The mixer
This week we just can’t ignore the most discussed new german twitter user: It’s the Secretary-General of the german party SPD, Hubertus Heil. He used twitter during his visit in the United States, where he attended the Obama show in Denver. There are quite interesting negative and positive reactions to this new hobby of Mr. Heil. You can find these reactions in twitter and in an article of the german lifestyle magazine
Der Spiegel.
It’s a correct estimation to say that sometimes you’ll be criticized immediately if you do something for getting publicity. You can see the article in Der Spiegel quite easyily as that of kind of criticism. But not every criticism that comes up quickly is intrinsically wrong.
We don’t mind politicians doing things that normal citizens do as well. We do mind if they’re just pretending to do so. It’s one characteristic of the political strategy of Obama, Heil’s idol and reason to come to Denver, to make clear he’s not that kind of faker. Believe it or not. In America the media don’t believe that completely and therefor they’re talking about playing cards.
One thing that is crystal clear is that Heil’s showing up on twitter was planned as a part of his political actions. You can see that in one of the deleted tweets of his account:
Most irritating this plan did not result in presenting any own political idea. It also sounds like this whole action wasn’t his own idea. And though twitter is much about pretending and the idea that there is no nonconformity of tweets, because these belong to the subjective manner to describe reality, Heil is definitely a candidate for TMI to us.
This is so because Heil continuously mixes private, journalistic and politcal stuff in his tweets. It’s not clear if he wants to be on twitter as a private man, a politician or a journalist. Actually there are enough journalists and Heil’s private life does not attract many people.
In this week’s tweet this mixing is inherent:
Heil tells us that the members of the german Bundestag Rolf Mützenich and Niels Annen bought a skateboard and shoes during their visit and that they now can get back to work all together.
Is this a political information or a private one? We do think it deals with private matters of Mützenich and Annen. And for sure there will be journalists to see this in a political context. Anyhow, Heil does not make clear what relevance his tweets have and how they should be seen as.
Perhaps we should read Heil’s statements as the following tweet should be read, where he tells us how Obama should call his wife:
Bullshit. [1]
So finally it turns out that the twitter question to Mr. Heil has to be posed more exactly: “What the fuck are you doing?”
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[1] following Harry Frankfurt On bullshit, Princeton University Press, 2005