Legislative elections: Squeezie versus Tibo Inshape

The legislative elections campaign has brought influencers out of their shell. At the head of the queue: France's 2 biggest YouTubers. Squeezie vs Tibo Inshape: while the former has entered the arena, the latter has remained more reserved.

The possibility of the Rassemblement National coming to power has prompted social networking stars to express themselves on a subject they usually avoid: politics.

Squeezie calls on people to vote against the far right

While many influencers simply called on their followers to do their civic duty, without giving any voting instructions, others didn't hesitate to choose sides. At the risk of losing followers. Such is the case with Squeezie. On June 14, in a message posted on Instagram, the influencer with 19 million subscribers on YouTube and 9 million followers on his Instagram counter, wrote to his followers.

In a very detailed post indicating how, in his opinion, the Rassemblement National's program represented a danger, France's 2nd largest YouTubeur (recently dethroned by Tibo Inshape) calls for a barrage against the extreme right: "Keep in mind that voting for a party that advocates hatred, discrimination and fear of the other has never been a solution, and never will be.Keep in mind that voting for a party that advocates hatred, discrimination and fear of the other has never been a solution, and never will be.". Lucas Hauchard, whose real first name is Lucas Hauchard, has so far refused to make any political comment. To explain his position to his community, he said: "Firmly opposing an extreme ideology [...] goes beyond any political stance.." Barely 6 hours after being published, his message had almost 1.2 million likes. To date, his Instagram post has accumulated almost two million "likes". His stance was welcomed by his followers, who sent him numerous messages of thanks and support. Note that his call to vote against Bardella caused him to lose almost 100,000 subscribers on YouTube. A very limited drop, corresponding to 0.5% of his followers. On Instagram and TikTok, on the other hand, the effect was positive: according to Social Blade, he gained 70,000 and 100,000 subscribers respectively.

Jordan Bardella annoyed by Squeezie's call to vote against the far right

A committed message to which Jordan Bardella was quick to respond, citing criticism from "multimillionaire" influencers. "I discovered Squeezie's open letter to young people. For several hours now, multimillionaires answering to the very noble profession of influencer have been engaging 'apolitically' against millions of French people by copying and pasting the arguments (...) of France insoumise.", he got annoyed in a publication on the same social network. With irony, Jordan Bardella puts forward two hypotheses about what he describes as an "agitation". "The first: a badly digested 1 VS 1 on Rust at the time, after a bad quickscope? The second: being overtaken by Tibo Inshape?".

Legislative elections: Tibo Inshape takes no position... But would not be against a position as Minister of Sports

Tibo Inshape, France's leading YouTubeur, quoted in Bardella's message, was finally forced to speak out. The influencer, regularly accused of promoting conservative positions, was more reserved (others would say less courageous, given the stakes). Unlike Squeezie, Thibaud Delapart (real name) chose not to take sides. On X (ex-Twitter), he invited his 1.3 million subscribers to learn"to (talk to) and (listen to) each other to try to understand each other, help each other evolve and move towards a more tolerant and benevolent world." In the same message, he calls on his followers to"make (their) own choices in accordance with (their) convictions, (their) needs and (their) beliefs", reminding them that "voting is a right and a duty.voting is a free, personal and anonymous right and duty".. Her post garnered nearly 8,000 likes in 30 minutes.

In an interview with Brut on June 22, the influencer, who until now had refused to talk politics, was more forthcoming about his political orientation. "In all honesty, I think I'm more right-wing .he declared. "I'm already a business owner, so when I'm in the voting booth, I'm obviously thinking about my own interests and those of my family and friends, so I can consider myself more right-wing. The influencer also said he wasn't "against" taking over as head of the Ministry of Sports. "Whether it's extreme left, extreme right, as long as I'm not blocked in my decision-making", he clarified. He took advantage of the interview to deny some of the accusations made against him. "I know I'm not racist, I know I'm not homophobic, I know I'm not everything that ends in 'phobe', but it's true that people like to put that image on me .he lamented.

