Gregory Guevara

Gregory John Guevara was born in Ottawa, Ontario on May 22, 1997.^{[‡ 1]} Along with his three older siblings, Michelle, Anthony, and Francis, he is the son of Caribbean parents. Guevara grew up in Montreal, playing soccer and hockey as a kid.^{[‡ 1]} After graduating from Holy Trinity High School in 2015,^{[‡ 2]} Guevara studied journalism at Carleton University.^[1]

Guevara started seriously pursuing YouTube after being disillusioned with government work at an unpaid internship that he did as a part of his senior year coursework at Carleton University.^{[‡ 1]}

Guevara's videos have been described as "millennial/zoomer-friendly", and he has covered topics such as the Peterson–Žižek debate, COVID-19, and climate change in parody videos.^[2] He uses a persona that is "an all-knowing, hyperaware, and slightly-troubled individual whose statements are always drenched in multiple levels of irony."^[3] His channel rose to prominence after a video of his titled Political Compass Rap went viral and got over 3 million views.^[1]

His YouTube channel focuses on sketches and music videos, often political in nature, focusing specifically on extreme, obscure, or contradictory political ideologies, such as anarcho-capitalism and anarcho-monarchism.^[2] In particular, he is credited with popularizing the once-obscure ideology National Bolshevism on the Internet because of a popular skit in which he "came out" as an "Anarcho-Nazbol". Later, he released a video titled Does irresponsible political satire have consequences? in which he admitted to worrying about how his videos influenced the political views of others, and wondered if joking about niche extremist ideologies helped to create unironic followers of those ideologies.^[4]

He runs the Horseshoe Theory podcast with YouTuber Brogan Woodman, better known as Art Chad, where they invite Internet celebrities to discuss radical politics and culture.^[1] Guevara stated that he became interested in political vlogging from an Internet meme perspective, and was never into politics for its own sake.^[2] He is also known for creating the web series known as Centricide.^{[‡ 3]}

Guevara's 2022 campaign logo

Guevara (middle left) and Canadian YouTuber J. J. McCullough at a political rally, in Toronto

On August 9, 2022, Guevara announced a "post ironic"^[2] campaign running for the mayor of Ottawa. He claimed to be running as both a libertarian and a socialist, and aimed to build a wall around Ottawa, the "Ottawall", and nationalize the city through "Ottawexit". The "Ottawall" would prevent non-Ottawans, who Guevara called "Nottawans", from committing crimes in the city.^[5] He also promised to make Ottawa bilingual, speaking both Franglais and "government speak."^[6] Once these goals were to be completed, Guevara planned to give everybody stay-at-home government jobs with high wages to create a booming economy.^[2]

The jobs that he would have prioritized include policy analysts and a "guy who copies Excel spreadsheets back and forth for six hours".^[5] According to Guevara, the emphasis on remote government jobs under his leadership would have reduced carbon emissions by reducing the need for transportation.^[7] Guevara also planned to address homelessness by deliberately attempting to stop Ottawa's population growth and providing a guaranteed one-bedroom apartment for every individual.^[8] He wanted to make all international businesses in the city rebrand to be more "Ottawa-friendly".^[9]

He opposed having a police force and supported police abolition, but said that he would have kept a police force for protection from political enemies. On the topic of climate change, Guevara said that it is too late to do anything. Guevara stated that he is "cut from the same cloth" as satirist candidates such as Vermin Supreme and the Neo-Rhinoceros Party, but that they "reach different conclusions." His campaign was run "based on irony and an element of nihilism toward the political system."^[2] Guevara lost the election, receiving 584 votes and 0.19% of the popular vote. On Twitter, Guevara would then declare victory and proclaim himself "King of Ottawa".^{[‡ 4]} He later claimed that the election was "stolen" by "lizard people".^[10]

In the book The Momentous, Uneventful Day by Gideon Haigh, Haigh quotes Guevara's 2020 song Office Life.^[11] In the summer of 2024, Guevara released his debut album, Postmodern Love Songs, co-created with musician Liam Schwisberg. The 17-track album delves into topics such as climate change, Internet celebrities, AI, atomization, the black pill and their impacts on relationships.^[1]

Guevara is originally from Ottawa, but later moved to Toronto.^[1] In 2022, Guevara stated in a video titled My unironic political ideology, that he is a social democrat.^{[‡ 5]} Guevara has stated that he opposes centrism, coining the term "Anti-Centrism".^[10][11] Guevara also opposes "clankers".^[1][10]

The following songs are available on Guevara's Apple Music page:^{[‡ 6]}

• BreadTube
• Poe's law
• Political compass