When Kings Became Influencers: THE THIRD PEG THEORY™ - Serious history. Slightly relaxed. No pretending.
When Kings Became Influencers
There was a time when being king was a remarkably straightforward profession. You were born into the correct family, inherited the correct castle, defeated the incorrect relatives, received the appropriate blessing from the appropriate religious authority and spent the remainder of your career being addressed as “Your Majesty” by people who understood that unemployment was preferable to treason but treason was preferable to arguing with the tax collector. Nobody asked whether the king was relatable. Nobody expected him to post twice a day. Nobody cared about his engagement rate. The king did not need followers. He had subjects.
And subjects, historically speaking, were an extremely convenient audience because they had very little choice about subscribing. For most of human history, political legitimacy was wonderfully uncomplicated. You ruled because God had apparently chosen you, your ancestors had ruled, your army had won, your family owned the throne or somebody sufficiently powerful had decided that questioning the arrangement would be unhealthy. The king did not need to explain himself. The palace explained him. The crown explained him. The throne explained him. The enormous building behind him, the ridiculous clothes on him and the several hundred people standing around doing absolutely nothing except demonstrating how important he was explained him. Political communication had not yet discovered minimalism.
Then people began looking back. The printing press made ideas reproducible. Newspapers made rulers visible beyond the palace. Literacy created audiences. Portraits created images. Public ceremonies created spectacle. And slowly, something rather dangerous happened. Power acquired a public-relations problem. It was no longer enough to possess authority. You increasingly had to look like someone who possessed authority. That distinction would eventually change politics.
Louis XIV understood it magnificently. The Sun King did not merely govern France. He turned monarchy into an immersive experience. Versailles was not just a palace. It was a political statement in stone, gold, mirrors, gardens, ceremony and carefully calibrated inconvenience. Everything communicated hierarchy: who could see the king, who could approach him, who could dress appropriately, who could stand where, who could enter which room, who could hand him what and who could watch him eat. The monarchy had discovered an astonishing truth: even breakfast can become propaganda if enough people are required to watch you have it. Louis XIV did not merely possess power. He choreographed it. The king became a performance, and the performance became part of the legitimacy.
This is where modern politics begins to look suspiciously medieval. We like to imagine that democracy replaced royal spectacle with rational government. It didn't. It mostly gave the spectacle more cameras.
The nineteenth century added newspapers, mass literacy, railways and photography. Suddenly the ruler could travel. And more importantly, the ruler could be seen travelling. A monarch visiting a factory was no longer merely a visit. It was an image. A monarch meeting workers was an image. A monarch with children was an image. A monarch waving from a balcony was an image. A monarch looking serious beside a military officer was an image. A monarch looking human was an image. The crown was discovering what advertisers would later discover with considerably less clothing and considerably more data: people like products better when they can imagine having a relationship with them.
Queen Victoria's monarchy offers a fascinating example. The British crown increasingly presented itself not merely as sovereign authority but as family, household and continuity. The message was subtle. The monarchy was still above ordinary people, but it wanted to be emotionally familiar to them. The king or queen was no longer merely I rule you. It was becoming You know me. That is a profound change. Because once legitimacy depends partly on recognition, relatability becomes political technology.
Then radio arrived. The ruler could now enter the living room. Television went further. The ruler could enter the living room and stare back. Politics acquired faces, voices, expressions, gestures and awkward moments. The camera became a political instrument. A speech could be strong, but the person delivering it could look weak. A policy could be sensible, but the politician could look nervous. A leader could say “confidence.” The camera could quietly reply: Are you sure?
The twentieth century therefore created a new problem for political authority. You could no longer merely be powerful. You had to look powerful on television. John F. Kennedy understood television's possibilities. So did Richard Nixon. So did every politician who subsequently discovered that television had the unfortunate habit of revealing that sweating exists. Political legitimacy had entered the age of performance.
Then came the internet. And history, apparently dissatisfied with television, decided to put politics directly inside everyone's pocket. The gatekeepers began disappearing. The politician could speak directly to the public. The public could answer, then share, then mock, then remix, then turn the politician into a meme before the communications department had finished drafting the statement. Politics entered the attention economy.
And attention is a strange currency. You don't necessarily have to be admired. You don't necessarily have to be believed. You simply have to be seen.
