K O D I K A S / C O D E Volume 43 (2020) · No. 3 - 4 Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen Dietegen on Instagram: Social media as a stage for theater Mathias Spohr Abstract: From a futuristic theater production from 2019, a 15th-century Swiss mercenary has become a social media influencer, fearlessly fighting and promoting a war he himself does not understand. Gottfried Keller, the author of the literary model, had created a satirical Swiss folk hero with this material. He was aware of the contrast between the thirst for identity of his own time and the vanitas of the time of his late medieval models. The social media production could show that the older vanitas is well understood again today, but at odds with the intentions of the social media operators. Keywords: Identity, vanitas, music theater, global literature, fiction in social media, influencers, history of public spheres, sociology of technology. Zusammenfassung: Ausgehend von einer futuristischen Theaterproduktion aus dem Jahre 2019 wird ein Schweizer Söldner aus dem 15. Jahrhundert zum Social-Media- Influencer, der furchtlos für einen Krieg kämpft und wirbt, den er selbst nicht versteht. Gottfried Keller, der Autor der literarischen Vorlage, hatte mit diesem Stoff einen satirischen Schweizer Volkshelden geschaffen. Er war sich des Widerspruchs zwischen dem Identitätsdrang seiner eigenen Zeit und der Vanitas seiner spätmittelalterlichen Vorlagen bewusst. Die Social-Media-Inszenierung konnte zeigen, dass die ältere Vanitas heute wieder gut verstanden wird, aber im Widerspruch zu den Absichten der Social- Media-Betreiber steht. Schlüsselbegriffe: Identität, Vanitas, Musiktheater, Weltliteratur, Fiktion in sozialen Medien, Influencer, Geschichte der Öffentlichkeit, Techniksoziologie. 1 Introduction The theater performance Dietegen, based on a story by Gottfried Keller, was staged in Zurich in September 2019 as a kind of Swiss anti-festival play on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of Gottfried Keller ’ s birth. In Switzerland, there has been a tradition of open-air patriotic plays and festivals since the late 19th century, which increased during the world wars and still has some remnants (Künzli 2011). The Dietegen production made an ironic reference to this tradition by premiering at the Zurich Knabenschiessen, a traditional shooting competition for young people. It was a free professional theater production, financed with funds from the Gottfried Keller Jubilee. 1 I acted as director and producer in a three-person management team. The production was staged under the aegis of an organization called Spuren der Zukunft (Traces of the Future), founded for the jubilee events, and the preparations took about two years. The following text will focus less on the theater version and more on the social media presentation that emerged from the theater production at the time of the 2020 - 21 Covid pandemic, with its new opportunities and challenges when theaters were closed. It will conclude by asking whether the current transformation of public spheres is not a more urgent issue for current debates than content. At the heart of this is the question of who is in control. The text is therefore less a critique or analysis than a discussion of this change, which is already inherent in the production. 2 Theater production Keller ’ s 1874 story, set in the late Middle Ages, was transposed to a dystopian Swiss future in 2050. The Tonhalle Maag, the city ’ s most prestigious concert hall, was transformed into a gloomy sound space filled with electronic sounds by composer Bruno Spoerri. Four singers acted as the ‘ inner voices ’ of the main characters. They improvised according to the composer ’ s instructions and suggestions. The voice artist Saadet Türköz lent Dietegen her voice and formed the musical heart of the performance. It is a voice that the warrior and protagonist Dietegen hears as tinnitus in his head, which he explains as being caused by the radiation sickness that most of his contemporaries suffer from. Weapons and acts of war that play an important role in this story can be portrayed more convincingly on film than in the theater. So, the event was conceived as a multimedia performance, incorporating seemingly authentic film clips and photographs with the same actors as on stage. In the theater performance, which roughly followed the plot without trying to tell a logical story, the pre-produced images and films were mixed with live recordings of the actors made with their cell phones, transferred to a central computer and projected onto a backdrop in changing compositions. Indoor dialogues took place live, while outdoor scenes were pre-produced, but also commented on live on stage. In essence, live action and projections took place simultaneously. In contrast to the ‘ cinematic ’ projection screen, the performers ’ actions were distributed throughout the space, which has ideal acoustics as a concert hall. This was accompanied by electronically mixed surround sound, which also mixed live recorded sound with pre-produced sound. The performers on stage almost