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It’s the end of an era.
Duncan Lumsden, the creative mind behind the Berlaymonster, one of the EU’s top satirical social media accounts, is leaving the Brussels scene — and his alter ego — behind.
After nearly three decades as one of the snappiest voices in the Brussels bubble, Lumsden is starting a new job in London, where he has lived for four years, severing most ties with his old home.
“It’s quite a big deal,” he told POLITICO on Thursday. “I arrived in ’98, so it’s been a long stint through the Berlaymonster, through journalism and running MLex, through the sketches we did in the press review every year … I will miss that.”
But don’t fret, snark fans, you haven’t seen the last of the Berlaymonster — whose name originates from the Berlaymont building, home to the European Commission headquarters in Brussels.
Lumsden said he has passed on the keys — and log-in information — to a new monster, who will “breathe new life” into the account.
Berlaymonster: Now Under New Mismanagement
The time has come to hand over the Typing Mittens of Eurosnark (patent still pending).
A farewell (finally) from @DuncanLumsden https://t.co/ojekbAdf2s pic.twitter.com/FdxzractHm
— Berlaymonster (@Berlaymonster) March 28, 2024
“I’m just very glad that someone is taking it over who is in the bubble, who I know is an amusing person and will have suitable thoughts to express about what’s going on,” he said.
If you’re in the Brussels bubble, the Berlaymonster will be very familiar. His snarky blogs and posts on Twitter (as everyone still calls it; let’s be real) have poked fun at the EU institutions for years, bringing some light — and merriment — to an often gray and humorless corner of the bureaucratic world.
The Berlaymonster has had a career ripe with hits and memorable moments, including the time he won the EU Twitter Fight Club in 2014 or the time he created a webchat with a fictional “Commissioner for Inland Waterways and Catering” — some of Lumsden’s highlights.
His online shenanigans earned him a coveted spot in several annual lists of top EU influencers. Lumsden, who eventually outed his identity in 2021, in a “big anticlimax reveal,” said having voices like Berlaymonster is particularly important in a place like Brussels, which can be “very serious.”
“It’s good to have a counter-voice, which isn’t a Euroskeptic voice,” he said. “There is an awful lot of pomposity and arrogance and unnecessary verbiage, unnecessary policymaking that you need to be allowed to criticize and take the mick out of.”
But over time, the Berlaymonster’s online activity has dwindled as Lumsden moved to London in 2020. While he was still able to take regular trips to Brussels that allowed him to keep tabs on the comings and goings of the EU, he was unable to be as active as before.
And after accepting the role of chief content officer at the private equity news service Real Deals, which he will start soon after Easter, it was time to move on.
“When you’ve been doing it for a long time … you can get weary about the way the city [the Euro bubble] takes itself so seriously and thinks itself so important,” he said. While that used to be a “source of amusement” for him, Lumsden said it got “a bit tiring” over time.
“I’m handing [the Berlaymonster] over to someone who does have that mojo and can make it a voice again,” he said.
As for the identity of the new Berlaymonster, that’s bound to remain a mystery — for the time being, at least.
“For now they want to remain anonymous,” Lumsden said. “I’ll leave it entirely up to them whether they want to reveal themselves or not.”
If you think you know who the new Berlaymonster is, get in touch with us!
Sarah Wheaton contributed to this report.
