The 'youtuber' who could tip the elections

BarcelonaAlmost 400 podcast episodes later, a resident of Bages might hold in his hands one of the keys to connecting with the youth vote in the upcoming general elections. Jordi Wild, or Jorge Carrillo de Albornoz Torres (Manresa, 1984), has turned The Wild Project into one of the benchmark podcasts of the digital ecosystem in Spanish. Now, a few weeks before the elections, the content creator has managed to get Pedro Sánchez, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, Ada Colau, and Santiago Abascal to agree to step up to his microphones. The four interviews will be published on November 13, in a gamble that places a youtuber at the center of the communication strategy of the main candidates for Moncloa.

Wild, who also maintains El Rincón de Giorgio, a YouTube channel with more personal content and entertainment proposals, has built his own audience over more than a decade. Adding up the various platforms, he accumulates 30 million followers. A community that has turned him into a figure with the capacity to gather millions of people in front of the screen around a conversation.

A psychology graduate from the University of Barcelona, Wild published his first video on YouTube on March 22, 2013, when he was 28 years old. But the leap that consolidated him as one of the most recognized voices in digital entertainment arrived with The Wild Project, premiered on March 2, 2020, a few days before the Spanish government decreed the state of alarm due to COVID-19. The format moves away from short and scripted interviews: conversations can last for hours and address issues as diverse as current events, science, culture, social conflicts, or the guests' personal experiences.

Such long conversations give rise to many stories and also controversies. He had a notable one when he admitted to being an "occasional" cocaine user, although he quickly issued a statement to clarify that he considered it harmful and that he was simply trying to be completely sincere with his audience. On his podcast, he also spoke about the aristocratic and military past of his family, which settled in Italy. In fact, the associated noble title is that of the Duchy of Montemar, the first holder of which was José Carrillo de Albornoz, who had a special role in the War of the Spanish Succession in Catalonia, where he fought alongside the Bourbon troops.

Politics, in fact, is not completely new territory for the man from Manresa. Two years ago he already interviewed Roberto Vaquero, leader of the populist Workers' Front, in a conversation that anticipated the program's interest in figures located outside of conventional media circuits. Now, with the four main candidates before him, the challenge is different, a particular litmus test: turning his audience into an electoral debate arena. Whether this exposure has a real effect at the ballot box is another matter.