always played with their backs to the audience, recording themselves. These images, as well as the pre-produced videos and photos (by the film director Ivan Engler who directed the Swiss science fiction film Cargo in 2009) were projected onto the screen (Engler 2019), divided into sixteen practicable doors, which also constituted the main stage set. The rest of the action took place in the auditorium and behind the stage. The main languages were Swiss German and English. In the crowd scenes, which took place in the auditorium, the actors used their native languages, so that more than ten 1 The unreferenced statements in this text are based on my own experience as the director and producer. For more detailed information about the production cf. Spohr 2019. Dietegen on Instagram 357 languages could be heard simultaneously. They played the fates of individual victims of war, immersed in a common sound that stood in space as a Gesamtkunstwerk as in Wagnerian opera. Richard Wagner had developed his idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk in his writing Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft (1850) under the influence of Swiss cooperatives, and saw it as a vision of society in which alienating divisions would be overcome. Swiss music and theater performances around 1850, in which Friedrich Schiller ’ s idea of freedom played an important role, appeared as a nucleus of democracy after the failed revolution of 1848. 2 In Dietegen ’ s science fiction theater setting this future society appeared as a disorderly, confused, yet touching crowd of the voices of war victims. Unlike opera, there were no obvious principles of order for the voices, such as meter and pitch, but the lack of comprehensibility of the text and the formation of a common acoustic expression were in keeping with opera. 3 Instagram account As there were no more performances during the pandemic, Dietegen took a different route. Audiovisual material, partly pre-produced and partly from the performances, was posted on Figure 1: Posted on Instagram 4/ 13/ 2021. Late medieval history has been modernized. 2 In Switzerland, people in turn were very aware of Richard Wagner ’ s ideas, see Max Widmann. Die Frage der schweizerischen Nationalbühne. Bern: K. J. Wyss, 1892, p. 23. 358 Mathias Spohr the social networking site Instagram. 3 There was a total of 300 contributions, the so-called posts: photos and videos with written comments posted at intervals of about three to five days between May 2019 and November 2022. The story, from Küngolt ’ s drug party to her rescue before her execution, was told chronologically, as if it were happening right now. For promotional purposes, the account was originally designed as a fictional blog of the main character, who thus becomes an influencer describing his seemingly positive experiences of everyday war life (Rippmann 2019). Theater characters ’ blogs have become a common form of presentation in productions where theater and social media meet (cf. Le Saux-Farmer 2020). The vanity fair of blogging, with its pretense of reality and its selfdramatization (cf. Schachtner 2020), was confronted with the Dietegen myth in an uncomfortable way. Instead of having the bloggers portray themselves more favourably than they are, the comfortable Swiss existence of the actors was juxtaposed with the visionary emergency situation of their characters, as if it were a desirable goal, a promising dream of the future. Because of this change in function, the medium of Instagram has become not only a transmission channel or a marketing tool for a theater (which, as experience has shown, can Figure 2: Posted on Instagram 12/ 8/ 2019. Actors recorded themselves on their character ’ s cell phones, which was projected live onto a backdrop. 3 Instagram account Dietegen: https: / / www.instagram.com/ dietegen/ [accessed 7/ 3/ 2023] Dietegen on Instagram 359 only have limited success 4 ), but the theater itself. 5 It was therefore important to thematize the medium in the plot: the last mobile network in 2050 is supposed to be run by an opaque monopoly called the Pear Group, and the last currency in existence is their cryptocurrency Global Coin. This allowed for topical references. Advertisements and more or less serious investment offers appear constantly in this medium and could be integrated into the plot. Dietegen is always interested in making money, and also shakes his head at people who seem to live in the past. 4 Story According to Keller ’ s story, Dietegen is a late 15th-century mercenary who makes his living fighting the Burgundian army and dreams of killing the Burgundian prince Charles the Bold. But he is drawn away from his war adventures to help his stepsister, who has been kidnapped and sentenced to death by the rival neighboring village of Ruechenstein, a fictional place in Switzerland. Dietegen was hanged as a child by the same Ruechensteiners for allegedly obtaining a weapon by fraud, but survived the execution. This went unnoticed until he was rescued by a little girl named Küngolt who noticed that something was still moving in his coffin. 