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Personal testimony of Pavlos Papadopoulos, who worked for six years in the Kostopoulos magazines.

Contrary to the recent trend to write malicious and envious comments about the rise and fall of Petros Kostopoulos, I would like to start by saying that I worked in his magazines from 1993 to 1999 and I feel great respect for him and his contribution to the development of printed media. My personal opinion is that Kostopoulos has abilities, that can help him make an impressive comeback. We're not friends. After the year 1999 I met him by chance 3-4 times. In recent years I have rarely read his magazines and I did not like his television shows. Petros was the victim of all fashionable trends for whose rise in Greece he also contributed and he got carried away with the life of the nouveau riche. Many of his assistants left him because although he was and he still is a brilliant and generous person, his ego, fed by success grew so much that it could fill up the Olympic Stadium. Offensive language was the main reason for his downfall.

Moreover, Kostopoulos could not become an exception to the rule that the original stuff from the past are becoming routine and conservative in the future. This rule, of course, presents just one side of the truth. The other side says that the rebels are known from the crowd, even when they have become some status quo.

Manifesto of the "CLICK" Magazine

When I met him in early 1993 Kostopoulos was still rebellious. He was 39 years old and he had been working in the editorial office of the magazine "CLICK" for 6 years. The magazine was owned by Aris Terzopoulos, polite and knowledgeable editor who combined western aesthetics with Eastern spiritual and religious quests, but in fact "CLICK" was Petros. The magazine started out in April 1987 and since then Costopoulos gathered in the office building located on No. 7 "Frangoklisiyas" str. in Amarousiou all talents of the "new journalism" - Yannis Nenes, George Panopoulos, Sofia Kindi, Panagiotis Georgopoulos, George Pavrianos, Dimitris Galanis, Dimitris Pagadakis and many others. They worked to create a disrespectful, aggressive and intelligent magazine that became a legend because at every occasion it had and on each page it supported a heretical and yet charming individualism.

It is a widely spread on the political science notion, that prosperity weakens the connections in a team and leads to its collapse because it activates the desire and ability of individuals and groups to abandon their traditional mass codes and without compromise to rush into a new way of life, i.e. to create a new lifestyle.

The magazine "CLICK" has been the manifest for this change. The rejection of marriage and family, constantly welcoming all manifestations of sexuality, the faith in the rule of individual effort, ridicule the stereotypes in public speech, cold-blooded attitude to drugs, adoption of new forms of entertainment, the support for new technologies, the revival of individual identity through consumption, the desire for youth, the worship of one’s own self, the presentation of new models of male and female beauty, ironic criticism of the policies and militant support of the opinion that "one forges his own future", this was all the "DNA" of the magazine "CLICK".

These "structural values" combined with humor self-sarcasm and the immediate way of writing, explain the power and success of "CLICK". Articles and reports which had these features expressed the views of many young people influencing virtually the entire industry of printed and electronic media. Many have tried to create a "second CLICK" but failed because although they could rewite the pages of "CLICK" they could not steal the "DNA" of the magazine, which stood locked in Kostopoulos’s head.

So, contrary to all claims that "CLICK" has been expressing the "aesthetics of PASOK," the truth is that the magazine expressed the criticism and degradation of the party, and that happened at the right time, i.e. in the late 80s when teams of the past fell apart, because of the success of PASOK, mobilizing all resources to ensure the prosperity of the society and expand the choice of the Greeks.

Relationship with Andreas Papandreou

Kostopoulos has always been a supporter of PASOK, and if PASOK was kept forever, also Petros would always support it. It is the most uncompromising of all of Andreas Papandreou’s favorites. Petros was 20 years old when Papandreou returned to Greece on 16^th of August, 1974 after the fall of the junta, and participated in the historic meeting at the Athens airport. He was taken there by Costas Laliotis, who is three years older than him and whom he became close friends with during the last years of the junta (1967 - 1974) and are friends to this day.