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What if the corona pandemic was the great crisis of this century, and in 50 years the world looked back at the people who saw it? A federal government campaign gives a humorous response. But not everyone likes the serious message behind it.
It is quite rare for Germans to be praised abroad for their humor. It’s even weirder when the laughs are focused on a government campaign. Since Saturday, the Federal Press Office has been releasing small video clips on social media honoring the Corona homeless locked up under the title “Special Heroes,” and just to stay home. Of course, the protagonists are fictional characters. Yet their stories are told in an ironic way, like those contemporary eyewitness reports that are otherwise only known from historical documentaries. The Spanish, for example, think that it is “great” and “great”. Only among the Germans is there resentment. Also something typical.
Government spokesman Steffen Seibert launched the campaign and published a first clip showing the fictional Anton Lehmann in a fictional future. Underlined with much pathos and dramatic background music, the old man remembers the year 2020, when “an invisible danger threatened everything we believed in,” as he puts it. “The fate of this country was suddenly in our hands.” So he and his contemporaries did what was expected of them. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing. We were as lazy as raccoons. For days and nights we sat on our asses at home and fought the spread of the coronavirus. Our couch was the front.”
A second clip shows Luise Lehmann, Anton’s wife, in front of the open window, apparently a little salute to the head of RKI, Lothar Wieler, and his plea for adequate ventilation. “The whole country looked at us young people full of hope,” recalls the old woman, while leafing through a yellowish newspaper in which a worn-out mouth and nose mask has been stuck as a souvenir. “We cheered up and did: nothing. We were moldy at home and we met as few people as possible.” Of course, all in terms of pandemic containment, as he emphasizes. “If you ask me today how we endured it back then: maybe it’s true when people say that special times need special heroes.” The clip ends with the appeal: “Become a hero too and stay home.”
Privileged “couch students” as national heroes
It’s not hard to imagine who the federal government wants to reach with the clips. Young people in particular should be motivated to put their love of freedom aside for a few months in light of the historical challenge. Scientific studies have not only shown that imposed contact restrictions are particularly stressful for young people. Individual studies also assume that young people are the main driver of pandemics. In fact, according to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), the incidence of 7 days per 100,000 inhabitants is currently particularly high in the age group 20 to 29 years with 229.4, followed by the 30 to 39 years (174 , 6). Apparently, the federal government does not see the latter as the target of the campaign, and that annoys, of course, especially the parents.
How to explain to your teenager at home that you shouldn’t be heroically lying on the couch because you first had to learn Latin and the next day you had to sit for seven hours with mouth and nose protection in a drafty classroom, you wonder the loving father on Twitter. Another thinks the clip is stupid because it glorifies the privileged “couch students” into national heroes, but there are also those who “manage to ask their friends for the money for winter tires in this situation because the rent has collapsed and the reserves are gone” . After all, here and there are also prominent accolades. Moderator duo Joko and Klaas, for example, are not so bad at finding the job quite fun. And then there are also the Spanish.
In any case, the Federal Press Office is satisfied with the “large amount of positive comments and attention that can be drawn to this important message.” But you can also assume relief that the clips have had a candy storm and not a shit storm – the history of government-controlled PR campaigns isn’t exactly a success story, after all. One recalls, for example, the completely misguided bicycle helmet campaign of the Ministry of Andreas Scheuer, which brought the accusation of sexism to the Minister of Transport in March 2019. Good intentions are not always well done. Then I’d rather be clumsy students on the couch.
