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Month: November 2016

Why I hate Bläk Freideh/Black Friday in Germany

One of the first things I thought when I moved back to Germany in 1998 was: “Wow, German teenagers look a lot more like American teenagers now than when I was an exchange student here.” I was standing on the Zeil shopping street in Frankfurt staring at a pair of baggy-pantsed, baseball cap-wearing teens in front of Kaufhof. Judging by their style, they could have been standing in front of a Macy’s in the Mall of America or a Starbucks anywhere.

They weren’t wearing black socks with tennis shoes and apparently no longer had an inexplicable love of stone-washed (or is it acid-washed?) jeans, like when I was an exchange student at Maximilian Kolbe Gymnasium.

Black Friday in Germany
Schwarzen Freitag.

But it was the first time I realized that globalization is leading to an international monoculture, something I bemoan as I get older and start to get annoyed by young people congregating on my lawn. No place seems as unique anymore. Everywhere seems more and more similar – and more like an American mall.

And one of the most absurd effects of this monoculture is Black Friday sales anywhere outside the 48 contiguous U.S. states. And Alaska and Hawaii. And maybe a few military bases. Black Friday isn’t even something we’re especially proud of in America. It’s just something that evolved organically, then got usurped by the all-powerful marketing machine and is now unstoppable. Like Two and a Half Men.

Black Friday in Germany

In its essence, Black Friday is the Friday after a holiday where no one really works and doesn’t want to see their family anymore. Normally, you’d treat such a day like a Sunday and wear your best clothes, visit friends and maybe go for a walk. But since the Thanksgiving holiday a day before that was just that, the only other option is apparently to lose your shit in a shopping mall over dubious discounts.

Yeah, I can totally see why the world would adopt that quirk of American culture. Although, to be fair, Black Friday actually combines two things Germans are passionate about: Being cheap and a love/hate of America: “Schnell Heinz-Dietrich! Vee kahn run to ze store and akt like all zose people vee mock in dubbed American TV shows all ze vile saving moneys! Lauf, Heinz-Dietrich! Lauf!”

But it’s just a symptom for the broader monoculture disease. I can now get a variety of Ritter Sports at the cash register here in Portland and our local Kaisers in Berlin had Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. And that’s not even mentioning the proliferation of chains like Subway, H&M and Uniqlo.

Berlin often feels like a neighborhood of Brooklyn and Amsterdam has long just been an outpost of Blackpool. There’s always Dresden, I guess.

This is a rant and an oversimplification and exaggeration, and possibly ultimately pointless.

Kind of like Black Friday itself.

 

 

 

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These German teen Fotolovestories are so … German

For decades, German teenagers have been getting advice on all things love and — yes — sex from a colorful magazine known as Bravo. Think Tiger Beat but with more overt sex. Europe, you know. And some of that advice has come from a special comic known as the Fotolovestory, examples of which orbit around the German web, sparking equal parts sentimentality and ridicule. They are supposed to teach teens the pitfalls of adult life but feel more like fables written by my grandmother for my grandmother.

The stories broach the usual teen subjects of love, sex, drugs, over-aggressive boyfriends, racism and incest.

Yes, incest. Germans always have to go to 11.

The comics are in that saccharine German advertising style known best as Mentos, which might even be an Instagram filter now. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you can check out a Mentos commercial here or the Foo Fighter’s brilliant take below the fold.

It’s time the English-speaking world enjoys these gems too. Maybe you can learn something about sex … or incest (more can be found auf Deutsch at this Facebook page):

[slideshow_deploy id=’272′]

The Foo Mentos

 

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How Obama got me on German TV

President Obama’s in Berlin.

It makes me a bit sentimental because my political commentary career on German TV began with Obama’s first campaign trip to Berlin eight years ago. The Hauptstadt (capital) loved Obama then, even though I wondered why he was campaigning in a European capital – he was probably just leveraging the Berlin hype (and we were all grateful for Berlin articles that didn’t mention Berghain).

But a month earlier I had mentioned to all-news broadcaster N24 that I was available to comment on things American or financial on-air and auf Deutsch and had never heard back from them. That is, until Air Force One was on final approach to Tegel. Then I got a hurried call that they needed someone to talk about why Obama was campaigning in a European capital and that I was the perfect person. Where perfect person equals anyone who could be there in 15 minutes.

At the time, the studio was in a corner of Berlin-Mitte that everyone’s seen on a map but has never been to. The taxi driver may have had to answer a troll’s riddle or take a detour through a wardrobe to get me there (east of Hausvogteiplatz, for those in the know). The actual studio was little more than a broom closet with cameras that were operated remotely. There was no backdrop, just a green screen. The producers and control room were across town on Potsdamer Platz.

*I don’t have that first video. But I have lots of these.

I didn’t have time to get nervous because they just powdered my nose and threw me on-air. The hosts asked me a few run-of-the-mill questions about Obama and Merkel and probably Bush. Then they started talking about the lunch the two power brokers would be having and I made a joke about how there would be some kind of bread and Merkel probably wouldn’t shut up about the bread.

Because the one thing Germans always mention to Americans is how superior German bread is.

The moderators laughed. I laughed. I’m pretty sure I heard the control room laugh. And from that day on, for several years, I was a regular on N24. It was great fun and even better pay. I would work on my laptop from the green room and spend a couple minutes every hour on-air joking about American politics.

Sometimes they’d buy me lunch.

Obama and German TV

There was a brief respite after a piece about Merkel holding a speech in Congress when they asked me if a lot of Americans would be watching the speech (I tried to be diplomatic since I know that at least half – if not two-thirds – of Americans believe Europe generally and Germany specifically is just something people made up to make America look bad).

“Let’s be honest,” I said. “You and I both know the only people who watch those kinds of things are journalists and retirees.”

“Let’s hope not,” the moderator – Thomas Klug – said quickly. “We’re carrying the whole thing live in a few minutes!”

A few years later they went bankrupt (or near-bankrupt) and stopped calling.

Good-bye, Obama.

(Private to N24: Call me?)

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