The music video for Paradisio’s 1997 Eurodance hit “Bailando” is an almost comically positive flood of 90s hyperreality, showing the group’s lead singer dancing in a wig and sparkly cowboy hat on yachts and rooftops. But in the past few months, slightly edited versions of the song have been uploaded on Youtube and renamed things like “Paradisio – Bailando I Aryan Classic” or “Bailando. Save Europe.” One top comment reads: “Hello, this is Adolf, I came back. You are all my top guys!” Another says: “0 leftists, 0 liberals, 0 judens, 0 communism, 0 muslims, 100% bailando, bailando.” One caption to a TikTok featuring the song reads: “Save Europe MFers got the greatest bangers of all time fr.”
“Bailando” is one of many beloved dance hits that have been ripped, reuploaded and reskinned as “Save Europe” music by the European far right, and used to propagate anti-immigrant, white-supremacist discourse. The uploaders’ core ideology is rooted in the racist belief that Europe must be saved from immigrants, particularly those who are non-white and non-Christian. Gigi D’Agostino’s “L’Amour Toujours,” Basshunter’s “All I Ever Wanted,” ItaloBrothers “My Life is a Party” and Jan Kloost’s “Europapa” are just a handful of the songs that have been altered — typically either sped up, slowed down, or made somehow more unnatural or extreme — and uploaded to Youtube, often with featured imagery that shows work made by the Nazi sculptor Arno Brekker.
By using music with an aura of innocence and positivity, the far right constructs a new kind of Trojan horse.
On TikTok, songs uploaded to Youtube by accounts like @Anotheraryanclassic are paired with montages of movie footage such as Christoph Waltz in Inglorious Basterds, and images of blonde-haired, blue eyed-soldiers fighting wars in Europe. Distorted dance hits are now also soundtracking the spread of stomach-churning, racist fake news on the platform, with comments sections littered with seemingly-innocent neo-Nazi catchphrases like “Drink more milk,” “Have a totally glorious day!” and various references to (the kingdom of) “Agartha.”
After DMing upwards of around 30 accounts in hopes of getting in touch with a “Save Europe” meme creator, someone finally got back to me. Klajdi (@klajdipsycho) is a 22-year-old student with Albanian roots, who grew up in Italy. He has built a substantial following online with content that predominantly caters to the looksmaxing community, but he has also posted various videos on the subject of Save Europe. “I would hesitate to label Save Europe as a subculture,” Klajdi said, in a written interview. “It is a movement that has existed in various forms across generations, though it may not have been explicitly named as such in the past.” When asked what it means to him, he replied: “At its core, the Save Europe mindset revolves around themes of preserving European cultural identity, sovereignty, and security. This often involves expressing concerns about immigration, globalization and perceived threats to traditional European values.”
‘Save Europe music’ seems to have taken on a life of its own––and is now referred to on social media as a genre or unified style, despite it being a broad amalgamation of remixed dance hits from all over the world. When you search “Save Europe” on TikTok or Youtube today, the results are primarily musical, rather than political: you find songs or playlists. Some TikTokers have shared videos that indicate they appreciate the music, in spite of the far right’s political projections onto these tracks. One user’s video reads: “Me vibing to Save Europe songs and then realising I’m the one they want to save it from.” I asked Klajdi if he feels the categorization of the Save Europe mindset as “white supremacist” is fair. “If protecting one’s country from illegal immigration and the crimes that some migrants have committed — such as the instances of rape and violence we have seen in Europe — constitutes ‘white supremacy,’ then so be it,” he said. (Recent studies in France, Germany and the UK have found no correlation between immigration and crime rates.)
Politicians are increasingly powerless against hate speech, especially when the platforms themselves are unwilling or unable to remove it.
As the most famous Save Europe track, “L’Amours Toujours” — a song, ironically, about love — has transformed into a de facto anthem among neo-Nazi circles. This summer, the song was banned from major events in Germany such as Oktoberfest, after a video of people singing a far-right rendition of the song (with the lyrics “Germany for the Germans” and “foreigners out”) went viral. The song’s producer Gigi D’Agostino is dismayed by both the appropriation and the banning of the song, despite the fact that Save Europe has led to a significant boost in the track’s popularity. “Simply banning a song is like going back to the Middle Ages. You can’t stop racism by banning music. If someone misuses a song to spread racist messages, they will do the same with the next song and the one after that,” he told the German newspaper, Kronen Zeitung. “If the authorities don’t intervene soon, especially on social media where these messages circulate freely, then our children will be the next to be poisoned by this social media racism.” The responsibility for mitigating the spread of hateful propaganda obviously lies in the hands of politicians. But they are increasingly powerless against hate speech, particularly when it’s veiled and especially when the platforms themselves are unwilling or unable to remove it.
Far-right parties in Europe earned historic levels of support and representation in governing bodies this year. Anti-immigration sentiment is a core value to the platform of the radical AFD party in Germany (which is now the ruling party in the German state of Thuringia), Marie LePen’s party in France (which earned 31% of the vote in the 2024 election) and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy Party.
There are countless macro reasons for the rise of the far-right sentiments in Europe: rising unemployment rates, inflation, and general feelings of discontent and mistrust. Social media has proven to be among the most powerful tools these parties have to harness and spread feelings of dissatisfaction and hatred. A recent study by Politico showed just how effectively radical parties have incorporated TikTok into their political strategies, revealing that radical parties post a higher volume of content on the platform and have far more accounts than their centrist peers. Romain Fargier, a researcher from the Center for Social and Political Studies of Montpellier University, told Politico that the far right’s aim is “to win what they call a cultural battle, which in their view they are winning because, as American right wingers would say: ‘the left can’t meme well.’”
Given the fact that TikTok originally found mainstream popularity off the back of dance videos, Save Europe’s eerie, sardonic dance edits are ideal fodder for effortless propagation. Oftentimes, Save Europe content is disguised as something that’s not so explicitly political or anti-immigrant, but rather touches on more general concepts such as “European identity” – allowing hateful ideologies to masquerade as communal and celebratory. In a report by the Alan Turing Institute called “Propaganda by Meme”, Sam Stockwell explained that extreme right memes are “often intended” to come across as “edgy” satire. “While memes themselves are unlikely to turn someone into an extremist,” he wrote, “clever integration of irony, humour and evocative messaging can make those with milder political beliefs desensitised to the underlying narrative.”
Projecting deeply hateful messages onto uplifting hits that most people associate with happy memories from childhood, or general feelings of togetherness with friends and family, is yet another case of the far right’s weaponisation of irony. Save Europe is capitalising on tracks that many of us have a deeply positive emotional familiarity with. By flipping the script, they corrupt yet another cherished aspect of the cultural canon, the same way they did with Pepe the Frog. By utilising music that retains a strong aura of innocence and positivity, the far right successfully constructs a new kind of trojan horse, by disguising violent ideology within a disarming and seemingly friendly musical structure.
With so much tension and vitriol in the air across Europe — and a record 60,000 politically-motivated crimes reported in Germany last year — Save Europe memes are beginning to look far less like jokes, and far more like weapons. Aurora, an 18 year old TikToker from Germany, didn’t see herself as a voice of resistance when she started posting content mocking the Save Europe community earlier this year. “But getting DMs from 13 year olds that beg me to make more Save Europe and looksmaxing content proved me wrong,” she said. As someone who spoofs these ideologies, Aurora said she is often harassed, has received numerous death threats, and been the target of various hateful threads on looksmax.org. I asked her if any of this makes her feel unsafe. “You kind of get desensitised,” she replied, seeming to shrug it off. “I just hate these kinds of men,” she added. “Mocking them is the best way of discrediting them.”