Europeian Success Stories: Nate
Low Frequency Radio, High Energy Minister
Written by Vor
“My rabbit bit me once, so we cut its balls off.” - Nate aka Xecrio
While many of us already know Nate from his incredibly cheerful and bright presence in the Europeian Discord as demonstrated above, we are also familiar with his political achievements, which reach all the way from the legislative areas of the Senate to the informative and entertainment area of Europeia’s radio channel. As part of our ongoing Success Stories series, the EBC sought to delve into the experiences of Nate, particularly his time as radio minister, to put the qualities and challenges of the ministry on display through the charming frame of Nate’s perspective in this interview.
Character Creation
A thorough investigation of mister Xecrio’s resumé shows that he has been involved politically in Europeia in many former roles, ranging from a managing director of the EBC to being an ambassador to foreign regions such as Balder. He has held the position of deputy minister to radio in the final quarter of 2020, and was then appointed and confirmed to the position of radio minister under the Pichtonia administration of last term. So how does someone achieve such a position? Nate had already served in the cabinet as a minister of communications in December 2019, and was out of the cabinet for about 9 months.
Last term, Nate decided it was time to return. “I wanted to be in the cabinet anyway, and I know it sounds a bit like a desperate thing but I think I was just passionate about serving in Europeia at a high level and I was looking at ministries and thinking about my abilities and what I'm most passionate about.” It was at that time that Nate took matters into his own hands to reach his desired position. According to Nate, “how I got the role is I [direct messaged] Sopo and I asked him to make me deputy minister of radio and he accepted and I worked hard in radio. I launched britcast, I held a variety of other shows that I did, and then we had that little poll come out about who you would like to see in cabinet and I came out on top as being minister of radio, then I [direct messaged] Pichtonia if he could make me minister of radio please, and here I am, haha.” Thus came episode two of Nate’s journey in the cabinet, with what would become a steady and successful term.
The What and the Why
So, what is EBC Radio and what purpose does it serve in the region? Nate has a clear idea: “I think primarily the focus is entertainment, we want to entertain Europeian citizens, whether that's by interviews like this, whether it's talk shows, games, twitch streams now even; that is a primary focus. I suppose as well, similar to the Ministry of Communications, the second purpose would be to inform people. You know, when we go on air to talk about the senate or to talk about the cabinet or whatever there are people that might not have time to read whole articles so they can come on radio and they can listen to it to get a greater understanding of what's happening in the region.” And Nate made sure that happened.
Throughout his term multiple shows were hosted which covered the social sphere, Europeian politics, and real life politics. You might have had a good laugh listening in on the Kharnage of Nerds show, featuring a bunch of boomers nerding out, or BritCast, a Xecrio special which acts as a podcast and an opportunity to talk about whatever is on the mind of the host and its panelists, or maybe you’ve tuned in to one of the Election broadcasts, where panelists discuss and debate the candidates running for positions such as the senate, and the results of the aftermath of those elections.
Tuning the Content
Broadly speaking, the radio minister is the main person who we hold responsible for quality content (or sometimes lack thereof) coming from EBC Radio, but to what extent is the minister involved in deciding the frequency and themes of the content put out? “I don't think it’s right to promote a certain type of content. I’m very passionate about the ministry and I want to see as much variety as we can on radio so I don't think that the minister, myself or whoever it is in the future, should be pushing for certain shows to go out rather than some other shows that might not gather as much interest from the citizens. Every show is important to me.”
Although Nate does not try to intervene too much in the type of content produced, he does admit a possible trade-off between the quantity of quality of shows. “That's tough, really.” he admits, “I want as many broadcasts as possible, but in saying that I would rather have less broadcasts but those broadcasts be really high quality. [...] I don't think I can particularly favor either of them. I want a lot of shows. I want us to be having content going out every few days and ideally I want that content to be good content, content that people are gonna want to be listening to. This term I've been very lucky to have a lot of successful shows and hosts and guests that have made these broadcasts very interesting, so I haven’t had to choose one or the other.”
Loving the Grind
70 days of work, the length of a presidential term, is quite some time to be spending on an online political simulator. While it is of course a lot easier and less taxing than real life employment, Nate has a usual routine of daily activities during his ministerial adventure: “In terms of day to day, it's a lot of DMing people asking if they're interested in hosting, coming on as a guest, going onto the forums and planning various shows, it’s a lot of little sort of tedious tasks that you have to do to make sure that your getting the shows out that you want to get out. For me personally, at least; maybe different radio ministers have done it differently in the past, but for me personally those sort of day to day activities applied.”
But as with every cabinet position in Europeia, you don’t work alone: “Communicating with my deputies - JayDee and Kharn - making sure they're okay, giving them tasks and things to do” is another thing Nate mentions as an important facet of his job. Nate explained how his position as a minister is a slight but significant step up from his previous deputy position: “Being the minister is a lot more work than being deputy, being a deputy you have the support of other deputies and minister yourself, as a minister you are in charge of the ministry, it's your job to make sure that the ministry is performing to an acceptable level and I think that's the main difference: the amount of activity and the workload you have as a deputy.”
While to some this may sound tedious, Nate does not view it that way. “ I really like radio. It's such a unique role that we have here in Europeia so I feel very happy to be a part of it. I like hosting broadcasts, I like appearing as a guest, I like teaching people how to host, I like watching twitch streams, I like planning broadcasts, I like checking in on people and seeing how they're doing, I like giving tasks out to my deputy minister so they do things for me so i don't have to. I enjoy the whole thing and I don't think there's anything that I would switch out or change.”
Opportunities for You and Me
Although he seemed to be thoroughly enjoying himself in his role, Nate did have something to mention about what he would like to see his ministry get more involved in going forwards: “I think one thing that I was disappointed about was that we didn't get any foreign guests on the radio. That was something that was on the presidential platform that was labeled as one of our tasks for the ministry. We would've had about three foreign affairs guests if all planned broadcasts had gone on. It didn't go ahead for external circumstances so that's something that we need to work on in the second half of the term and it's something that I have found disappointing.”
Furthermore, in talking about the future, Nate encouraged anyone who might find the radio ministry an interesting opportunity to participate: “I would say: don't be scared. I wouldn't want to [pressure] anyone into appearing on a show or hosting but i think there's absolutely nothing to be afraid of. We love to hear your opinion, we love to interact with you in a much different way than we do normally. It's also really exciting to have new guests appear on radio; when I hosted a show with GrandfatherClock that was his first time on radio and that was really enjoyable because it's just fun to talk to people and funny in general when it's interviews or whatever other kind of show is running.” With this inspiring advice, we come to a close of our look at the wonderful Nate, also known as Xecrio.
May his success inspire you and countless others to find your own path in Europeia. And who knows? Maybe you’ll be the next minister of radio! The first step is to host your own show.
