Last week, I referenced the demand for “Public Servants.”
People from Florida, Texas, and Lebanon are filming requests for help, and they are jokingly tagging Zorhan Mambani with their hope for change.
What’s one problem that you wish someone in your town would fix?
Chapter 1: The phenomenon of Mayor Mamdani
Every single day I love Zorhan Mamdani a little more. [gasps and laughter] Would it be wrong of me to say that I’m jealous of New York right now? Mamdani, my power went out. I live in Lebanon is please come fix this mom. [laughter] Mamdani, who who are you who are you crushing on right now? Mamdani, right? And and what and what do you like about him? Guys, I just read a whole comment section planning to wear white and ties and doing acts of service on mom Donnie’s birthday in New York. Living in a city with an effective politician is one thing. Living in a city with an effective politician who cares about kids is another. Living in a city with an effective politician who cares about children and who people are excited to be around and see. That’s a whole different ball game. And Donnie, I need your help. Can you tell Walmart to add Apple Pay? Cuz this is my seventh time leaving Walmart with nothing.
Chapter 2: From local fixes to global fame
If you watched the first video, you already know how this started. New Yorkers began tagging Mayor Zorhan Mamdani on Tik Tok about potholes, and the potholes started getting fixed within hours. That alone was strange enough. Then it jumped to the Atlantic. In the middle of a blackout in Lebanon, one Tik Tocker pointed a phone at the dark ceiling and asked a mayor 8,000 km away to turn the power back on. A few seconds later, the lights came back. Nobody is claiming Mamdani controls the Lebanese electrical grid, but the clip spread anyway because by then tagging him had stopped being a New York joke. People in Cairo, Manila, London, and Koala Lumpur were already doing it, too, for reasons that go a lot deeper than potholes. So why has a guy who used to represent one neighborhood in Queens become the person strangers overseas call first when something breaks? Would it be wrong of me to say I’m jealous of New York right now? [gasps] Why do they get Mamdani? [laughter] Why they get Mamdani? Why can’t I have him, too? [laughter] Why can’t I have him too? Why can’t we have [laughter] him two to nothing?
Chapter 3: Direct appeals for public aid
Mamdani, we need your help. Look at this park. People come here to play volleyball, hang out, enjoy the community. But there’s a problem. The sports are getting old and construction has left the park blocked off. But this park has so much potential. So, Mamdani, we need your help. Can you help bring Atoria Park back to life? Like, share, repost, and tag him in the comments. And let’s make sure that he sees this video. Let’s show him how much this park means to the NYC community. And let’s see that story park. Mamdani, my power went out. I live in Lebanon is please come fix this month. Wow, man. Mamdani is so good. He’s so good. [laughter] Thanks, bro. That’s actually funny. And Mamdani, I need your help. Can you tell Walmart to add Apple Pay? cuz this is my seventh time leaving Walmart with nothing because they don’t add Apple Pay. We need you. I’m in Florida, but this New York, there’s Walmart in New York. So, please, Mamdani.
