I was on the toilet when I first became acquainted with Zohran Mamdani. I wasn’t reading an article or listening to a campaign speech, but rather I was mindlessly scrolling through Instagram. Despite initially swiping up, it was perhaps the warmth of his smile I had glimpsed for a half second that compelled me to finish the whole reel and drop a follow. That moment served as the catalyst to my emotional investment in the mayoral race of a city half a world away where I’d never set foot in. It also made me realise that in this attention economy, good PR is currency that can buy you political legitimacy. Mamdani understood this better than most.
If you haven’t been online for the past months, let me quickly catch you up. Last Wednesday, Zohran Mamdani won the New York mayoral election, defeating former governor Andrew Cuomo. Polling at just 1% in January, his rise was meteoric and against all odds. The odds, you ask? Well, he’s a self described Democratic Socialist in NYC, the bastion of capitalism; he’s a brown Muslim man in a country where a certain president is proudly institutionalising racism; he’s an Arsenal fan (personal take, they’re not used to winning); and most political elites (on both sides of the aisle) lined up behind his opponents. Despite all this, Mamdani’s focus on affordability clearly resonated with many New Yorkers, especially younger generations. Campaign initiatives like “freeze the rent”, taxing the wealthy, and universal childcare, coupled with his vocal support for Palestine, spoke to voters disillusioned by years of politics serving elites.
At its core, Mamdani’s campaign and victory represents bottom-up resistance to corporate politics. Yet in this article, I do not aim to unpack the popularity or feasibility of his policies, but rather I write on the authority of being an avid consumer of social media, witnessing in real time how platforms amplified the rise of Zohran Mamdani. We live in a world in which we are constantly bombarded with information, where headlines, tweets, and reels are in constant competition for our attention. Political campaigns no longer need to simply inform or persuade, they must first retain our attention before they can do either. The results of the recent election made this quite clear. A brief scroll through Cuomo’s Instagram makes it obvious that the bulk of his marketing effort and budget was not invested into social media. In fact he relied heavily on TV ads in an attempt to reach his supporters. Mamdani, on the other hand, understood that in today’s media landscape, attention is best garnered on little screens, not big ones. The majority of his ads – reels and Tiktoks – were fast, funny, memorable, and most importantly, full of substance. His focus on affordability was constant.
Take, for example, one of the first reels that caught my attention: Mamdani, in a full suit, jumps into icy water shouting “I’m freezing… your rent!”. The absurdity of the situation, coupled with the pacing and unpolished, iPhone-camera filming, made it look authentic and engaging. Compare this to Cuomo’s slow and lengthy AI-generated reels – not only out of touch with the attention span of the average voter today, but also a tad-bit tone deaf in a city full of starving artists. It’s also important to recognise the role Mamdani’s charisma played in holding attention. We’re talking like, Obama levels of eloquence and suave here, but with extra compassion. Call me a fanboy, but that smile? Instant vote. Now, I know a warm smile doesn’t reduce your rent, but online, it can make viewers pause, watch, and listen. That’s half the battle right there.
Mamdani didn’t just make New Yorkers stop scrolling, he made them feel seen. As I said, I have no connection to New York, yet it seems quite obvious that a large chunk of the city’s population had become increasingly cynical about the political establishment. Mamdani’s campaign resonated because he made it clear he was on their side, he was one of them. He seemed to understand his audience, his reels rendered politics accessible, relatable, and personal. Mamdani is young. He turned 34 last month and it shows. His seamless use of memes and pop-culture references in his content made it obvious he grew up around the internet, he spoke the digital dialect of his young voters naturally. His understanding of the social media landscape enabled him to appear on popular accounts, in which he once again demonstrated his cultural fluency: In his appearance on Subway Takes, he pitched his candidacy for mayor and discussed the feasibility of reducing the exorbitant price of matcha lattes, while causally being able to name-drop a popular NYC gay bar on Gaydar. Delivered authentically, these moments made it clear he was in touch with the city and people he aimed to represent.
Mamdani’s fluency extended past the digital sphere. With more than 700 languages spoken across its five boroughs, NYC is as ethnically diverse as it gets. Attuned to this diversity, Mamdani posted reels in Arabic, Hindi, Bengali, and Spanish, injected with cultural references. The (expected) flood of racist responses revealed just how uncomfortable some become when representation is no longer centred around them. It also signalled to communities often neglected by the monolingual, white-coded messaging of traditional campaigns that he was addressing them directly. Even his campaign’s branding, which was cleverly woven into his social media content, left me with an odd sense of familiarity. The bright, vibrant colors and hand-drawn typography gave it a personable touch, apparently drawing inspiration from bodega signage – a nod to the city’s everyday life and the people who make it. To me, the visuals felt hip (is it un-hip to say that?), aesthetic, inviting and relatable, the type of logos I actually wouldn’t mind sticking on my laptop. In comparison, Cuomo’s sterile, corporate branding looks like it could inspire about as much emotion as a paperclip.
Through social media, Mamdani made politics feel accessible in a way few candidates have. His rise reminds me of Trump’s: populous politics where performance often means more than policies. For the left, which has recently struggled in the realm of charisma-driven politics, Mamdani’s win is an important victory, and has already inspired other progressive candidates to emulate his PR. Now comes the difficult part, converting the momentum of his campaign into change for New Yorkers. With this, I wish him the best of luck. In this attention economy, Mamdani blurred the lines between politics and content and is a reminder that through social media, political influence can permeate every corner of our lives, even the bathroom.
