Viral videos and Addis Ababa’s new boulevard ^{CEFR B2}

After Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s visit on February 17, a high-production video of his motorcade on a newly completed boulevard went viral online. The clip — showing wide, clean streets, tall buildings and bright lights — received more than five million views in a day. A similar reaction accompanied a January livestream by US influencer Darren Watkins Jr. (IshowSpeed), which drew about 10 million views. Together, these episodes highlighted Addis Ababa’s recent urban changes and the power of short visual formats.

The corridor development project has become central to the government’s agenda and is presented as a way to improve infrastructure, housing and public spaces. Over the past three years it has expanded walkways, bike lanes, green spaces and vibrant streetlights, and it included an associated riverside development:

• new pedestrian paths
• separate bike lanes
• improved lighting and riverside works

Critics argue the project involved forced evictions, the erasure of cultural heritage and a lack of transparency, and they say it misprioritised government resources while the country faces deep challenges. Those challenges include ongoing civil wars, roughly 4.5 million people internally displaced, about 10 million citizens requiring humanitarian aid in 2025 and around 9 million school-age children out of school. In this tense context, state actors and other producers use striking imagery — what scholars call "aesthetic propaganda" — to shape public opinion.

Prime Minister’s Office and Addis Ababa City Administration social media accounts publish polished videos and drone shots on X and TikTok. International and local influencers, including IshowSpeed and Wode Maya, plus travellers, also create and spread similar content. The motorcade video shows how material can gain accidental virality and then be amplified by diplomatic missions, ministers, pro-government accounts and state-owned media. Since TikTok’s launch in 2018, short videos have become a dominant online format, and visual aesthetics can strengthen official legitimacy while obscuring broader social and humanitarian problems.