Fidias Panayiotou

Fidias Panayiotou (born 10 April 1996 [1]; Greek: Φειδίας Παναγιώτου), known mononymously as Fidias, is a Cypriot YouTuber and independent candidate for the 2024 European Parliament election.

Career

Panayiotou began posting videos on YouTube in 2019.

On October 8, 2022, Panayiotou began on a mission to hug Elon Musk after having hugged 99 other celebrities. While waiting outside Twitter's headquarters for Musk to appear almost everyday, he encouraged his followers to "spam" Maye Musk on his request, which she described as "malicious". On January 21, 2023, Elon Musk would meet and hug Panayiotou in the headquarters building.

In January 2023, Panayiotou announced on Cypriot television his intention to interview every candidate running for the 2023 Cypriot presidential election. He hosted 12 out of the 14 candidates; with Nikos Christodoulides and Andreas Mavroyiannis, the two front-runners, not accepting his invitation.

Fare evasion videos

In September 2023, Panayiotou uploaded a video of himself freeriding on the Bengaluru Metro in India. The management of the train service responded that they would be filing a criminal case against him.

On October 20, 2023, he continued with a video on travelling across Japan for free with three other YouTubers. He would travel on public transportation modes such as buses and trains while skipping on paying for his fare through various means, and begging for cash. He would also pass himself off as a guest of a hotel that he was not staying at to help himself to its breakfast. He was criticized for his actions in the video, and made an apology video, which was subsequently deleted. YouTube would also remove this video along with four others, including a 2022 video on travelling across United Kingdom for free, for violating its community guidelines.

As of October 24, 2023, he had 2.38 million subscribers.

References