6 He grows up with the rescuer ’ s family in Seldwyla, another fictional place in Switzerland, and she considers him a possession and future husband. Dietegen is taught the use of weapons by her father, is taken on war campaigns, and eventually escapes from her control. Considered rebellious, Küngolt is accused of a murder that occurred at a party she hosted, because she had distributed a drug. Sentenced to hard labor in the local cemetery, she is kidnapped by the victim ’ s relatives seeking revenge. 7 Her stepbrother returns from a war campaign and prevents Küngolt ’ s execution by ransoming her and marrying her, since she, like him, is an orphan, her father and Dietegen ’ s teacher having been killed in the war. He does not want to owe anyone anything, says Dietegen, who is also not very talkative in Gottfried Keller ’ s original story. After the two have started a large family and Dietegen has fallen in battle, Küngolt freezes to death at his grave. Keller had based his story on late medieval sources, so his tale was in part a ‘ true story. ’ Such stories are still conceivable today in Africa or the Middle East. By 2050, according to this interpretation, they will also be commonplace again in Switzerland. What four years ago was dismissed as a far-fetched fantasy now seems realistic, and it seems to have aroused real fears. 4 On the potential of social media to support theater productions cf. Haley 2017. 5 For an introduction to the various relationships between social media and theater cf. Lonergan 2015. 6 Post from 9/ 12/ 2022 (5000 views from Iran and Turkey without paid promotion, this feature was already disabled). https: / / www.instagram.com/ p/ CiZnygIDhQd/ [accessed 7/ 4/ 2023] 7 Post from 8/ 13/ 2021 (40,000 views mostly from India with 8 € paid promotion). https: / / www.instagram.com/ p/ CSgy8yODYCG/ [accessed 7/ 3/ 2023] 360 Mathias Spohr 5 Urgency and timelessness On Instagram, this is a kind of comic-book sequence of images and videos, in reverse order, with the most recent post at the top left of the page and the oldest one at the bottom right. This order inspires a play with time: the simple plot of the underlying narrative allows for flashbacks, repetition, slow motion, fast motion, and a constant interplay between past and future, always in relation to the ‘ total presence ’ of the respective current post. Everything is past, present and future at the same time, parodying the principle of live broadcasting. Urgency and mythical timelessness meet in a paradoxical way, especially when it comes to the subject of war as a timeless and always urgent phenomenon. More precisely, two kinds of urgency constantly meet: a pleasant determinism that corresponds to the suspenseful course of a thriller and does not put the reader or viewer in danger, and a demonic determinism of naked violence that threatens the consumer as a realistic vision of the future. It is up to the viewer to decide whether he or she wants to understand indifference, non-committal suspense, funny jokes or an urgent warning. The numerous flashbacks of Dietegen on Instagram are linked to the topos of traumatic memory proposed by Yevgenya Strakovsky for the character of Dietegen (Strakovsky 2018). Dietegen ’ s fearful memories that repeatedly disturb his optimism mirror his viewers ’ fearful visions of the Figure 3: Posted on Instagram 3/ 19/ 2020. After the stabbing at Küngolt ’ s party. The image qualities explain the medium in which the images were taken. Dietegen on Instagram 361 future. However, it is not necessary to understand everything in order to follow this account. The sense of mystery and the idea of the first-person narrator are enough. A tightrope walk between comedy and seriousness, or between aesthetics and sheer misery, is already inherent in the literary model. In this post-apocalyptic situation, the legendary Swiss countryside has disappeared in the nuclear winter. All the characters try to survive by destroying more and more of what is left of their livelihood without even realizing it. It was decided to remove all of Keller ’ s religious references, as they are most likely to be misunderstood today. Keller ’ s mockery of the Jewish junk dealer who sells Dietegen the crossbow or of the Catholic priest who assists in Küngolt ’ s execution could be interpreted as discriminatory. Both characters are therefore omitted. Death is very sober in this secularized society: Keller ’ s cemetery where Küngolt has to serve her sentence turns into a crematorium, which in the photos and videos is an industrial site. Keller himself was an early advocate of cremation. The hog-banner (Saubanner) of the rebellious Swiss warriors of 1477 becomes a wild boar label reminiscent of today ’ s hit squads. Gottfried Keller ’ s Ruechensteiners are proud of their executions, which they use to boost their morale. 