— Feature, Musings —10.18.2025 12:13 PM
Influential: this column is Paris Hilton approved
“Know the star you are. And see yourself as part of a galaxy.”
So sayeth the Mother of All Influencers, the Hashtag Highness, the Rich Stick Insect, Paris Hilton. Paris – who I met at a Super Bowl Playboy party in Texas once, full disclosure, and who couldn’t put two words together without a team of ghost-writers – is right, says a new report.
Influencers – at least in Canada, and at least in respect of politics – are the new galactic stars, says a report written by assorted tall foreheads. Influencers rule, dude. They slay.
The detailed, 80-page report, which had many big words in it, was authored by the Canadian Digital Media Research Network, with the assistance of some brainy people at the McGill University and University of Toronto-led Media Ecosystem Observatory. Its main conclusion can be stated thusly:
Influencers had a bigger impact on the 2025 Canadian federal general election than the mainstream media and the politicians and political parties put together.
Like, way more.
The report found that influencers produced almost half, 47 per cent, of the political content that pinged around the Internet during the election. News organizations made up only 28 per cent, and politicians a piddly 18 per cent. Ouch.
Way back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, and when Stockwell Day allegedly interacted with them, the mainstream media dominated the discourse. So, too, politicians and political parties, who spent truckloads of dough on ads. Not anymore.
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Warren,
I was quite effective against Trudeau after that government harassed one of my family members. Ditto against the Harper government for same much earlier. My current read is that a major push against PP would be a waste of time so I’m only at fifty percent energy-wise with this effort. But as usual, I will get the last and best laugh when PP blows the next elections in May. Talk about quiet satisfaction! It will be a genuine feel good moment for me.
Shocks me that anybody would consider voting for PP – he’s such a fucking idiot and tethered to fiction he pumps around, like Trump does – gotta wonder about the folks in his base and how they fall for the shit he peddles
And yet he basically got a rounding error fewer votes than your boy because the NDP loaned Carney their votes. You sound like Hilllary. How did that work out? Speaking of idiots(your words, not mine-thank you John Kennedy!), many of the folks that voted for Carney are at a Canadian No Kings protest when WE have(quickly checking notes) a King as head of state. You guys are hilarious! At least I have lots of material to laugh at while Carney makes the one per cent even wealthier than they already are(thanks Justin!) at the expense of people like you. Elbows up and buy Brookfield!
Lots of people wonder the same thing about those that voted for Trudeau or actually believe in Carney.
Elbows Up?
Curious is not the most self aware person.
Well, they’re victims of a propaganda machine when they vote against their own best interests – so I wonder about our education system and their upbringing when I consider that they fall for so much complete bullshit.
Mark Carney was lucky to win. I don’t think Jagmeet Singh could have done much worse if he had been bribed to sabotage his campaign. President Trump’s comments helped Mark Carney, and the Conservatives didn’t get enough support from women. Without question, Jenni Byrne wasn’t the right person to manage the campaign.
Im no supporter of PP.
However… anyone claiming that he is a walking political corpse…. should take a careful look at all the op eds / comentary about Stephen Harper in 2004-05. Also Dalton McGuinty between 2000-02. Dumping a leader after one loss is a strategic mistake almost 100% of the time IMO.
Mainstream voters dont give a damn about opposition leaders in between elections and instantly forget all their mistakes in week 3 of the writ period.
Canadian No Kings protesters when reminded about King Charles:
https://youtu.be/w7IMS60IkYA?si=IsGAVoL3kvkD0od6
I still don’t buy it…. and I’m saying that as an informed voter who listened to a lot of “influencer” podcasts in the last election.
1. I think most of the pings are about amusement at the silliness of these so called “influencers”. Mine certainly were.
2. The only thing we have to affirm the alleged importance of “influencers”….. ahem…. is a university study…. This alone tends to suggest the opposite is true.
That’s fair.
This study just makes the point so many of us have already made. The point being that social media opened the floodgates to reams and boat loads of propaganda. Not the kind of propaganda that builds community l, but the kind that rips it apart, imagines adversaries, creates imagined enemies and stokes fear. The same kind the Nazis used to recruit young Germans to their lunacy is employed these days through social media – it’s Nazi style propaganda, and it’s flooding the internet – that’s why so many people fall for morons when it comes time to vote. Luckily Canada didn’t fall for it.