Chapter 4: The personal connection
Many New Yorkers have been calling Mamdani the mayoral Muslim Batman. You may have seen online that Mamdani has made an effort to fix and change certain issues due to public and online outcries from civilians. Some of these civilians have said that Mamdani has gone above and beyond helping local problems and started helping them in their personal lives. Hi, Mamdani. We need you to fix this. It’s at Kingston Highway. Um, and it’s been here for like since last September, I think. And it’s getting all of our feet wet and it’s just wasting water. Yeah, we need to get this I think. Mamdani, we need to get this fixed quick and we got to get it fast. and our feet are getting wet and this is pissing all of us off. So, Mamdani is getting wet. Mamdani, please walk in and get this fixed quick on Kings Highway, East 15th Street. Thank you, Mamdani. Have a great day. This message is for Mayor Mamdani. I have something for you to fix. Except I’m in Texas. Um, can you still fix us though, please? Mamdani, who who are you who are you crushing on right now? Mamdani. Right. And And what And what do you like about him? Everything, [laughter] right? I’m literally having a whole body feeling moment. I’m going to cry. [laughter] Living in a city with an effective politician is one thing. Living in a city with an effective politician who cares about kids is another. Living in a city with an effective politician who cares about children and who people are excited to be around and see, that’s a whole different ball game. I’m a social
Chapter 5: A focus on children and youth
worker who worked in foster care for years. And let me tell you something, I ain’t never seen nothing like that. I called from my daughter yesterday. She was so excited on the phone. She’s like, “Mamdani, Mamdani, guess what? Mamdani in the school. We can see him through the window.” Let me show you the picture, you guys. Child is giving him of his garment. These kids just love Kwami so much. I do have to come in with some more proof, y’all, because I was at an event with Mamdani and the first openly gay prime minister of the Netherlands. Yes, that the Netherlands. And it was just such a beautiful event because they were at a queer youth center. These youth have experienced things like homelessness and hardship. Look at how precious he is. But Mamdani backs it up with more than just like appearances. This is the same mayor who appointed Director Taylor Brown to the first LGBTQIA affairs office, y’all. And she was there. That’s my girl. Mayor, Mamdani, and a big PM. Listen to the youth talk about their creative projects. But y’all, I’m so honored to be in a city where they care about queer youth. And Mamdani loves the kids and the kids love Mamdani. That’s it.
Chapter 6: Economic success and policy
Mom Donnie, bestie, what is going on here? What is that? Oh my goodness. You can see dangerous. Where we at? Ralph and Mason making on that. That’s where we are in bedside. Huh, this is interesting. Zorhan Mamdani has just announced that New York’s economy grew by 4% in quarter 2, more than any other state. He then says, “Want to grow get your business off the ground? Hire only the best. There’s only one place to do it, New York.” Which is very interesting because I remember every millionaire and billionaire saying that New York was going to become a communist hole and that businesses were going to leave and that every single rich person was going to like die and like burn alive because they had money and like all the poors were going to like claw at them for all their all their all their money. But it had the best quarterly growth of any state economically and businesses are booming there under a democratic socialist. What? What? No, man. So, all those things were wrong and lies. They were lying. All the rich people were lying. They’ve never done that before. That’s not like them. [snorts] Crazy. Start back home because the New York requests got a lot more personal once people
Chapter 7: Requests and legislative impact
realized someone might actually be watching. An 8-year-old in Brooklyn named Maxim Kakitz asked Mamdanito reopen a playground in Bay Ridge that had been shut for almost 2 years. His parents posted it. A month and two million views later, park officials wrote back on his account, “We hear you loud and clear, Max. Enjoy the playground.” Mamdani later said the kid helped inspire a city-wide plan to speed up park repairs. An 8-year-old moved a city department that is not nothing. Then it got messier because not every request has a tidy ending. Two brothers who run a cafe in East Harlem, Raheem and Muhammad Dio, filmed themselves asking Mamdani for help after racking up $12,000 in fines and losing their permit. The city didn’t wave a wand, but a council member, a member of Congress, and someone from the mayor’s office all reached out after the video went up. The cafe still closed. Muhammad said it anyway. They’re listening to us. They are generally trying to help, and that gives me hope. That’s a lower bar than problem solved and people are still grateful to clear it. Somewhere between those two is the guy from Brooklyn who skipped infrastructure completely and just asked me for dating help. Mamdani responded with an actual list of spots for a good meet cute. Make of that what you will. Even elected officials have caught on. A Bronx Assembly member, Chantel Jackson, spent years filing the normal complaints about a dangerous blocked curb ramp through normal channels and watched nothing happen. She posted a video instead, tagged Mamdani and the Department of Transportation, and had a crew ripping up the sidewalk for a permanent fix 4 days later. Her verdict: Isn’t that insane what we have to do? When a sitting legislator decides Tik Tok works better than her own office, you know the format has teeth. It didn’t
Chapter 8: The global tag-a-thon
stay in New York for long. A comedian in Los Angeles asked her own mayor, Karen Bass, to mine her pothole. Bass played along, posting one video finding a parked car blocking the hole, then another showing a crew filling it in. The format had officially become bigger than the man who started it. Then it went fully global. A Tik Tocker gave Mamdani a deadline to build high-speed rail between Malaysia and Singapore. Apparently unaware the number seven train doesn’t even leave Queens. During a flood in Manila, someone begged him to make the rain stop. In Cairo, a group pleaded for trash cans, paved roads, and better transit, captioning it, “Summoning Mr. Mandani.” And in London, one resident live streamed a packed underground platform asking for more trains, while another wanted the tube fitted with air conditioning. None of these people live anywhere near his five burrows. All of them tagged him anyway, which raises the real question. What did a New York mayor do to make strangers on four continents treat his name like a help desk? Here’s the part that isn’t really about potholes.
