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»Cancel Culture«: Yes, we don't want to say anything wrong anymore

2022-07-02T04:51:50.253Z


Young people no longer dare to make jokes at the expense of others, said Thomas Gottschalk in a recent interview. He got that wrong: we just don't step down anymore.


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Not afraid and humorless: the young generation only makes fun of other things

Photo: Deagreez / Getty Images / iStockphoto

"Soft-boiled and anxious," is what the entertainer Thomas Gottschalk, 72, called the younger generation in a recent interview with the "Süddeutsche Zeitung".

The young people in their industry just don't want to do anything wrong, don't want to take any risks, and don't want to be funny at the expense of others.

For fear of the reactions.

Gottschalk is alluding to the buzzwords »political correctness« and »cancel culture«.

According to the theory, people or entire organizations would be banned from the public eye because they were accused of morally wrong behavior.

Whoever uses the term usually resonates: wrongly.

That in turn seems to be a fear that worries Gottschalk's generation.

Yes, the younger generation is more anxious.

The worry of starting the next shitstorm with the wrong word, a failed joke or a misplaced gesture is justified.

The wave of outrage that follows is mostly merciless and sometimes exaggerated.

But is it really that bad to ask yourself before you say or act, "Who might I hurt?"

What are necessary limits – and where, as Gottschalk sees it, does entertainment die?

Longing for a time when everything was allowed

Like Gottschalk, many long for a time when everything was allowed.

At least people like him.

Back then, every joke, every insult was gone as long as someone found it funny, he says in an interview.

What happened to all those who couldn't laugh at all was of no interest in the past.

Those who winced on Saturday evening when women were patted without being asked in front of the cameras.

Or who didn't find it funny at all when Gottschalk posted a photo of himself in a Jimi Hendrix costume on Twitter in 2017, including "Blackfacing".

If you look at what kind of jokes he might be making, what words are now banned, what no one supposedly dares to do anymore - you end up with jokes about groups that didn't have any power at the time, just sitting on the sofa and could smile.

Or had to.

So the question is: What taunts are we missing today, and is it really a loss?

I certainly don't miss the days – just ten years ago – when two men on television could touch a woman's breasts without being asked and then joke about the victims of sexual harassment.

Incidentally, the two have since apologized for this – and still regularly fill the evening program of a private broadcaster.

Only now they are politically correct, even activist, and very successful at that.

Can't you really make fun of anyone these days?

On the contrary.

Terms like "old white man" or "boomers" (like baby boomers, the generation born until the mid-1960s) are the best examples of this.

These too are, if you will, insults.

So it's not true that the younger generation has completely lost this kind of humor.

She just uses it differently.

Step up instead of down

The difference is that such jokes are not made at the expense of disadvantaged groups.

If you don't want to step down, just step up.

Instead of laughing at the people who have to endure a lot in their everyday lives anyway, we prefer to laugh at those who have had power for a long time and still have it: politicians, the rich, and yes, also “old white men”.

And that can be pretty funny.

There are many videos and texts circulating on Instagram and TikTok that play with this mechanism.

Internet entertainers like El Hotzo, Giulia Becker or Aurel Mertz are very successful with it.

Yes, it can be exhausting not wanting to say or do the wrong thing.

Exclamations, jokes and swear words, which were normal in the schoolyards of our childhood and youth, we had to delete from our vocabulary first.

Some certainly do this for fear of a shitstorm.

Others because they honestly don't want to exclude or hurt anyone.

Nevertheless, we have not become humorless.

And aren't jokes nicer when more people can join in the laughter?

Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2022-07-02

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