That is where Donald Trump becomes historically interesting. Long before presidential politics, Trump had already spent decades building a public persona through business, television and celebrity culture. He did not enter politics and suddenly become theatrical. He arrived with the theatre already installed. The rallies became events. The entrance mattered. The crowd mattered. The slogans mattered. The gestures mattered. The repetition mattered. The television clips mattered. The merchandise mattered. The photographs mattered. Even the insults became recognisable pieces of a larger character.
Trump understood something that many politicians spend years learning: If you can become the story, you no longer have to compete merely inside the story. He did not simply communicate political positions. He cultivated a recognisable character. That is a very old trick. Louis XIV had the Sun King. Trump had Trump. Different century. Different constitutional system. Different moral and political universe. Same basic human discovery: people find power easier to understand when power has a face.
And sometimes they find it easier to support when the face is entertaining. That is where politics gets uncomfortable. A conventional politician says: Here is my policy. A political performer can say something more primitive: Here is what strength looks like. The second message is harder to debate. It isn't really an argument. It is an emotion. It is theatre. And theatre has been doing politics since long before political scientists discovered the phrase “messaging strategy.”
Vladimir Putin represents a darker and more controlled version of the same political grammar. The imagery surrounding Putin has repeatedly emphasized physical strength, decisiveness, masculinity, endurance and command. The horseback photographs, the outdoor imagery, the martial-arts symbolism and the carefully staged encounters are not merely records of a leader's life. They are fragments of a political mythology. The message is ancient: the ruler is strong. Therefore the state is strong.
Louis XIV needed painters. Putin has photographers. Louis needed Versailles. Putin has television, state media and an enormous modern communications apparatus. The technology improved. The choreography became more sophisticated. The human requirement remained embarrassingly primitive. Show me the strong man. Tell me he can protect us. Make him look like he knows what he is doing. Civilization spent thousands of years building constitutional systems and still hasn't entirely escaped this particular instinct.
Then there is Kim Jong Un. Here history stops whispering and begins using a loudspeaker. North Korea's personality cult represents one of the most concentrated examples of political spectacle in the modern world. The leader is not simply presented as an administrator. He is placed inside a mythology. Military parades, monuments, mass choreography and carefully controlled public appearances repeatedly place the leader at the centre of national history.
The political message is not merely this man runs the government. It is much larger: this man embodies the nation. Which is an extraordinary burden to place on one human being. It also creates an interesting problem for the public. If the leader is supposed to embody national greatness, then apparently the nation requires him to look magnificent at all times. History has therefore arrived at the remarkable proposition that geopolitics may depend partly on good photography.
And then came Singapore. In 2018, Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un met for a summit involving nuclear weapons, security and the possibility of changing one of the world's most dangerous geopolitical relationships. Two leaders. Two radically different political systems. One extraordinary photo opportunity. And Trump showed Kim a cinematic video imagining a prosperous future for North Korea. A nuclear negotiation had acquired a movie trailer.
There are moments when history writes satire more efficiently than writers can. The nuclear summit had a promo film. You almost expect the voice-over: This summer, two leaders will meet. One peninsula. Two systems. And absolutely no pressure.
But underneath the absurdity was something serious. The summit itself was communication. The handshake was communication. The flags were communication. The location was communication. The cameras were communication. The very fact that two leaders sat together communicated something before the negotiations had produced anything concrete. The image had become part of the event.
And this is the larger transformation. Trump, Putin and Kim are not the same. Their political systems are not the same. Their methods are not the same. Their relationship with elections, institutions, media and coercion is not the same. But all three demonstrate something the old monarchs understood instinctively: political authority is experienced visually as well as institutionally.
People do not encounter the state only through legislation. They encounter it through faces, flags, uniforms, parades, buildings, speeches, ceremonies, crowds, photographs, television, social media and increasingly through moments designed specifically to travel.
The old monarch stood on the balcony. The modern politician stands behind the podium. The authoritarian leader stands before the military parade. The candidate stands before the cheering crowd. The influencer stands before the ring light. Different institutions. Different systems. Different consequences. But increasingly similar technology: an audience watching a person perform legitimacy.
And here the story becomes considerably stranger. The monarchy did not disappear as completely as we like to believe. Its techniques escaped the palace. Democracy did not abolish political theatre. It democratized it.
Everyone now has a miniature court. Everyone has an audience. Everyone can construct an image. Everyone can perform a version of themselves. And everyone can count the audience: followers, likes, views, shares and subscribers.
