A pandemic had to come before the federal government declared idlers and idlers to be heroes. This is what happened in two 90-second online spots (production: Florida Entertainment) that the government published on its digital channels and social networks on Saturday: Under the title “# special heroes”, the clips attracted a lot of attention on social media over the weekend – there was praise, but also critical reactions.
In the videos, accompanied by dramatic music, fictional older people tell from the future, looking back, how they experienced the second wave as young people “back in this Corona winter 2020”: “An invisible danger threatened everything we believed in,” says one Man who is introduced as Anton Lehmann. “And the fate of this country was suddenly in our hands.” So they did what was expected of them: “Absolutely nothing. Were lazy like the raccoons,” said the man. “We stayed home on our asses for days and nights fighting the spread of the coronavirus.” “Our couch was the front and our patience was the weapon.” That was her fate. “That’s how we became heroes.” In a second clip, in addition to the character Anton Lehmann, his wife Luise Lehmann also appears: “At that time” the whole country looked “full of hope in us young people”, she says. “Maybe it was true when people said: special times need special heroes. And God knows, yes, we were.”
The videos end with the appeal of the federal government: “Become a hero too and stay at home”. On the Twitter account of government spokesman Steffen Seibert alone, the clips, which are reminiscent of TV history documentaries in their staging, were viewed hundreds of thousands of times by Sunday afternoon.
At the request of the dpa, a spokesman for the Federal Press Office said that the videos were part of the information measures in the corona pandemic. “Your message is clear: reducing contacts is currently our most important and most effective means of containing the pandemic.” The aim of the videos is to bring this appeal to as many young people as possible.
The attempt to spread this message in a humorous way met with a mixed response. “So strong. So heartwarming. And so damn important,” wrote the Berlin SPD politician Sawsan Chebli on Twitter. A number of users of the social network praised the action. Others, on the other hand, complained that topics such as loneliness, domestic violence or existential fears do not play a role in the spots – or that the real heroes are, for example, the health care workers.
The author Sascha Lobo, in turn, countered the criticism: “German Twitter is seldom more dodgy (and German) than when these brilliant Corona spots are found for cramp shit,” he wrote on Twitter. “Some people can be reached this way and that way, so DO NOT let your inner high school graduate conference hang out for 10 minutes ONCE.”
The campaign also generated reactions outside of Germany. A journalist for London’s Financial Times, Henry Mance, commented on Twitter: “I can handle the fact that the German response to the pandemic is better than ours, but I don’t think I can handle the fact that it is funnier.”
The Federal Press Office said that they were “pleased about the positive feedback and the attention that can be drawn to this important message”. The spokesman did not initially comment on critical voices. Regarding the costs, he said: “The videos fit in with our previous measures. We cannot provide more detailed information at this point in time.” tt (with dpa material)
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