6 Images and imagination Keller was inspired by Diebold Schilling ’ s late medieval illustrated chronicle of Swiss history, in which cute little men are shown stabbing each other to death. He apparently saw in it a parallel to the ponderous, humorous narrative tone of the late 19th century, especially in German popular literature to be read aloud in the family parlor, a genre which he himself had helped to shape and in which even the gruesome could be turned into pleasure. The cruelty of the Ruechensteiners becomes a cheerful, picturesque hustle and bustle. The complacency of his readers and viewers, which Keller ironically anticipated in his stories, now seems to coincide with the collective self-reflection of blogs and selfies on the Internet. Keller was well aware of the vanitas of late medieval depictions and understood their contrast with the identity frenzy of his time. He avoided taking a position and instead highlighted the contradictions between the two perceptions. The popular heroic tales of his time, in which Swiss peasants sacrifice themselves for freedom in the manner of William Tell or Arnold Winkelried, did not appeal to Keller, although he initially had visions similar to Richard Wagner ’ s of a national Swiss festival culture (cf. Amrein 2016). He questioned the models, and to this day their interpretation leads to a kind of infinite regress. Dietegen ’ s war adventures never seem to end, they remain in a vicious circle. But suddenly death arrives and everything is frozen into an image that will in turn serve as a role model for future generations, like the fictional painting of Küngolt described by Keller at the end of his story, where she has turned from a fallen girl into a bourgeois lady. The wild boar logo of the mercenaries around Dietegen is perhaps the clearest example of how the revaluation of images is handled in the theater production. It refers to the Swiss forces ’ Saubannerzug 1477 (see Miller, Embleton 1979: 27). The hog banner, used by discontented Swiss mercenaries after the Battle of Nancy to demand more pay, is still cited in Switzerland today as a sign of a disorderly and illegitimate uprising, in the sense of the older vanitas. It is intended as a deterrent, not an encouragement like the Swiss national 362 Mathias Spohr symbols since the 19th century. In Dietegen ’ s theater production, however, it becomes a symbol of identity, proudly displayed by Dietegen and his stepfather, inviting the hesitant viewer to join in. Contrary to this spiral of revaluation, the Instagram narrative interprets Dietegen as a constant and inevitable decline. The hermeneutics of art lovers appears as an infinite regress, a vicious circle. Natalie Moser speaks of the iconic surplus of the images (ikonischer Überschuss), which is already present in the original (Moser 2022). In Keller ’ s story, she discovers an abundance of images that serve as ironic role models, and the characters in the story in turn become models for the reader. The rebellious, self-confident Küngolt, who has no chance in the plot and literally freezes to death in front of Dietegen ’ s grave, finally becomes a decent woman in a silent and motionless picture “ by a good painter ” , which is all that remains of her. This historical source is also a forgery. Paradoxically, Keller describes an abundance of images in the medium of text. He had begun his career as a painter and ended it as a successful writer. 7 Technical features With ‘ likes ’ being the only pre-determined reaction that can be given to the Instagram posts, it is never clear whether the statements themselves or their aesthetic presentation are being appreciated. The viewer is torn between the attraction of beautiful images and the deterrent of the protagonist ’ s enthusiasm for war. Interaction on Instagram can take the form of likes, comments on posts that can turn into dialogues, shared posts between accounts or posts that are a collaboration between two accounts. Posts can also appear in a hashtag. These are keywords that group posts from different accounts together, are not exclusive and can be used by anyone (e. g. #dietegen is a hashtag for all participants and some followers who contributed to it, #küngi, #küngisexecution or #dietegensnightmares are hashtags that summarize parts of the story thematically - and were at least temporarily made invisible by the censors). In principle, it is possible to promote posts for which you can specify monetary amounts and target audiences, but despite the numbers presented, there is no real overview or control over who these posts were shown to and when. 8 Audience Over time, Dietegen has created its audience. A seemingly peaceful world community of followers and likers seems to be unanimously on the side of the thoroughly unpeaceful and rather egotistical hero, like a big family, to whom he can be eternally grateful for their idealistic support. They seem to form a Rousseau-like global village, a common identity in which all disputes are overcome. The principle of the 19th-century hero story is thus faithfully implemented, but the influencer Dietegen just wants to get by somehow. For all his talk of honor and gratitude, he wants to earn a good reputation and make money. The interest in this presentation from the Balkans, the Middle East, India, Africa and the unstable states of Latin America seems here to realize in