Five Things: Populism, Nature, TikTok, Cowboys, Calvin and Hobbes
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You, yes you, you’re awesome! And there are only a little more than 2000 other people like you out there! This is my way to say thanks for being a subscriber of Five Things! I have just reached the 2000 subscriber mark last week and I’m really happy about each and everyone who subscribed to Five Things, reads Five Things and clicks on the links to the articles. I hope you continue to find those articles interesting, insightful, slighlty disturbing, infuriating, inconvenient, funny or maybe even obnoxious. Everything, but hopefully not boring.
I would be very happy if you could tell other people of this newsletter and please remember: your social status gets elevated, simply because you can brag about finding this newsletter before your neighbor, friends, colleagues, or cellmates did.
Oh, and by the way, your social status improves even more if you tell your friends that you are a paid subscriber! If all 2000 of you would turn paid right now, I’d really appreciate it! 🕺
Netanyahu’s Attack on Democracy Left Israel Unprepared
This is a great article by Anne Applebaum and there’s one key takeaway: don’t get distracted by populists. It’s happening in Western democracies everywhere and it leads to defocusing instead of dealing with the core issues of societies: improving the lives of its cititzens and upholding a value-based system.
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The Broken Clock
Nope, this article is not about Daylight Savings Time (Germany is moving to winter time this Sunday), but about the way our seasons are changing. This has consequences, not just for the marmots.
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Watch This Guy Work, and You’ll Finally Understand the TikTok Era
I have been around Social Media for over 20 years, when it was called blogging and we all wrote something online just because we could. And of course because we had something to say, but mostly because we could. I was actually the first to do a real commercial campaign with bloggers in Germany, also like 20 years ago. I’m writing this not to brag, but to point out that I do understand Social Media and the way it works. Maybe except for TikTok. I don’t get the appeal, I hate the usability, the content is clearly for a younger demographic and even after reading this article, I still don’t get it. Do you?
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Why We’re Dressing Like Cowboys Now
When I was a kid, the Wild West was a big theme in Germany and of course we played lots of “Cowboys and Indians” (as it was called back then), the movies based on the books by Karl May were wildly popular and all the kids knew about Winnetou, Intschu Tschuna, Apanatschi, Old Surehand, Old Shatterhand and Sam Hawkins. Every summer we’d go to an amphitheater nearby to watch a play of one of these stories, including horses, detonations and stuntmen. I had a toy gun, a rifle, a tomahawk, but my mom just didn’t want to buy me cowboy boots. It’s still on my bucket list. What you probably didn’t know (and me neither, I was too young): Hamburg was called “The Nashville of the Federal Republic” (German) and had a huge country music scene. So I guess the whole cultural approbiation thing doesn’t come into play here… Anyhow, I’m gonna cook me some fine Texas chili tonite. And the next time I’m in the States, I know what I’ll buy…
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Life After “Calvin and Hobbes”
To me, Calvin and Hobbes is the best comic strip, ever. I was deeply saddened when it stopped. Of course I own The Complete Calvin and Hobbes and I know that I will find some time in the next 20 or 30 years to sit down and actually read it. Calvin and Hobbes was magical, in every single comic strip. Bill Watterson did the right thing when he stopped it while it was still great.
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That’s it. Have an amazing Sunday!
— Nico