The Drop

In the organizer's words:

The Drop / What has ruined us so much? - Notes on Corona and the consequences - by Lutz Hübner and Sarah Nemitz

1
There is a crack in everything / That's where the light gets in (Leonard Cohen)
A crack through which the light penetrates is a beautiful and comforting image - learning from disasters. But what if there are a few cracks too many? And how many does it take before they tear a biography to shreds? There are just enough gaping cracks through which you can look into an unreal, dystopian world (climate crisis, Nazis, war, recession and all the madmen "in charge" ...), and not so long ago there was a massive crack that divided everyone's life worldwide into a before and an after: Corona. What this hole in your life has done to you depends on how old you were at the beginning of the "lost years".

The 14-year-olds who emerged from the crisis in 2022 had missed out on practically everything they were supposed to experience between the ages of 12 and 14 (also 13/15, 14/16). At the end of the pandemic, they were told to catch up on all their schoolwork as quickly as possible and were simultaneously regarded as smombies because they had spent two years desperately trying to maintain their social lives. At the same time, they were encouraged not to take any of this to heart, and if they did end up having a mental breakdown due to lockdowns and all the subsequent cracks ("where definitely no light came in"), they were asked to grit their teeth.

Resilience also has a lot to do with a stable, appreciative environment, and anyone who is surprised that all youth studies show that the mental consequences of corona are far from being resolved has not yet wanted to take a closer look, because the elephant in the room was clearly visible: Politics and society have not dealt well with children and young people in the Corona era. It was not recognized that corona was a super-GAU for them, worse than for any other age cohort, and it is time to create a framework for them so that they can accept this experience and leave it behind.

2
Benny went berserk at the Booster Club, smashed everything to bits and is in a coma after being electrocuted. His friends visit him in hospital and try to find out why he did it, whether they are perhaps partly to blame and whether they could have prevented it. They have to admit to each other that they are no longer a support to each other, they are all struggling with their own grief and problems. Will it stay that way now? They were once connected by something that was beautiful, comforting and strong, and if that disappears now, you at least want to know why. What has changed them so much over the last few years, who has what skeletons in their closets, what lives could they have lived without all the bad news of the last few years? Why hasn't anyone noticed how Benny is doing, and what if he doesn't wake up? Either way, they have to help themselves.

3
Until 2020, the boomer generation has probably lived continuously in peace and prosperity for the longest time in German history, with the apparent certainty that everything (economically, sexually and politically) can only get better. War was a non-European phenomenon, liberalization an unstoppable process, Nazis an annoying but insignificant marginal phenomenon, epidemics were something scary from the Middle Ages. Even if most of the certainties that have been valid for decades have now been dispelled, their confidence in the world is proving to be comparatively stable.

Now there is a generation that has been under house arrest for two years, for whom war is something that happens a day's journey away, and who can only smile wearily at the idea that everything will get better by itself: Dream on. Of course the boomers don't do that, they're not stupid. But perhaps they should finally stop complaining that young people are all just snowflakes, lazybones, TikTok junkies who never read a book - and when they do do something (Last Generation or similar), they immediately talk about "eco-RAF". But they'll just have to get by on this planet a little longer. They can work out when they will run out of money and the climate will run out of breath. Or whether hyperfascism will win out at some point.

After corona, you could have said: "So, now you're all going to go to the seaside for two weeks at the state's expense and let it rip - you need a little break now, it's been a tough time. And then there will be two years of extra care and tutoring until everyone is back on board."

"Nobody is left behind." This was written everywhere at the beginning of the coronavirus crisis. If this had been taken seriously, many people would most likely be better off today. But they were left in the lurch, sent on a rollercoaster and hit the ground. In English, this moment of free fall is expressed with the word "drop". But the drop is also the moment when the music on the dance floor really hits your legs and a surge of energy floods through your body with unimagined power.