The art of influencer diplomacy

215,000 subscribers on YouTube is a solid haul for a guy who calls himself Wheelsboy and does nothing but showcase China’s tech-laden EVs to curious Western audiences.

Like virtually every other YouTube success, Ethan Robertson (aka Wheelsboy) does paid colabs, and is now even leading personalised Beijing Auto Show tours for $399 a pop!

Why are we telling you this? He’s the latest example of the grey area between influencers and diplomacy, joining others like…

• IShowSpeed, America’s chaotic 21-year-old YouTuber livestreaming his ‘unfiltered’ world travels across China and beyond to 53 million subscribers
• Emilian Cretu, the Moldovan influencer who partnered with the EU to push European solidarity messages ahead of Moldova’s high-stakes elections, and
• Carlos Engracia, the Spanish influencer who Delhi flew in last year to show Spanish-speakers “the real India”.

Their vibe, message, and language may differ, but they’re all popular voices that capitals tap — consensually or not — to help shape foreign public opinion.

And it’s exploding right now: broader “look at my abs” influencer marketing is now a $33B industry, up 20x in a decade. That’s a lot of abs, and governments — from India and the EU, to the US and the UK — are getting onboard.

What’s the appeal for governments?

We’ve long explored the fight to control social media platforms like TikTok, but the actual messages matter, too. And the reality is…

• A single influencer can reach more young folks than an entire embassy
• Influencers feel more authentic and engaging than most official comms, and
• Platforms reward and amplify human content rather than wooden bureaucrats.

And of course… this isn’t exactly new. Recall DC recruited 75,000 volunteer ‘Four Minute Men’ to deliver short propaganda speeches in cinemas during WWI, and UNICEF has long tapped celebs like Bono to help amplify humanitarian causes.

But what’s changed is the reach: IShowSpeed’s six-hour Shenzhen livestream reached nine million viewers, more than the US Committee on Public Information reached… ever! His whirlwind trip through the Baltics? It reached more than the entire Baltic population!

So… how do capitals use influencers? There’s a spectrum ranging from…

• Full-blown propagandists like Putin’s Z-bloggers embedded with his flailing troops in Ukraine, or North Korea’s stilted influencers trying to soften its image
• Sponsored ✌️familiarization tours✌️ that only ever seem familiar with skyscrapers and smiles rather than slums and surveillance (even the democratic Baltics coughed up $30K each in ‘stipends’ for IShowSpeed’s regional tour)
• Soft amplification like how China’s state media hyped IShowSpeed’s 2025 tour
• Useful independents who are genuinely pumping out content that happens to align with a country’s preferred image (eg Wheelsboy), and…
• Useful idiots like those vloggers who explored (with regime guides) “the real Syria the media won’t show you”, whitewashing Assad’s crimes.

So… what’s the harm?

First, it’s not as simple as paying a creator then watching the tourist dollars flow — control too tightly, and you end up with a Potemkin village folks can sniff a mile away.

Second, keep in mind influencers own their own audience, and they can take those eyeballs to your arch enemy next if you don’t pay up.

And third, there are risks for the creators, too — when China’s fast-fashion giant Shein flew a bunch to Guangzhou, fans quickly accused them of being propagandist cogs.

So… are influencers going to replace diplomats?

No, but that’s not the right question. It’s better to ponder whether states that fail to adapt to this new ecology might end up in a content war armed with nothing but a press release.

Intrigue’s Take

The closest we have to an influencer is resident memelord Jeremy (aka @DickerPiccs), who’s amassed a following across governments without removing a single item of clothing (though everyone has their price). But even his memes about the absurdities of diplomacy are really just a very public form of post-diplomacy therapy.

What we here at Intrigue lack in abs, we try to make up via authenticity — we’re not some faceless conglomerate, but a small team of ex-diplomats who’ve been in the room, and now reach an amazing 160,000 folks (and growing!) by sharing what we see.

While everyone’s feeds get sloppy, our only moat against AI is ourselves — our dumb jokes, our real experiences, our unique insights, and our Intrigue community. Ourselves.

Our point? The free world’s governments are full of authentic, engaging voices atop real, compelling stories, but they’re too often muzzled by risk-averse bureaucracy, or irrelevant divisions about who we really are, and which free-world abs we really want to flex.

So yes, governments need to adapt to this new world of influencer diplomacy, which is looking more and more like a forward operating base in the battle for hearts and minds.

But part of that adaptation just means empowering diplomats to be themselves, all in the knowledge that a real-but-slightly-off-message tweet can have way more impact than a formal statement cleared by committee, let alone today’s worst-case scenario: silence.

Sound even smarter:

• Turns out there’s no official collective noun for a group of influencers, so we hereby suggest it should really be an ‘impression’ of influencers.
• Would you like to sponsor Intrigue and reach our amazing and authentic and influential community across 120+ countries? More info here!