The old royal court measured status by proximity to the monarch. The modern court measures it by reach. The king had courtiers. The politician has strategists. The celebrity has publicists. The influencer has a content team. The monarch had a herald. The politician has a press secretary. The king had a portrait painter. The politician has a photographer. The influencer has a ring light.
Human civilization has spent centuries reducing the number of people required to flatter the powerful. Technology has now made it possible to flatter yourself at scale.
And the algorithm has become the strangest court of all. It does not care whether you are noble. It does not care whether you are wise. It does not care whether you have read a constitution. It asks one question: Are people watching?
That is a profound change. For centuries, political legitimacy was something a ruler possessed. Then it became something governments had to justify. Democracy made it something leaders had to win. Mass media made it something they had to present. Social media has made it something they increasingly have to perform continuously.
There is no longer a campaign season followed by silence. The campaign never really ends. The feed doesn't close. The camera doesn't go home. The audience doesn't leave the square. The modern leader lives permanently beneath the gaze of an audience.
And that creates a peculiar incentive. If attention rewards drama, drama becomes valuable. If outrage produces engagement, outrage becomes useful. If spectacle travels farther than policy, spectacle becomes rational. If a photograph becomes more memorable than a policy document, the photograph begins to matter politically.
And suddenly the old king is standing in the room again. Not wearing a crown. Wearing a camera angle.
The danger is not that everything becomes fake. That would actually be simpler. A politician can genuinely believe what he says and still understand how to perform it. A monarch can genuinely care about a cause and still understand that the photograph matters. A president can genuinely believe in strength and still understand that appearing strong is politically useful.
The danger comes when appearance becomes easier to reward than achievement.
Then politics changes its question. Instead of What did the ruler accomplish? the audience begins asking: How does the ruler make me feel? That is a much more primitive question. And considerably more powerful.
Because facts require processing. Identity requires recognition. You can argue with a policy. You can rarely argue somebody out of belonging.
That is why modern political figures increasingly need something resembling a character: a story, a visual identity, a recognisable voice, a tribe, a mythology, a performance.
The king once needed divine legitimacy. Then dynastic legitimacy. Then constitutional legitimacy. Then electoral legitimacy. Now increasingly there is another layer: performative legitimacy.
You must look legitimate. Sound legitimate. Appear strong. Appear competent. Appear authentic. Appear relatable. Appear victorious. Even authenticity has become something that can be staged.
And that may be the most delicious historical joke of all. Humanity spent centuries trying to distinguish the real ruler from the performance of the ruler. We have now built an information system in which the performance can become more politically important than the ruler.
The king once needed a throne. The twentieth-century leader needed television. The twenty-first-century leader needs a phone. And the audience is everywhere. There is no palace gate. No royal announcer. No fixed court. The notification arrives while you are eating breakfast. The leader appears between a weather update and a video of somebody falling off a bicycle.
The throne has entered the algorithm.
That is not the end of monarchy. It may be something stranger: the universalisation of monarchy's oldest technique.
Make authority visible. Make it personal. Make it memorable. Give it a face. Give it a story. Give the audience something to cheer. And, if necessary, give them somebody to hate.
The medieval king needed subjects. The modern politician needs supporters. The celebrity needs fans. The influencer needs followers. And all of them are competing for the same increasingly scarce resource: attention.
The old royal court had one great advantage. There was only one king. The modern world has millions of people trying to become one. Not necessarily kings of countries. Kings of niches. Kings of attention. Kings of platforms. Kings of outrage. Kings of lifestyle. Kings of whatever strange little kingdom the algorithm has decided to monetise this week.
The crown has become optional. The audience is not.
And perhaps that is why the modern political leader increasingly resembles something older than a politician: a royal brand.
The face becomes the institution. The gesture becomes the message. The photograph becomes the historical document. The rally becomes the ceremony. The followers become the court. And the algorithm becomes the palace corridor whispering, with complete indifference: More.
More visibility. More outrage. More engagement. More spectacle.
Because power has discovered something that kings understood before anybody invented democracy: being seen is not merely a consequence of power. Sometimes it is part of power itself.
And once legitimacy depends on being seen, the stage never really closes.
The king once needed subjects. The modern politician needs followers. The influencer needs an audience. And somewhere between the three, legitimacy became performance.
Kings did not become influencers because monarchy became modern. Influencers became kings because legitimacy became performance.
The crown disappeared. The stage remained.
Comments
Post a Comment