Chapter 9: Frustration with bureaucracy
Almost everyone who has ever reported a problem to a government office knows the specific exhaustion of being transferred, logged, and forgotten. You call it in, you get a case number, and the case number goes nowhere. Chantel Jackson, an actual assembly member with actual access, said it best. Isn’t that insane what we have to do? If a sitting legislator has to become an influencer to get a curb fixed, it’s not hard to understand why an ordinary resident with no access at all would rather film a Tik Tok than sit on hold. That’s the frustration underneath the jokes. The affection comes from somewhere else. The moments where someone actually answered. Maxim’s playground reopened with a message using his own name. The Dialo brothers didn’t get their cafe saved, but they got real people from real offices calling them back. And Muhammad’s quiet, “That gives me hope,” says more than a government statement ever could. A mayor’s spokesperson put it plainly, saying, “The office treats a social post the same as a 311 call.” “Maybe that spin, maybe it’s sincere. Either way, people are choosing to believe the sincere version, and that choice is doing a lot of emotional work. Now take that same hope and ship it overseas where nobody can pretend Manny has any actual authority. The Cairo group asking for trash cans and paved roads isn’t confused about jurisdiction. The Manila flood post wasn’t really expecting weather control. The Lebanon blackout clip knew perfectly well that the power coming back on was a coincidence. What they’re actually doing is pointing at a version of government that listens then holding it up next to the one they’ve got. When a London commuter films a packed two platform and says, “We need more trains.” He’s not asking Mam Danny to run the underground. He’s asking why nobody running it locally will say something that direct back to him. That’s where the nickname comes in. Nobody in these clips has
Chapter 10: A shift in political expectations
called him the real Batman on camera, at least not yet. But the comparison fits the tone people are already using. The bat signal joke, the summoning captions, the running bit about him being somehow intercontinental. A mayor who answers a kid’s playground post isn’t a superhero. He’s closer to proof that the signal can occasionally work, which might be the more useful idea. None of this erases the actual work. Park crews, DOT workers, small business staffers, and city agency employees did the physical fixing every time, and they deserve the credit a viral caption rarely gives them. What’s changing isn’t government, it’s expectation. A generation that grew up watching institutions stall has started testing a theory. Maybe the fix isn’t a better form. It’s a bigger audience. Sometimes that theory holds up. Sometimes a cafe still closes anyway. But enough people have seen it work once that trying it no longer feels naive. That’s a strange kind of progress earned one pothole, one playground, and one deeply confused blackout coincidence at a time. So, back to that blackout in Lebanon for a second. The power coming back on had nothing to do with New York City Hall and everyone making the joke knew it perfectly well. What was real was the impulse behind it. The hope that somebody somewhere might actually be listening. That hope showed up in a Bronx curb ramp, a Brooklyn playground, and a two platform in London. And it’s not going away just because one mayor can’t personally fix all of it. What’s one everyday problem you wish someone in your own city would finally take seriously? Tell me in the comments.
QUESTIONS:
What sort of experience do people often have when they make a request of government?
What does this Mamdani joke say about the thirst for “Public Servants?”
What level of “success” is need to persuade the average
“man on the steet
small business owner
Democratic party official
large investor?
Is this just cosmetic change for the existing system?
Most of the things Mamdani is doing look like basic “meat and potatoes”, combined by high responsiveness — potholes, rent, port-a-potties. What do you think are the ambitious things that Mamdani is doing or promoting?