Damage makes you wise: Chancellor turns mishap into a meme campaign

With a photo showing him with an eye patch, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) himself motivated people to create memes with his current appearance. On Monday, he confirmed reports on the short message service X (formerly Twitter) about a jogging accident in which he fell and sustained injuries to his face. For a head of government the post an unusual PR move to go on the offensive and make fun of yourself. The internet didn’t have to be asked twice to respond with memes.

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“Whoever has the damage… I’m looking forward to the memes. Thanks for the good wishes, it looks worse than it is!” said the post from the Chancellor’s official account. When asked by heise online, a government spokesman only vaguely commented on how exactly the idea for the post came about: “The Chancellor’s X account is managed by a team in the Federal Press Office. The posts are always created in close coordination with the Federal Chancellery. In this case, it was important for the Chancellor to use the photo to prepare the public for what he would look like in his numerous public appearances in the weeks after his fall.”

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The Pirate Party rejoices: the Federal Chancellor is now one of them. (Image: X/Twitter)

The pirates are happy

As expected, the obvious association with Scholz’s appearance was to compare him to a pirate. The Pirate Party rejoiced in a tweet that it would now appoint the Chancellor. The parrot on the shoulder – in one case even in the form of Scholz’s predecessor in office, Angela Merkel – was part of the basic equipment in many memes. For some who grew up in the 1980s, there was also a reunion with the comic book character Danger Mouse.

Of course, there were also some political and hateful classifications in the memes posted. Overall, the Federal Chancellery is drawing a positive interim conclusion: “We were very pleased with the creativity and wordplay of the communities on

Update September 5, 2023 4:59 p.m

Answers from the Federal Press Office to questions from heise online were added.

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(mki)

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