Legislative elections: Squeezie vs Tibo Inshape

According to Visibrain, a social network monitoring platform, Squeezie's speech on June 14 was the subject of over 80,100 tweets on the day, or 1,335 messages per minute. That's 34 times more than the content creator's usual activity.

Tibo Inshape's post, like his message, created much less engagement, generating 3 times fewer messages.

On Instagram,Squeezie's message quickly went viral, surpassing the million likes mark. That's 3 times more than the average of his posts on the social network. Tibo Inshape's post received slightly more likes than the average. His post generated 10% more likes than the average of his other posts.

Influencers mobilize against Rassemblement National

While some influencers like Cyprien and Sofyan ( respectively 14.5 and 2.2 million subscribers on YouTube) relayed Squeezie's message, others, like Mister V or Lena Situations, also took a clear stand. In an Instagram post inviting his community to go to the polls, Mister V didn't mince his words:"I invite you all to read this post. And to all go out and vote on June 30 and July 7. And of course, not for those shitty fafs! Lena Situations, an influencer with 4.6 million followers, also called on her community to vote against the RN:"Vote and tell your friends and family to vote. Against the far right, against xenophobia, against intolerance." Once again, we note that these statements have had no particular impact on their subscriber numbers.

Antoine Goretti was another notable speaker.The 34-year-old content creator and former reality TV contestant spoke to several media outlets about his political evolution, "to make people think", he says. Declaring that he had "succumbed" to the Front National vote at the age of 18,"It was a child's vote, the vote of a kid who rehashed his past traumas and put them in the ballot box", he says he now votes left. The influencer, son of Italian immigrants (his grandparents fled Mussolini's Italy), says he was ashamed for a long time:"I didn't admit it to anyone. He explains his choice:"During my middle and high school years, I was harassed by young North Africans, and I crystallized a kind of resentment and animosity towards my harassers, by making a total amalgam. I believed that all my misfortunes were due to them." Since then, the thirty-year-old has come a long way. "I've been lucky enough to live abroad, I've met people from different cultures, religions. I've learned a lot," he says. The man who for a long time considered himself to be on the right, and says he voted for Sarkozy, then Macron, voted Mélenchon in the last presidential election. How do you explain this about-turn?"The path was simple," he explains, quoting Gilles Deleuze:"To be on the left is first to think about the world, then your country, then your loved ones, then yourself; to be on the right, it's the other way round."

Around theinfluencer agency Perrine Am, over 200 content creators have also mobilized to block the Rassemblement National. The idea is to bring together"content creators who want to talk about politics" but"don't feel they have the right to do so" and want to"put up a roadblock" to the extreme right, explained Perrine Bon, founder and director of the agency. Together with Imane from the grimpe.fr account and Math from the Cht.am account, her agency also coordinated the publication of a tribune signed by over 60 content creators, published in the Nouvel Obs. Judging that their "silence would be complicit", these influencers called on content creators to"get involved, to use their voices and their audiences, before it's too late".

Far-right influencers

Papacito, Valek, Baptiste Marchais... Influencers from the far right have a strong presence on social networks, and they too are urging their followers to go to the polls. Very active on social networks, their videos exceed millions of views. YouTube has been a launching pad for many of them. Papacito's YouTube channel was removed from YouTube in 2023 following a series of shocking videos. In 2021, for example, he simulated the murder of a left-wing voter in a video. They can now be found on TikTok and Instagram, where they use the same mechanisms as entertainment influencers: engaging content and privacy sharing to create a sense of closeness and authenticity with their followers. According to a survey by Tristan Boursier, researcher at CEVIPOF: "They defend a nationalist, authoritarian and anti-democratic ideology via social networksand are largely inspired by the militant tactics of the American alt right". In the course of his research, the researcher also found thatantifeminism (opposition to gender equality) is a structuring theme among many of them. "The anti-feminist discourse also enables them to radicalize part of their audience towards other ideas in the far-right corpus, notably the belief in the existence of races," says the researcher. More surprisingly, this anti-feminist discourse is also carried by women. Thais d'Escufon and Alice Cordier are inspired by the American Tradwives movement.

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