a globalized way what was once called world literature. Dietegen on Instagram 363 The original marketing intent of Dietegen ’ s social media accounts on Facebook and Instagram didn ’ t work but making the Instagram presence itself the main thing worked well. With Instagram, it was possible to create not only a kind of replacement for the performances that did not materialize during the pandemic, but also a kind of further development of the idea. It was an opportunity to reach a much larger audience than with the theater performances, an audience that did not have any knowledge of Swiss history and literature. The language of the Instagram texts is English, that of the video dialogues Swiss German. Because of the language, most of the followers are from the USA, the UK, India and Nigeria. However, Brazil, Turkey and Iran are also well represented, and there are comments in Russian, Arabic and Persian. Users under the age of 18 have apparently been blocked from the account, those aged 18 - 35 generally just watch without participating, those who contribute with likes and comments are on average older than 40 and make up about a third of the regular audience. 8 9 The shock of violence Apparently, the account was listed as dangerous: Instagram ’ s censorship limited the public visibility of this account every time a global political crisis occurred, from the Covid pandemic in 2020 to the attack on the U. S. Capitol in 2021, from the outbreak of the war in Ukraine in 2022 to the protests in Iran in 2023. Indeed, there was an echo from people affected by war and arbitrariness from all over the world. Each of these crises brought new followers to the account, but also caused new blocks of seemingly dangerous content. On the other hand, it was also possible to react to current events with images from the Dietegen narrative. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the warlike theme of the updated late medieval original has been perceived differently and has been increasingly subject to censorship. However, the shock of violence is followed by a certain habituation to violence, which is particularly evident in Western reactions to the contributions. In the eyes of the participants, it ’ s a success that one can be seen as a nuisance and a danger with a seemingly outdated narrative material: although the depictions of violence are nowhere near those of the average TV crime drama, visibility has been reduced and new blockades and restrictions were constantly being imposed. Imagined violence is apparently more powerful than that which is openly shown. 10 Reality and fiction Why is such a production considered disruptive? During the lockdown caused by the Covid pandemic in 2020 (cf. Fuchs 2022), the awareness of ‘ distant realities ’ that are nonetheless real increased, as did the need to fend off attempts at deception. Because everything was 8 Statistics as of June 25, 2023: 5791 followers. Most represented cities: Lagos 2.7 %, London 1.2 %, Istanbul 1.2 %, Bagdad 1.2 %, New York City 1.1 %. Countries: USA 11.4 %, Nigeria 6.3 %, United Kingdom 4.8 %, Germany 4.5 %, India 4.4 %. 364 Mathias Spohr seen on the same screen, it was important to separate the frames: this is theater (or fiction), this is reality. Even everyday life was imagined in front of a screen. On the other hand, fiction has the advantage of being controllable, unlike reality, and the fear of losing control characterized the time of the pandemic. But it is difficult to make a clear distinction between reality and fiction. Social media, not just Instagram, tells its users: you can make your own narrative come true, and we ’ ll help you do it. It ’ s about the success of dreams or claims. Compared to all the inflated self-portraits with extended fingernails or fancy cars that expect a big stage of their own, even the fiction of this 19th-century novel takes on something strangely subversive. It competes with and mocks the individual make-believe worlds. Of course, in a world of wishful thinking that claims to be real and is supported by the media, belief in election results or evidence of war crimes fades. Only one ’ s own imagination seems to create reality, and reality and solidarity are closely linked. The justification for art theater is that it shows a kind of reality even in fiction. 9 It is about a truth in the sense of probability. This is exactly what is not valued in a world where realities are in danger: when political lies destroy the evidence or, conversely, evidence destroys political solidarity. On social media, dystopian fictions that see themselves as the opposite of reality are more common, such as cosplayers who appear in standardized warrior costumes: men heavily armored, women half-naked. This kind of fiction usually signals a clear demarcation between the performers and the world they play. It says: I ’ m okay, and what I ’ m playing will never be reality. Fictional game and real world are strictly separate. Theater or fiction in general that deals with the present or future possibility of such imaginings, or even claims them as distant realities, is not