The Drumbeat

George Santos has been previously labeled as a pathological liar and fraudster because of his past statements, which include Santos declaring that 9/11 had “claimed his mother’s life” due to cancer which was supposedly caused by exposure during the 9/11 attacks. This claim has been proven to be false by many sources along with many other statements he’s made which include lying about where he spent his campaign money, lying about being Jewish and his grandparents fleeing the Holocaust, lying about his niece being kidnapped, and many other stories he has made up. As a consequence of George Santos’ many lies he has recently been kicked out of the House of Representatives and as he lost his main source of income he turned to Cameo. Cameo is a celebrity personalized video service where Santos charges $500 per video. These videos have led to him having many “iconic” moments and him gaining a fanbase over social media platforms like TikTok as that is where these videos have been shared. One statement Santos has made via Cameo has been him claiming, “they can boot me out of Congress, but they can’t take away my good humor or my larger-than-life personality”. His large and outgoing personality is the main driving force behind his new found audience, in one interview with Ziwe, Santos is stated to be a “jokester and a national joke” which again enforces that while he may not be taken seriously his personality is notable. Santos stated in this same interview “I’ll be back. I’m 35. They’re all in their 50s”, showing he believes he has a lot of time to change the narrative and get back into politics. His new found audience makes this seem very believable as many people are now fans of him, Santos is well aware of this and when asked how could people get him to go away he answered, “Stop inviting me to your gigs, but you can’t. Because people want the content.”. Santos is correct, people do want the content and as he keeps providing funny clips on Cameo it does not seem like people will stop supporting him unless they look away from his funny moments and look at his past actions and false claims.