy montages of the Ukrainian leader portray him as an affable, fierce protagonist against a cold, enervated Putin.

Often called “fancams,” this type of homage content is popular across the internet, especially among fans of K-pop, who originated the genre. Now, it’s being used to celebrate Zelensky amid Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

The posts come as the Ukrainian leader has leveraged his own social media presence — in a way that seems entirely antithetical to the Russian president — to drum up support for his country under attack.

In one video, the head of state reassured the Ukrainian people he wouldn’t flee the country despite rumors he’d already left.

“We are all here. Our soldiers are here. The citizens of our country are here,” Zelensky said in the video that has been viewed over 5 million times since it was posted to Telegram last week. Surrounded by advisers in a darkly-lit street in the nation’s capital, Kyiv, Zelensky seemed to speak with a deadpan warmth and unblinking confidence.

 

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky

Dr. Paul Booth, a Professor of Digital Communication and Media Arts at DePaul University, told Insider these videos show Zelensky as “an everyday person, not a global elite, not as ‘President of Ukraine.'”

“It feels very comfortable, like we could talk to him,” Booth said, adding that “he’s using a lot of the same techniques” and “aesthetics” that “fans themselves use on social media.”

Zelensky, who was an actor and comedian before he won the Ukrainian presidency with 73% of the vote in 2019, has shifted between delivering statements from a podium to recording himself on a single device seemingly without professional equipment.

Putin, on the other hand, doesn’t post his own messages to social media, and his solemn public announcements are rumored to be prerecorded and passed off as live, Slate noted.

Zelensky is “talking directly not just to people in Ukraine, but broadly the world,” Dr. Ashley Hinck, a Communications Assistant Professor at Xavier University, told Insider.

“He’s in line with internet practices,” Hinck said. “Those selfie videos were made well.”

Posts about Zelensky raise questions about tone during war

Tweets about the Ukrainian president have garnered hundreds of thousands of likes.

 

Volodymyr Zelensky

“Impossible to describe how incredible President Zelensky is,” reads one from a Londoner with over 100,000 likes. A UK Parliament staffer’s tweet about how “every woman in your life now has at least a small crush” on Zelensky amassed double the engagement.

The sentiment almost immediately drew backlash. Jezebel published an article that called for the end of the “Zelensky Thirst,” while a BuzzFeed News report dubbed the internet’s response “Peak Cringe.”

On TikTok, hashtags related to Zelensky have over 350 million views combined. Most of the top videos are quick and punchy, zooming through footage of the politician looking joyous or dressed in military garb.

One of the most popular TikTok videos mentioning Zelensky, which has over 3 million views and 500,000 likes, is a fictional depiction of Putin and Zelensky breaking up as “best buddies” interspersed with clips of fires and an incinerated building. The video is set to the tune of Olivia Rodrigo’s “traitor.”

Other posts include videos of TikTokers declaring their attraction to Zelensky. The official Ukrainian Twitter account has also gone viral for its own social media posts and memes about the conflict.

In one February 24 post, Ukraine’s official Twitter account asked followers to tweet “@Russia and tell them what you think about them.” The post resulted in varied responses —  memes, like Putin with a drawn-on moustache, and genuine showings of support for Ukraine, including a statement from the Auschwitz Memorial.

Hinck said the war in Ukraine carried a greater severity than typical instances of digital fandom, like “political candidates at the Iowa Caucus in the US” or “pop idols raising money for charity.”

“The tragedy of war feels so, so overwhelming in this case, and I think tone does matter,” she said. “It’s an important conversation for citizens to have with each other.”

Fans are always going to “push the boundaries,” according to Booth, who said many people “deal with emotional issues through humor” or by “highlighting what is causing them to stress.”

Booth said that some fans or consumers may even find it “cathartic or helpful.”

“In any sort of fan engagement, there are always going to be disagreements about levels of emotion, levels of affect, and how that gets turned into different media creations,” he said. “It can be perceived as making light of a very situation, but at the same time there are lots of people who are taking that situation very seriously.”