Fremdscham, the German word for feeling embarrassment that should rightly belong to someone else, may have been invented for many politicians’ ham-fisted attempts to make good use of TikTok.
Last week, the MP Christian Dürr stoically endured an internet shitstorm – as squalls of virtual vitriol are known even in Germany – for his 75-second video on the popular video-hosting service, which in Germany is now dominated by the far right.
With a tsunami of English-dominated youth slang, the 47-year-old Dürr explains the virtues of the parliament to young voters on their favoured platform.
“Welcome to the Bundestag. Here, where the real tea happens. And not lowkey but full power,” says Dürr, who leads the pro-business Free Democrats’ parliamentary group, then shows a picture of his party’s cabinet members, the “OGs” who “maintain the vibes” with “mad energy”.
The speeches of his boss, Christian Lindner, the party leader and finance minister, are deemed “purer slay” while his tailored suits are “drippy AF”. The good-natured video, which ends with him munching on a canteen sausage that “hits different”, borrows from a social media trend in which an older person awkwardly panders to young people by borrowing from their lingo, as if a younger staff member had penned it. Dürr’s attempt carries the tag: “POV: Gen Z wrote the script.”
The clip, which generated 20,000 views in 24 hours, also triggered a slew of snarky “cringe” comments before it was dragged on to other platforms by critics adding their schadenfreude.
Journalist Claas Gefroi captioned the video on X: “Define Fremdscham”.
Another user invoked the chancellor, Olaf Scholz, who went viral on TikTok in April with a plodding-yet-somehow-compelling look inside his trademark beat-up leather bag: “I want Scholz’s briefcase back, at least it didn’t talk.”
An FDP spokesperson said that those criticising Dürr had failed to get the joke. “Gloating usually happens when people share TikTok videos on another channel without knowing the relevant TikTok trends,” he said, arguing that it was folly to cede the digital space to “conspiracy theorists and the political fringes”.
German politicians are under pressure to claw back ground from the anti-migrant, pro-Kremlin Alternative für Deutschland party, which has flooded TikTok with carefully crafted clips that stoke anger and cynicism. The FDP in particular, whose hard line on debt has hindered plans for public investment, finds its back to the wall.
It scored 23% among under-25s at the last general election in 2021 but tallied just 7% in that age group in the European parliament elections in June, while the AfD surged 11 points to 16%. It was the first national poll since the voting age was lowered to 16 and its trend was magnified in three state elections in September.
AfD content is seen twice as often on TikTok by first-time voters than videos by all other parties taken together, according to a study last month by the University of Potsdam.
One of Germany’s biggest political TikTok stars is the AfD’s Maximilian Krah, a particularly radical member of the European parliament. His “Don’t watch porn” video garnered more than 1.4m clicks. “One in three men never had a girlfriend,” Krah says. “Are you among them? Don’t watch porn, don’t vote for the Greens … and don’t let anyone tell you you have to be sweet, soft, weak and leftist. Real men are on the right.” TikTok Germany placed restrictions on Krah’s account for three months owing to “repeated violations of the community guidelines”.
The Konrad Adenauer Foundation, a conservative thinktank, last year found that “TikTok appeals most to the people who are least interested in politics”. The site’s “For You” page directs users not to accounts they follow but to those generating engagement – by definition those that are most provocative.
In June, the Anne Frank Educational Centre sounded the alarm that democratic parties were losing the battle against extremists on TikTok for young voters.
Johannes Hillje, a political consultant, said the AfD had been a TikTok “first mover”, using it systematically and strategically, “with a whole army of digital supporters boosting its reach” and youthful staffers tailoring the message.
“There’s no platform where the competition for attention is so intense as on TikTok,” with just seconds to grab an audience, Hillje said. “You need an emotional hook. Politicians don’t have to dance or imitate youth slang but they need to tap into the issues, interests, aesthetic and communication habits of young people.”
Sascha Lobo, one of Germany’s leading commentators on technology and politics, called the AfD’s success on TikTok only a “symptom” of a deeper malaise since the coronavirus pandemic.
“Many young people feel that politicians don’t take them seriously or ignore their needs – with catastrophic consequences,” he said in a column for Spiegel magazine.
“If you feel betrayed by all the big parties and the governments of past years, so much that you want revenge, then there’s one party whose voters are seen by all the others as a kick in the arse.”
Experts say there is a hunger among young Germans to look to the future with optimism and have their biggest concerns addressed.
The climate activist Magdalena Hess in March started a progressive campaign on the platform called #reclaimtiktok under which tens of thousands of users have posted videos that have collected nearly 200m views.
“Rightwing extremist content was long almost the only political content on TikTok,” she told local media. “We want to fire up democratic forces and change the conversation.”