necessarily welcome. It warns of the vision rather than triumphing over a dominated fiction in a perfect costume. The cosplayers unfollowed Dietegen when this intention became clear. The cosplayers ’ imagined world is not realistic but controlled, Dietegen ’ s imagined world is realistic and uncontrollable. Fiction and the assertion of reality are a pressing issue of our time, as is the transformation of public spheres. There is no such thing as the general public or objectivity anymore. Reality can be a narrative. The individualization of social media contradicts an older understanding of the public sphere: newspapers, television, cinema or theater still offer everyone the same observer ’ s perspective. Even the audience in the cheap seats in the gallery of old theater buildings could, in principle, see the entire stage and the performance from beginning to end. Social media is fundamentally different, because it tries to individually determine who gets to see what. 11 Censorship This brings us back to the issue of censorship. How does censorship work on Instagram? I can only speak from my experience. Either one ’ s ability to act, such as commenting, messaging or liking is restricted, or the scope of one ’ s posts in the feed and hashtags is limited to the point of de facto invisibility. Deletions of posts are rare: Dietegen had only two 9 For a short overview of artistic fiction in social media cf. Sant 2014. Dietegen on Instagram 365 deleted posts, some deleted comments, and some posts with comments or hashtags disabled; the opaque punitive measures predominate. When visibility is restricted, the reason remains unclear. Mostly there is no information at all. Control, rewards and punishments are handled by an algorithm whose automatic actions have so much randomness built into them that they cannot be predicted. This results in a kind of Blade Runner scenario: machines try to find out which of their opponents is equally a machine. 10 Especially when irony is misunderstood, it becomes clear that some kind of artificial intelligence is at work. There is something totalitarian about the randomness of the algorithm. A machine is only fun if you can control it. The automatic analysis of photos and comment texts apparently sounds an alarm for weapons in the picture and for words like “ shoot ” or “ gun. ” Complaints from other users also play a role, and viral successes are automatically stopped or prevented. Many views in Iran or in some African countries make what is seen suspicious, and rural areas of the US are particularly well protected from seemingly dangerous influences. The system of censorship is quite sophisticated and tries to serve those who want to do business undisturbed. Storytelling is seen as a marketing tool, not an artistic intent (cf. Moin 2020). Paid content promotion was disabled for Dietegen, after it had been successful a few times in Africa, India, and the Middle East. When the hashtags of videos were made permanently invisible (this is called a “ shadow ban ” ), we promoted some of them and got many thousands of views for a few euros. As a result, this feature was blocked. 12 Conclusions The conclusions drawn from four years of experience confirm the concept of this social media presence. The main character Dietegen is already dead but survives forever, just like his pictures and videos. Instagram itself is the dystopian world in which Dietegen moves, and he must defend himself against the thieves and scammers who lurk along his path. Theater in social media has become theater about social media. The worldwide contacts with interesting and interested people are the positive side of the project. Marshall McLuhan ’ s vision of a global village (McLuhan 1962) is thus becoming a reality. But a quick success remains too superficial despite the technical possibilities. Relationships take time to develop. Instagram has signaled from the start, even if there is no direct communication, that this project is tolerated, but not really wanted. The suspicion of manipulation that was associated with the mass media in the mid-20th century seems to have been dispelled by the individual treatment of users. It seems that they are not brought into line, but can choose for themselves. The seemingly boring or sinister fact that all readers of a book or a newspaper receive the same product, which is still a principle of cinema and television, actually comes from the theater. It already applied to illiterates, for example at the events at the Parisian fairs (cf. Isherwood 1981). This was once considered a principle of equal rights and had to be fought for in the 18th and 19th centuries. The public sphere of the 20th century was the result. 11 With social media, however, a pre- 10 Blade-Runner. Director Ridley Scott. USA 1982. 117 min. 11 For further reflections about equality in Dietegen cf. Spohr 2019. 