2023-06-21 09:05:00
Everything in this video is hypercontrolled. And it was initially paid. We felt Conner Rousseau’s desire to avoid a free interview with a professional journalist who might have asked him disturbing questions.
This video is part of an influencer communication strategy (person who, thanks to his exposure on the web, influences Internet users in different fields, Editor’s note). For several years, Conner Rousseau has been the prototype of the political influencer. He is the community manager of his own brand. People, stars of television, entertainment, sometimes offer exclusive content to the press and which are paid. Here, this video was offered once morest payment but, as a matter of principle, the Flemish media decided not to pay. It was an interview already filmed and finished, with a political figure that we see every week on television anyway.
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For several years, Conner Rousseau has been the prototype of the political influencer. He is the community manager of his own brand.”
We leave the classic political communication…
This strategy seems strange to me, knowing that it comes from a political figure who usually offers fairly simple stories and videos on social networks. We are dealing with a long and sometimes painful interview-confession. Atmospheric music, intimate atmosphere… It made me think of the archetypes of the genre, such as interviews with Diana or Meghan Markle. The codes of reality TV stand out clearly: a certain announced vulnerability, a promise of a media happening. In the terms he uses, he is addressing his friends, his followers. He does not speak to his socialist comrades, to elected officials, to activists.
Vooruit might pay dearly for the media coverage of its president.
Does Conner Rousseau put his image before that of his own party?
For a few years now, the rebranding of Vooruit has revolved around communication and the self-promotion of Conner Rousseau. Six months ago, we were talking regarding Conner Rousseau as a future Prime Minister building his image. But here, he returns to the more offbeat tone specific to social networks, he bypasses traditional media to avoid questions that would embarrass him. He also plays on generational proximity with his audience: he respects a lexical field intended to make him appear true, authentic in the eyes of his followers.
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Conner Rousseau bypasses mainstream media to avoid questions that would embarrass him.”
But this total control of the codes of Instagram, of YouTube, kills all sincerity….
There is a premeditation, indeed. It’s built. He is in what is called “extimacy” – the strategic unveiling of his intimacy, the strategic exhibition. We see this happening more and more in politics. It makes for this 14-minute video of condensed pathos that’s meant to trigger fans’ empathy for Conner Rousseau’s doubts regarding his sexual orientation.
Could this video also be a “preemptive strike” intended to clear future charges? The president of the Flemish socialists is suspected of having behaved inappropriately with underage young men.
We cannot prove it, of course, but we perceive a dimension of media backfire in this communication. In this game, you have to avoid the Kevin Spacey effect: the actor was in full glory thanks to his role in the House of Cards series and was hit hard by the Metoo wave. He was charged with harassment. In defense, he revealed his homosexuality, but this caused him even more criticism. The intimate register, of “extimacy”, can lead to a toxic spiral, to what the Americans call the shitstorm. This online media coverage also makes people more vulnerable.
Could people get tired of Conner Rousseau’s chain confidences?
Yes. Especially since he is already playing the game of the BV (Bekende Vlamingen, the “known Flemings”): he accepts the codes of peopolization in many entertainment programs in Flanders. It reveals itself permanently, in the register of starization. He said he was going to take a break because, psychologically, it’s exhausting to expose himself like this…
Conner Rousseau, the King of com’ is planted
Conner Rousseau is often compared to Georges-Louis Bouchez in their relationship with the media. But, in reality, Conner Rousseau goes much further than the president of the MR in the staging of himself.
In Georges-Louis Bouchez, we also find the will to transgress certain codes of political communication and to practice a form of mixing of genres, with peopolization, entertainment and political positions. But the president of the MR remains, roughly speaking, in the political sphere: he does not pour into “extimacy”, unless one takes into account his stagings with Liloo, his dog. In the show Special forces (Flemish reality show on VTM, which ended on a resounding flop for the liberal), what harmed him was that he did not master this sense of exhibition . Bouchez has the will to saturate the online conversation and the public debate in Belgium, to be the first on certain themes and social debates, but I feel it less in this desire to stage his intimacy or fragility.
Conner Rousseau seems on the contrary to put aside the ideological fight.
If Georges-Louis Bouchez remains in a logic of political confrontation, it is not the roadmap followed by Conner Rousseau. He is in the desire to garner sympathy capital. He wants to embody the face of progressivism in Flanders. He wants to tell us that the added value he brings to the debate is himself.
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Conner Rousseau wants to tell us that the added value he brings to the debate is himself.”
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