Column: Let's do stupid things!
Jens Riewa recently tried to loosen up a bit. That's always awful. When Jens Riewa (91) does comedy on the "Tagesschau" TikTok channel, I feel it again: that deep longing for Karl-Heinz Köpcke and Wilhelm Wieben.
"Hi community! - what's up?" Riewa asked, flashing a peace sign. "Have you all sharpened your forks yet?" Because that's how young people talk. And then, in front of the camera, he spooned up pudding with a fork. Because that's what these young people do, with their sharpened forks. It was, of course, about the phenomenon of the moment: complete strangers meeting up to eat pudding together with forks. Why? Because they can.
Now, it's usually like this with internet phenomena: by the time they reach Jens Riewa (or columnists), they're already stone-cold dead. It's like those stars that went out millions of years ago, but their light is still traveling. We feel-good boomers are still laughing, but the universe has moved on.
Of course, meeting up in parks to eat pudding with a fork makes no sense. It's one of a gazillion internet memes that don't make any sense. But that's precisely the point. In a serious world full of existential questions, we're grateful for any nonsense that doesn't aspire to be anything more than that: nonsense. Nonsense brings peace. Let me put it this way: If Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin had eaten pudding with forks together in Alaska, they might be friends today.
I like this pudding meme. First of all, I like pudding, that's where it starts. I could also easily imagine a Toffifee meme or a lasagna meme. I also don't think it's bad when kids shout "SIX! SEVEN!" every few minutes at school. But then again, I'm not a teacher who stands there on Monday morning, completely wasted, in front of 30 rambunctious little anarchists shouting "SIX! SEVEN!"
Not that this is anything new. Elsewhere, people shout things like "Zicke zacke zicke zacke - hoi hoi hoi!" or "Hip hip - hurray!" or "Simsalabimm bambasala dusala dim!" or "Who invented it? Ricola!"
People very often say or do pointless things. Ultimately, it makes no direct sense to carry small dogs around in bags, to kick an air-filled ball across a mown lawn, or to bury the deceased in expensive wooden boxes. It's also fundamentally pointless to drink a dark liquid to stay awake instead of sleeping, which is impossible—because of the dark liquid. And we in the media, of course, cover all of this up again! With our cover-up kit.
In a world full of utilitarian thinking and efficiency logic, there's something liberating about doing something completely devoid of meaning. It breaks the daily routine! For example, simply writing a sentence that starts normally but then suddenly turns into something like: "squirming wet, vacuum cleaner, completely drunk, jelly, wobbly, boo-bo ...
Life's just easier when you keep your "nonsense muscle" active. What starts with "Y" and can bark? Yvonne's dog. You know what I mean. What has five toes and isn't your foot? My foot.
A friend of mine recently told me about a multilingual IT training course held via video conference. It also covered mold growth in server racks. And what did the automatic subtitle program make of the word "mold growth"? "White Horse Education." Since then, the company has called every training course "White Horse Education." It's sophisticated nonsense in professional mode.
Have a nice weekend!
rnd