366 Mathias Spohr modern state of affairs seems to have been restored, with gracious ladies and gentlemen deciding what content is ‘ relevant ’ to which of their subjects, as it is so aptly put. It seems to be a gift for the users that they are not treated equally, but individually. There is no longer any talk of equality. This, however, goes hand in hand with seemingly unlimited selfrealization, which may be possible for a few powerful people, but remains an illusion for the rest. Dietegen feels free as a well-paid mercenary, but he is a pawn in the hands of his warlords and the Pear Group, who only shows him a slice of the world online. He doesn ’ t really know what he ’ s doing and can ’ t judge it. He only controls his gun. This is something he has in common with his followers who only control their cell phones. There can be a right to equal information, but not necessarily a right to equal selfpublication, which Angela Merkel even demanded for Donald Trump when his Twitter account was deactivated after his attempted coup. 12 Users can be treated equally, but the power cannot lie in the hands of individual users if they can undermine this justice, even when they are followed voluntarily. The equal but passive users of former times seemingly have become actors themselves. Paradoxically, this individualization goes hand in hand with disempowerment, making most users, like Dietegen in his story, a pawn in obscure power struggles that they serve without understanding them. All media bear responsibility, just as a newspaper does for published letters to the editor. Instagram ’ s understandable fear of being blamed for the next high-school massacre seems to run deep, and because of the lack of transparency, no public can have a say. Only the clandestine reporting of unwanted content, denunciation so to speak, is possible. There can be no theatrical scandals on social media, 13 as was the tradition in Europe until the 1970s, in a different kind of public sphere than the one we are experiencing today. The scandals challenged the public control that had been assumed and guaranteed. Today, controversial content is no longer shown to a large audience anymore but, if possible, only to like-minded people. If these people become radicalized, the majority does not know about it, and the operators could encourage or suppress it, as with the Russian military bloggers during the Ukraine war. The fascination of being able to make a difference at the touch of a button comes at the price of an imperceptible narrowing of one ’ s vision and visibility. And the shared values do not lead to a global community, but to the opposite. The gun enthusiast Dietegen puts it in a nutshell when he says to a Russian follower: “ We ’ re one big family. Aren ’ t we? ” 14 The martial idea of community in heroic stories cannot create a community in a globalized world. At its core, it is the emancipatory desire that “ we can do things and no longer have to ask ” that unites media users. However, if the role model for this ability is a warrior, the question arises as to who is left as an enemy if everyone is a successful warrior. It may be questionable to declare ‘ users ’ to be a community, as the example of gun users shows. This criticism is obvious in the case of Dietegen. If enthusiasm for war becomes a deterrent to war, and identity turns into vanitas, because the observers see that this idea doesn't work, then enthusiasm for business can also become a deterrent to business. This is the fear of social media, which rely on people ’ s hopeful imagination. Dietegen is 12 “ Merkel: Twitter-Sperre des US-Präsidenten ist ‘ problematisch ’ . ” Süddeutsche Zeitung, 1/ 11/ 2021, https: / / www.sueddeutsche.de/ politik/ trump-twitter-merkel-1.5170842 [accessed 7/ 2/ 2023] 13 Cf. the instructive considerations by Soltani et al. 2022. 14 Post from 4/ 6/ 2021. https: / / www.instagram.com/ p/ CNUkMzbHuLG/ [accessed 11/ 14/ 2023] Dietegen on Instagram 367 enthusiastic about both, but his enthusiasm is implausible. That is the trouble. Because the principle of change through trade has failed in global politics, the peacefulness of the latter is in doubt. Enthusiasm for both war and business may not be a pleasant prospect. Both may be realistic and uncontrollable, only the medium can create the illusion of controllability. Although Vladimir Putin ’ s secret intelligence methods are often portrayed as relics of an ancient understanding of governance, they may embrace these developments and even point to a future that has much in common with the late Middle Ages. Although we believe we have controllable technological devices in our hands today, they are not controllable. There is no public transparency and no reality of commonly accepted and controlled rules. In this respect, Dietegen was ahead of the curve. The once motivating perception of a Swiss folk hero, which accompanied European revolutions in the 19th century when William Tell was celebrated, has become a chilling vanitas morality, and this perception has an impact on the medium in which the story is presented. References Amrein, Ursula 2016: “ Am Mythenstein (1861) ” , in: Id. (ed.): Gottfried Keller Handbuch, Stuttgart: Metzler, 221 - 224 Engler, Ivan 2019: “ Videoprojektionen zu Dietegen. ” , in: Mathias Spohr (ed.): Dietegen. 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