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The race for New York City’s mayor appears to have narrowed to two main candidates: Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old democratic socialist, and disgraced former governor Andrew Cuomo, who trails Mamdani by about 13 points in the polls. Cuomo, whose scandals have alienated half of the city’s residents (including women) and one of its most reliable voters (seniors), is running as an independent after suffering a crushing defeat to Mamdani in the Democratic primary. His mayoral ambitions currently hinge on his ability to get his hands on one of those memory-erasing devices from Men in Black. Yet somehow he has set himself an even more unrealistic goal: mastering social media. Specifically, beating Mamdani, whose videos have been called “innovative” and “a role model for Democrats.”
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Cuomo’s parroting of Mamdani, evident in every video, has produced some of the most excruciating political footage I’ve ever seen. Cuomo helping a young man with an afro jump-start his car (a move that some online viewers have pointed out could cause a fire); Cuomo grimacing as he confronts the reality of his situation (“Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you probably know that the Democratic primary didn’t go the way I hoped”); Cuomo anxiously walking into a butcher shop with a statue of a cow next to it. (“Do you like my cow?” the owner asks. “I love the cow,” Cuomo replies. No, I don’t!)
With his awkwardness and barely contained aggression, Cuomo is beginning to resemble J.D. Vance in the summer of 2024, when the vice presidential candidate’s efforts to appear understandable quickly supplanted online jokes about his past experiences with couches. Like Vance, Cuomo has become the X-Reply Guy, initiating conversations with completely random people who make the mistake of mentioning his name. (“Get over it, Grandpa,” one user wrote, to which Cuomo responded, rather ominously, “No grandkids yet, but I have the experience and ability to get things done.”) The replies may be a way to differentiate his approach from Mamdani’s, which has largely eschewed text-based jokes on a platform whose user base is, by one estimate, 64 percent bots. But Cuomo's biggest advantage may be that, unlike the videos that required him to travel to unfamiliar places like the Upper West Side, the answers can be given from home, ideally with the help of an intern, without the former governor having to interact with another person in real life.
Cuomo’s approach to social media is similar to his approach to the mayor’s office — he clearly believes that both are beneath him, and yet he has reached a point in his life where he needs to work hard at them. That seems to be the main lesson he took from the primary: “We had a social media component, but he had a better one,” Cuomo said of Mamdani in an interview with The Free Press. “They used it very effectively. It was very professional, and they were communicating with that under-30 group.” Indeed, according to a recent poll, more than thirty percent of respondents who voted for Mamdani cited his social media presence and videos as a key factor. But those videos weren’t just ASMR. Most of the people who supported Mamdani did so because of his policies, which, yes, were articulated and disseminated through videos. Or perhaps they chose him because he seems genuine, which immediately sets him apart from almost every other member of his party. According to an analysis by PR agency Edelman, videos played a significant role in reinforcing a candidate's sense of authenticity.
But the irony is that Mamdani’s videos are perhaps the least sincere of all. They’re designed to go viral. Take the famous video of Mamdani jumping into the polar waters of Coney Island. He begins with the attention-grabbing announcement, “I’m freezing your rent as the next mayor of New York City.” He continues, “Let’s get into the details!” He then jumps into the freezing ocean, wearing a suit and tie. As he explains the intricacies of his plan, the video cuts every few seconds to show Mamdani in a new perspective: first soaking wet, then drying himself off with a towel, then walking in the sand, posing with a polar bear, and standing in front of a roller coaster. These fast-paced visuals will keep even the most casual of us from scrolling past. When people say Mamdani’s videos appeal to Gen Z, this is probably what they’re referring to: the brevity and abruptness. However, the content of the video, like Mamdani himself, has a sophisticated, curated quality that is mostly associated with millennials.
Sourse: newyorker.com
