Election campaigns can get tricky and this General Election is no surprise. A couple of weeks ago, the Daily Mail was using Ed Miliband’s previous relationships – like, he’s got ex-girlfriends – as a way to shame him. But the plan to make people think the Labour leader is a gross perve has actually backfired, because lo and behold, he’s got a Milifandom obsessed with him.
Applying all the terminology usually reserved for One Direction or vloggers or, say, Tom Hiddleston, they’re calling Ed ‘daddy af’, and saying he’s ‘bae’. They’re photoshopping flower crowns onto him and talking about how fit he is.
Abby, a teenage girl who already had 11,000 followers because of her avid dedication to Tom Hiddleston and Marvel Comics, told Buzzfeed: ‘We just want to change opinions so people don’t just see the media’s usual distorted portrayal of him – and actually see him for who he is. Ed is just a great guy and how many other politicians have a fandom? We’re just waiting for him to acknowledge it bc it’s kinda sad when he only ever sees people write mean things about him.’
And we get that previous perceptions of him have been that he’s a bit, well, ‘Wallace from Wallace & Gromit,’ personal branding expert Jennifer Holloway explained to The Debrief last month: ‘Ed’s not a bad looking chap, but he’s coming from a long way back.’
Today she tells us: ‘The Milifandom was started in a serious vein, and while some people have made it tongue in cheeck, enough people are serious. Essentially, young people have decided a better image of him should be out there.
‘In terms of his personal brand, I don’t think he's thought about it. It's an underdog thing and could work in his favour.’
However, it might all be flash in the pan: ‘How this will hold sway up until May... we’ll have to wait. This might just be a flavour of the day.’
The stats show Labour are basically neck and neck with the Conservatives in the polls at about 34%, and Ed’s approval ratings the best they’ve been since 2012, YouGov reports. How could this be? Is it because of the charismatic interview where he namedropped Bastille? Is it because Jeremy Paxman called him a ‘geek’, unaware that geekdom is incredibly sexy amongst millennials? Is it because of the reveal of the Labour manifesto? Or is it, as the Milifandom puts it, because he’s just so fcking dreamy?
While certain right-wing commentators have spent the build up to the General Election slinging every single anti-Semitic stereotype (geeky, manipulative, too ambitious) at Ed, perhaps there’s room for another, more modern stereotype to be applied to him? That of the really so-dorky-he’s-hot kind of Jew. Like Seth Cohen or Andrew Garfield.
OK, so sexualising a race really isn’t the way to stop it being demonised, but there’s some value in treating Ed Miliband like a true parliamentary contender (ie, good and noble – remember not all of these memes being created of him are about lusty sex appeal) instead of taking the piss out of him for struggling with a bacon sandwich that moulded to dust ages ago anyway.
Plus, Ed’s happy with the attention, tweeting Abby:
No wonder he’s pledged to give 16-17 year olds the vote!
What do you think? Is Ed Miliband daddy af?
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.