Michael has wheel clout! How Healy-Rae became TikTok king
AFTER a two-year reign, Justice and Higher Education Minister Simon Harris has been replaced by Michael Healy-Rae as the new king of TikTok.
While Twitter continues to be the official political and media battleground, the increasingly combative nature of the platform means TikTok has become the latest social media craze for politicians, where they can communicate in short and snappy soundbites.
One senior Fine Gael media apparatchik noted: ‘Twitter is like Angela’s Ashes: there is nothing but misery there. If Twitter was the weather it would rain every day.’
Intriguingly, TikTok has overtaken Twitter and YouTube in the Irish social media popularity stakes, with one top political adviser noting: ‘It is the Holy Grail: certainly dangerous but worth the risk.’
The irreverent and youthful nature of the medium means even social media enthusiasts such as Leo Varadkar have been wary about joining up.
Instead, Simon Harris became the political TikTok pioneer.
On joining in March 2021, the minister quickly gained a large following, gathering almost 36,500 followers in just one day. He set an even more blistering pace with an impressive 1.1million views of his first post.
While Mr Varadkar has yet to commit, the Taoiseach did risk a cameo appearance on Mr Harris’s TikTok page, where the Higher Education Minister provides viewers with a tour of Government Buildings, before he knocks on the then tánaiste’s office door. At the start of the video, a breathless Mr Harris notes: ‘On my way to see Leo Varadkar to make an announcement on some support for business in the research and innovation space.’
However, Mr Healy-Rae has been closing in on Mr Harris fast in recent months. Clips of the Independent TD trying out an electric bike in Budapest attracted 828,000 views.
Mr Healy-Rae denied he crashed but admitted he preferred ‘the old diesel’.
He later racked up 1.3million views – knocking Harris off the top spot – in a video showing the Kerry TD yelping as he drives out of a shop and nearly crashes another bicycle.
A later video of his ice-skating attempts had the TD being compared to ‘Bambi on ice’.
‘Twitter is like Angela’s Ashes’