Bad Manners or Good Representation? How Citizens Interpret Milei’s Performances on TikTok

This paper analyses citizens’ reception of Javier Milei’s—Argentinean libertarian populist president—TikTok posts. Populism is among the most widely discussed, contested and studied concepts in the social sciences. However, the focus of research has been until recently mostly on the supply side (what ideas and messages populist actors propose) and, within them, on text. Conversely, much less attention has been paid to the visual and performative dimensions of populism, and even less to how these messages are received and interpreted by citizens. There has been a recent ‘boom’ of studies about the demand side of populism (Marcos-Marne et al 2023) but these are generally survey-based studies, including survey experiments, that analyse the effects of specific dimensions of populist messages (e.g. blame attribution or negative emotions) on variables such leaders’ legitimacy (Bos et al 2013), populist attitudes (Bos et al 2020), or vote choice (Kittel 2024). We have little in-depth knowledge, however, about how these messages are received and interpreted, and whether they match academics’ assumptions. We are particularly interested in the performative dimensions, which are crucial to socio-cultural definitions of populism. These dimensions are, moreover, inherently relational, and yet much is simply assumed from analysis of content about how citizens perceive the leader’s style and performances. In order to expand our understanding, we focus in particular on how the ‘flaunting of the low’ (Ostiguy 2017) by Javier Milei in his TikTok performances is interpreted both by his supporters and those who oppose him, in the highly polarised political context of contemporary Argentina. We do so by analysing the themes emerging from seven focus groups. We find participants differ in how they interpret Milei’s social media performance. Supporters defend his style in three ways. First, they say traditional politicians have long lied and failed the public, so it was time to try something new—even if Milei breaks conventional political norms. Second, while acknowledging his bad manners and eccentricity, they justify them as expressions of the anger they share and praise his authenticity. Third, a generally older, more conservative subgroup—many of whom voted for him only in the runoff—may criticise his manners but regard them as instrumental to implementing the economic program they favour. By contrast, opponents criticise both the ideas and the performative elements of Milei’s TikTok posts in particular and his self-presentation in general.