The trend is towards trigger literature: flirting with the anti-fans

I recently discovered so-called snark subreddits. In these forums, individual stars, often influencers, are put down with astonishing dedication: their behavior is dissected, every little detail in the background of a photo is stalked and given rise to hateful comments.

The members are not just critics. They are anti-fans. In order to reliably despise their anti-stars, they have to follow their postings, stories, podcasts or books just as closely, even obsessively, as fans. They produce just as much data and are firmly part of the digital star economy.

In Germany, the anti-fan culture is less organized and cultivated, but the awareness that attention counts even when it is negative - perhaps especially when it is negative - has long been widespread. Various trigger point settings have crept into cultural production, and hardly anyone has mastered this as virtuoso as Caroline Wahl. “She’s just ragebaiting,” I read a few days ago under a critical review of her new novel “1999 Meters Above the Sea,” which Adam Soboczynski aptly described in Die Zeit as a “playing on social media’s willingness to be outraged.” Wahl himself told him how predictable it was now which motives would be scandalized there: “You can make a list.” Apparently it says: Müller milk, driving a car fast without being able to, eating meat, finding blonde men with light blue eyes beautiful, designing a character with a migration background as a German, and so on.

Nun war „besser schlechte Schlagzeilen als gar keine“ noch nie ein Betriebsgeheimnis. Even before social media, scandals were reliable advertising measures and were sometimes co-produced. There have always been anti-fans. What is new is that they are now networking, giving form to their dislike, developing inside jokes, archiving and analyzing screenshots, and even developing their own language. Conversely, this means: they become addressable.

Wahl's writing must be viewed against this background. She doesn't just write her novels in an empty document and at some point decide that it's full. She always writes in an anticipated comment section. Because if you watch it long enough (although a quick glance is often enough), you won't just know what the fans want. You also know what the anti-fans are attacking.

Jan Wiele attributed Wahl's novel in the FAZ to the midcult - the phenomenon closely analyzed by Moritz Baßler. Entertainment literature that gives an “easy reading” the appearance of depth by dealing with “the themes and problems” in the texts “that particular groups are interested in (loss, trauma, abuse, misogyny, racism, capitalism, escape)”. The FAZ therefore rightly asked whether Wahl's novel wasn't already a parody of it. I think neither. I think he is a skilled flirt with both the fans and the anti-fans.

Soboczynski sees an updated “Fiberland” in the novel. Only the brands at Kracht were symbols. They marked milieus, desires, affiliations. When chosen, they are increasingly buttons. Like Stefan Raab on his nipple board, she presses the Müller-Milk button and waits to see what happens on (social) media. Müller milk doesn't mean much. Müller milk triggers.

It is a new type of pop literature, under new media conditions. It's trigger literature. Her poetics consists in selecting the motifs not only based on their meaning, but above all on their reaction value. The anti-fan is already sitting at the table as an imagined figure while writing.