Municipal election candidates turn to humour, stunts and social media to stand out

With 37 candidates competing for eight seats on Kelowna City Council, some candidates are taking unconventional approaches to getting noticed.

Brady Rogers is one of them, using humour to stand out.

“Do I enjoy politics? No. Do I know what I’m doing? No. But am I qualified? Also no,” is what his introduction states on his campaign website.

The 33-year old business owner has also been taking to social media with self-deprecating comments, such as, “I barely want to do this.”

But he says the messaging is intentional and not an indication that he doesn’t take the job seriously.

“I’m being a little bit tongue-in-cheek when I say I’m unqualified,” Rogers said. “I’ve never been a politician, but I certainly have experience that I think is very relevant and helpful.”

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The campaign has been getting a lot of attention

Rogers said one of his posts was picked up by a U.S. social media account, with a significant following.

“It’s been crazy,” he said. “It resonated locally quite a bit, but then somebody in the U.S. picked it up on Instagram, and now it’s all over.”

2:15 Historic Okanagan Falls Election

Teresa May is also taking a different approach to the campaign.

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The longtime Kelowna resident  posted a video of herself wake-surfing on Okanagan Lake while wearing a suit jacket and high heels.

“I want to look still professional enough to look like a city councillor and at the same time, it was to be sort of outside the box,” May said. Thinking a little differently to attract the youth, especially through social media.”

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She hopes her campaign encourages more people to come out and vote.

“With only 30 per cent of the population out voting the last time, that’s not good enough,” May said.

Across the bridge in West Kelowna, Garrett Millsap is taking a more furry approach.

His campaign signs feature his 10-year-old Beagle, Cooper, alongside the message “re-elect my human.”

Millsap jokes that Cooper may actually be getting more attention than he is.

“I’m hoping they’re not confusing me with Cooper,” Millsap said. “He’s a little bit better looking, a little more handsome than me.”

For Millsap, the humour is meant to make political campaigning more approachable.

“I want to engage people, let them see something different, give them a chuckle, and hopefully it engages them to vote,” he said.

Christopher Schneider, a sociology professor at Brandon University and former UBC Okanagan sociology professor, says these types of campaigns fit into a broader shift in how people present themselves online.

He describes it as the “mediated self,” a concept associated with influencer culture and the performance of identity through media.

Schneider said social media has created an increasingly crowded environment where people compete for attention.

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Candidates, he said, are effectively creating personal brands—and unconventional behaviour can help them stand out, but he warns there is also a downside.

“There’s always a danger in a democratic society like Canada, where you have people who might be casting ballots for just names on a ballot sheet and not having a full idea or understanding of what that person is campaigning on,” Schneider said.