TikTok yassifies the Marcoses
#marcosparin on TikTok has garnered 238.6M views. (Photo: TikTok)
The copy-paste jobs of DDS and coordinated inauthentic behavior of troll farms during the 2016 elections and the drug war are bygones. That was child’s play.
Today, there are Wattpad Reader x Sandro Marcos fanfics where readers can pretend they’re being fought over by him and his brothers. In February, there was a TikTok challenge of young people recording their elders’ saluting and singing to “March to a New Society”—an anthem from the martial law era. You can find TikToks of yassified Imee Marcos in a Senate Hearing, generational parallels spliced to Olivia Rodrigo, archival videos portraying Marcos wealth as aspirational, and pitiful Imelda in tears after she was convicted by Sandiganbayan.
While it may look dumb and quirky, what we’re seeing is a years-long, carefully crafted campaign. Harnessing the power of social media leading up to the elections, the lines blur between fact and fiction. According to Regine Cabato of Washington Post, this is the whitewashing of Philippine history (and even occurring realities today) grooming Gen Z users well-removed from the baggage of martial law.
President Duterte rose to power in 2016 on the backs of keyboard armies and online hate campaigns. Added to the fact that about 99% of the Philippine population is online, and over half find it difficult to spot fake news, it has been a game changer.
Modern disinformation campaigns now act like real people, maintain personalized accounts, share real photos and videos taken out of context to their audiences. During election season, an influencer with 10,000 followers could earn $5,800 to $6,800 on a monthly retainer. Micro-influencers or “key opinion leaders” are picked by candidates based on socioeconomic class, age, and location. It depends on the demographic the political client needs to usher into a new era of fun, hip, glossily edited content that is harder to regulate online.
The effort to rewrite history has reached even the more serious side of the internet, where citations and proof are required. On Wikipedia, members of the Wiki Society of the Philippines find themselves routinely scrubbing efforts to change content on the Marcoses’ pages. A key focus of these hours-long edit wars has been the deletion of words “dictator” and “kleptocrat.”
These falsehoods have also reached the frontiers of YouTube and Facebook, where some of the most popular claims are that the Marcos family have no court convictions and the Tallano gold the Marcos family will redistribute once they return to power.
Philippine campaign strategist Alan German says this has been effective with Filipinos who choose candidates that entertain. “The guys who make noise,” he said. “They’re literally dancing and singing their way into our ballot.”
Experts say these posts, however, are not just from ordinary fans but rather “people” working for the family. Some clues to the inauthenticity of the content include the volume and pace at which they’re released and using official Marcos vlogs. Access to raw material—which include baby photos and seemingly intimate videos, like Sandro dancing with his mother, is another tactic.
The characterization of a close-knitted and lavish family is exactly what Marcos Jr. is promising his supporters. That he will “unite” the Philippines and make it “rise again”—in a conscious echo of so many other authoritarian populists around the world. And this strategy plays especially well in a country with socioeconomic disparities.
Nevermind that 70% of the 52 laws Bongbong Marcos pushed for were on designating holidays and festivals, renaming highways and reapportioning provinces and cities. In Philippine culture, ‘the family we failed to protect uwu’ with a Doja Cat song makes for a stronger narrative. BBM currently leads Presidential election polls.
And the Marcoses are in it for the long run, the dynasty is solidifying their family in the hearts of future voters. Just watch the fan cams of Sandro Marcos, the TikTok “heartthrob.” Now, Bongbong’s 27-year-old son is running for Congress.
As Imelda Marcos said in The Kingmaker: “Perception is real, the truth is not.”
