The intruder of the news gives each evening a spotlight on a personality who could have passed under the radars of the news.
For Jean Massiet, this is not a first. Regularly, the streamer comments on current issues to the government at the assembly. Monday, with the motions of censure against the Borne government, at 6 p.m., his channel was the most followed in the world on Twitch. Admittedly, it’s 58,000 spectators, not millions, but still.
Remember that we are on a platform where the often young public comes above all for content on video games. Jean Massiet is all alone in front of his camera and his microphone, in a studio that looks like a teenager’s room. And necessarily the tone is adapted to the public: “We are going to follow together the event interview of the President of the Republic on the occasion of the 1 p.m. news on TF1 and France 2. For those who do not know, TF1 and France 2 are websites on which you find a whole lineup of videos. And they also have another broadcast channel which we called television at the time.”
A pedagogical treatment of information
He has communicated a lot in recent hours, saying that he had requested, obtained and bought the rights to this “13 hours” from TF1 and France 2. He explains to me that he paid around 1500 euros. It’s ten times less than a private all-news channel. In any case, he acquired a very special place with an audience that would not follow politics otherwise. They ask him all kinds of questions that he reads on the air before answering them in a very educational way: “Does it often happen that the National Council refuses a law? It does indeed happen that the Constitutional Council censors, as we say in law. Sometimes it’s an article, two articles, not a whole text. So you have to go through the parliament box to better rewrite the law.”
It will be understood, Jean Massiet is not only a fan of video games. A lawyer by training, he describes himself as a “child of a bourgeois who received a traditional Catholic education”. Jean Massiet du Biest (originally a particle name, which he shortened) is 34 years old. He was born in Paris. Passionate about current events since always, in his high school, in Courbevoie, he was responsible for the newspaper and he was very busy with student associations. After his master’s degree in Public Affairs – Political Administration at the Sorbonne, he worked in various political cabinets, at the town hall of Paris, at the general council of Seine Saint Denis and at the Ministry of Health with Marisol Touraine from 2014 to 2015. But he is tired of seeing young people turn away and even criticize politics. And since he is online a lot, for video games, he has the idea of taking advantage of it to teach about political news.
Three to five hour shows
Now he makes his living with it. After seven years, it now provides one program per day. As often on the internet, this involves crowdfunding. He is on uTip with collections that can reach 200,000 euros. It also has the financial support of certain institutions, the Senate, the Assembly, the Court of Auditors for certain programs. All this allows him to have a full-time team of three people (administrative, accounting, press relations, editing and community manager). Her weekly show, “Backseat”, now employs 20 people. That’s half a million budget per year.
Jean Massiet went through left-wing cabinets, he takes on the left. But on the air, the key to his success undoubtedly comes from the neutrality that he strives to maintain as much as possible. Right or left, everyone takes it for their rank. His neutrality goes hand in hand with the great freedom he enjoys, without traditional media and therefore without a schedule to follow since he can make his programs last three, four or five hours if he wants. In recent days, he has in any case been struck to see, for the first time, a certain number of influencers taking a position in this pension debate. Léna Situations, fashion influencer, 4 million subscribers on Instagram. Videographer Seb La Frite, who claims 5.2 million subscribers, sent a message of support to the strikers on Twitter. “It is true that influencers are rather known for not getting too wet and always avoiding addressing this kind of subject.exposes Jean Massiet. And there, it is true that we have had a phenomenon for a week and 49.3, of influencers who take the floor to express their political opinions, generally quite critical of the government.
“It’s a phenomenon which is quite new and which, for me, is more the symbol of the mobilization of their subscribers who reject this reform and this method of 49.3, and therefore of the influencers who will end up expressing themselves by joining a movement which is becoming almost consensual in fact because everyone is against the pension reform. So the influencers do not get too wet by saying that they too are against the pension reform.
Thursday for the new day of mobilization, Jean Massiet has in any case planned a new blow. He receives Laurent Berger, the boss of the CFDT.