Zelensky and rhetoric in the age of Tik Tok

Before dawn on 25th February, cruise and ballistic missiles hit Kyiv.  Before dusk, the Ukrainian President and his cabinet had appeared on a selfie video. Zelensky held the camera high above his head and declared: “We are all here”.  

The entire speech, posted on his own Facebook account,  lasted 31 seconds. The following day, he responded to the US offer to evacuate him from the capital, speaking for 14 seconds longer: “I need ammunition, not a ride”. He has subsequently addressed the Russian people on social media, urging them to stand-up against the war.

We have all seen these videos via Instagram, You Tube and Tik Tok. Messages spread exponentially on tablets and phones. These are the vehicles for rhetoric in 2022.

Technology evolves. And with it, so does the art of persuasion. At each stage in that evolution, someone grasps the new medium and redefines it. 

In 63BC Cicero’s oratory drove the Cataline conspirators from Rome. He was a master wordsmith. His speeches would build over time, his tone intensifying and passion simmering. A thirty minute oration was considered short and to the point. He worked on pitch and tone. He trained himself to be heard. Try shouting at a friend standing twenty yards upwind and you’ll hear the problem. 

Thomas Edison wasn’t awarded the first patent for a carbon microphone until 1877. Many of the greatest rhetoricians before then were heard only by those within earshot. Everything else was hearsay, or reliant on an accurate written record many days later. Zelensky’s words reach millions in seconds. They have become part of folklore within days.

FDR’s ‘Fireside Chats’ spoke to Americans in their own homes during a decade where wireless ownership grew to 80% and theatres dared not open until popular radio shows had ended.

Ronald Reagan starred in nineteen feature films in the last three years of the 1930s, a decade when 85 million Americans were attending the cinema every week. In the 50s he moved into TV as millions bought their own sets. By the time he appeared in the presidential debates of 1979, his on-screen style and delivery were perfectly honed for the camera.

Trump then rode the exponential growth in reality TV to grow a support base that he cultivated via 30 million Twitter followers.

Technology accelerates the need to change. This is the age of Tik Tok. It is transient, instant and immersive. It has over a billion users who share videos of fifteen seconds or less. 

Through his mastery of the selfie video, Volodymyr Zelensky has emerged as a much-lauded rhetorician. His impact requires no imagination. He appears in our hands, dressed in that trademark khaki green t-shirt, eyes bloodshot, voice defiant and props to hand. His message is immediate, urgent and pugnacious. He has evoked the spirit of Churchill in fast-forward. The original “Fight them on the beaches” lasted a full 36 minutes.

It is no coincidence that Zelensky is not a career politician. He’s a comedian. A performer. A disruptor. ‘Servant of the People’ was a TV show in which he starred as a school teacher who unwittingly becomes President.  He’s a man of his age. He won the Ukrainian version of ‘Strictly Come Dancing’, provided the Ukrainian voiceover for Paddington, and starred in a five minute piano recital played by his penis.

He understands the art of persuasion in the social media age. The distrust in mainstream media. The demand for authenticity. Shorter attention spans. A preference for video. 

Zelensky campaigned for President via ‘vlogs’ posted on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. His Instagram account has over 14 million followers, every one of whom he can access directly with messages that he has produced, directed and delivered. His words are not reliant on sub-editors to create his headlines. His speeches are his soundbites.

 Tik Tok began by featuring its users lip-synching pop music. It has become more diverse, commercial and quirky. It encourages users to be creative, to edit videos, add emojis and adapt tints. Paradoxically, Zelensky has used an app that deliberately bends the truth as a means to demonstrate his own authenticity. It integrates seamlessly with Instagram, so Zelensky has become a Tik Tok phenomenon without a Tik Tok account. 

 His videos appear between those featuring Ukrainians in bomb shelters and the wreckage of their own homes. But there is no ‘war section’ on Tik Tok. The Ukrainian President’s cri de coeur also sits beside footage of school girls miming the lyrics to Paloma Faith, partygoers pulling an inebriated friend up a flight of stairs and a yoghurt commercial.

 It may seem a bizarre place for Presidential messages. But that’s the point. Cicero would have approved. As he observed, “the higher we are placed, the more humbly we should walk”. Zelensky leads in war as he campaigned in peace. The accent is always on the genuine and the unspun. His speech to our Parliament demonstrated that he is quite capable of more traditional rhetoric, but in the quest for hearts and minds on the ground, he chooses simplicity, brevity and empathy. He doesn’t just to speak to his audience, he is them. Tired, defiant and brave. If a picture is worth a thousand words, what value the impact of a short, self-made video available to millions of young Ukrainians in real time?

 Zelensky is a communicator for our time. This makes him the diametric opposite of Putin whose cold, impersonal monotone is redolent of the 1970s for which he so desperately yearns. Earlier this month, Putin was filmed speaking next to two air hostesses. His hand appeared to brush through the microphone, suggesting that the event was ‘green screened’. A complete fake. Zelensky responded by ‘trolling’ him on Instagram by playing with his own microphone that was unequivocally ‘real’. 

 Sadly, rhetoric alone cannot win a war. But it can win hearts and minds, stiffen resolve and shape policy. Zelensky’s communication strategy is historic and will undoubtedly influence other leaders, activists and lobbyists in this ephemeral age of Tik Tok.