The Münster "crime scene" is about the death of a "momfluencer" who posted her life on social media with advice and purchase recommendations. Boerne and Thiel are unobtrusively strangers to the situation, quite understandable given a phenomenon between delusion and voyeurism.
In an early shared flat when I was a student, that period of life characterized by improvised furniture and a haphazard household, there was a legendary kitchen towel from the 1960s. On it was an illustration of a scene with a man and woman, drawn in the light brushstrokes of that decade, she washing the dishes, he drying them off, both united in a harmonious smile. The lettering is a bon mot that is still quoted today and has fallen out of time: "Mom is happy. Dad is helping too".
If you look at the well-lit advice mothers in 2023, sorted under momfluencers, recommending storage boxes and fitness smoothies, dressing up the balcony and crunching off the belly flab, juggling the baby and smearing the skin cream, you have to realize: Since those distant times, the era of Avon consultants and Tupper parties, hasn't really changed that much.
Of course, a lot of postmodern madness has unfolded, which was by no means unimaginable when the influencers were still called Klementine, Egon Hoegen and Jacques Galet. Right at the front, right at the top, for example, the "Dubai Moms" from RTL, who present their followers* on Instagram the luxury life in the desert, with Anna Maria Ferchichi as a quasi-newcomer, her "everyday life" with Bushido and the seven children a " Reality" soap of the extra class. Mom is happy. Dad raps too.
In Germany, for example, Emel Saïd is successful, the documentary series Arte Re: recently dedicated the episode "Mama mit Kamera und ich" to her, an insight that is as interesting as it is latently disturbing into life in front of the cell phone cam, with the children constantly in the picture. If there is a sandwich along the way, the bread box is advertised directly and given a verbal price tag. Like Truman Show without Truman, real-time commercial. Children. Kitchen. Camera.
In 2022, sales of 15 billion were to be made in the competitive market of influencer marketing, no wonder that many people who have just tightened the Facebook privacy settings are itching their camera fingers. Numerous platforms today act as a link between industry and influencers, the most successful include Buzzbird, OpenInfluence, creator.co and HashtagLove, a network for German-speaking influencers.
How thin the air can get in the upper spheres, where influencers sometimes catch the flu and choke on opulent fame, was recently experienced by someone like Fynn Kliemann. From the Netflix series hero and Everybody's Darling to the mask mauschler exposed by Böhmermann - the crash went faster than a single battery charge. The fraud procedure for these mask deals has just been stopped, the fynnfluencer has to pay 20,000 euros to four different organizations, Unicef, the child protection association, Doctors Without Borders and the children and youth welfare organization each receive 5,000 euros.
In Münster, however, where Boerne and Thiel explored the planet Influence, there is still room for improvement when it comes to business. If you google "Momfluencer in Münster", for example, you will end up with the Kravalli winding aid, the number of Facebook friends: 16. Either the algorithm is stuck - or in Münster the winding is naturally more competent than elsewhere.
Next weekend, Batic and Leitmayr in Munich are going to be a lot more analog, the title hero Hackl (Burghart Klaußner) is an old-school angry citizen. Mom is happy. Dad is watching too.
(This article was first published on Sunday, March 05, 2023.)
