Everyone wants to be a star, not a spectator

The streets were deserted, theaters, cinemas and universities were closed, and in January 1962 almost 90 percent of German-speaking viewers were staring spellbound at their bulky television sets. Did the Pope convert to Islam? Have aliens landed in St. Moritz? No, the six-episode crime thriller The Scarf by Francis Durbridge has aired.

Since television was not yet a mass medium, people would meet with neighbors, friends, or relatives to have fun guessing the killer. Not only were the moving pictures in black and white, but the views as well. You were either a man or a woman, a Catholic or a Protestant, a Servelat or a Beefsteak fanatic.

Today you are either a meat eater, or a flexitarian, or a pescatarian, or a vegetarian, or a vegan, or a fruitarian. The person is no longer male or female, but polysexual, demisexual, asexual, ambisexual or autosexual. The main thing is different.

If you take tomato soup, I’ll take mashed potatoes

If you’re protesting against the climate, you don’t want to be a foot soldier in the Fridays for Future movement, but have created a new band with a new name and stick to different locations. If someone at the museum recycles food waste with tomato soup, the next one uses mashed potatoes. The main thing is unmistakable and suitable for the media. This is useful for a successful “hunt for the next selfie,” writes former FFF activist Clemens Traub. 15 minutes of fame.

Each radical group sharpens its contours by distancing itself from and hostile to others. With the decline of regional churches and linear television, the exchange of experience is hardly possible. Everyone is their own program director, their own publisher, and everything they touch can be personalized, from coffee mugs to wall murals.

Selfie culture has accelerated everything

Everything must be unique, like the person himself, everyone is fighting for attention, wants to be a star, as then at the Mama Hotel, when whining in front of chocolates at the checkout led to success. Nobody wants to be a spectator. With the selfie culture, cell division of the I-society accelerated.

However, we want to be part of something bigger but different within this group. Even if it’s just a tattoo.

Claude Cueny (66) is a writer based in Basel. He writes to Blick every second Friday. His thriller Dirty Talk has just been released.