From cringe politics to protest memes: how the old political class lost the algorithm

During the campaign for Albania’s May 11, 2025 parliamentary elections, Albanian politicians seemed to rediscover social media all at once.

They filled it with videos — some serious, many unintentionally comic.

The clearest example was the the famius exchange between Prime Minister Edi Rama and Lulzim Basha, the party leader without a party. Their videos, along with the more modest efforts of less influential figures, tried to borrow the language and humour of Gen Z.

Like most imitations, it ended in cringe.

That was especially ironic for the Socialists. For better or worse, they were once ahead of everyone else in bringing Albanian politics online. Part of their 2013 victory, after two terms in opposition, came from their impressive use of Facebook, then the country’s dominant social network.

Back then, they looked dynamic. They understood the new forms of political presentation better than their opponents.

But the language that once made them look fresh has now become a trap.

What sounded new 13 years ago now feels tired, overproduced and forced. The party that once had the algorithm as its greatest ally is now stuck trying to recreate virality in an online world whose language has completely changed.

The current wave of protests is the second act of the same story.

The government invested heavily in promoting its work on social media, often at the expense of the work itself. Yet social media became the place where it appears to have lost the most visible part of the battle.

Look at the protest placards, especially in the first days, and the point is clear: the protesters are not trying to debate the government on the government’s terms.

They are not answering its messages.

They are using memes, film lines and pop-culture references.

For days, those placards have been praised for being funny and criticised for being unserious. But they are political. They show that a generation raised by the algorithm no longer feels obliged to answer power in the language of power.

Its first weapon is irony.

That is how it distances itself from old politics.

But the online battle has another side: the new anti-establishment parties, which have understood that the protest is also a chance to capture attention.

Over the past three weeks, their leaders have filmed and posted themselves marching beside protesters. They have also turned the last two parliamentary sessions into content designed to go viral.

Their speeches are no longer aimed mainly at the chamber, or even at people watching from home.

Their real audience is the 30-second clip that will circulate as soon as the session ends.

That explains the almost comic agitation of a politician such as Agron Shehaj, who seems furious even at things that do not justify that level of anger.

The aim is not always to persuade.

It is to catch the algorithm.

Still, the new anti-establishment actors are not safe from the same trap that swallowed the old political class.

During the election campaign, old politicians embarrassed themselves by trying to imitate young people.

Now the new actors risk confusing virality with power.

They may speak the language of video better. They may stir people emotionally. They may understand the rhythm of the feed.

But that does not automatically become a movement.

The real question is whether politics that has moved online can produce anything beyond performance.

Can viral moments become lasting political imagination?

Last year’s election campaign showed how badly politicians failed when they tried to become tourists in Gen Z culture.

Today’s protests show something else: young people and Gen Z have entered politics without asking anyone for permission.

That is another defeat for the old political class.

After all its efforts to look young and modern, it now faces a generation that has turned its cringe politics into a weapon against it.