Real question; likely only for people who've lived in Germany for a substantial period of time:
How "big" / popular of a cultural phenomenon was Max Headroom, back at the time (1980s–1990s)?
I kinda get the sense that it was a large thing, or at least larger than it was in other non-UK/US countries, based on the fact that there seem to be a lot of German-language books & memorabilia out there, which I don't see in other languages....
But perhaps that just represents the size of the market.
Just after having posted this, I feel like I'm not going to get any replies with insights into the answer, just because nobody on the Internets these days remembers the show anymore.
If you don't believe me, rewind a couple of weeks to the "cow tools" news story and witness how few people even in the nerd-saturated Mastodon space had any idea what The Far Side is.
@jeremiah_ I certainly wish that was how it worked.... Personally I first discovered this crisis last year, the previous time it was in the news (possibly when Jane Goodall passed away?).
To be brutally fair, I think Larson's reluctance to publish online (for losing-revenue-by-resharing fears) kept it from being rediscovered by a lot of potential new readers once it went out of production.
@jeremiah_ I definitely agree on the first; humor gets dated fast. Don't know if I concur entirely on the second, though — there's always some kind of "the cool people get it; the squares don't" factor, & I'm not up-to-speed on the young people these days.
I did feel kinda bad after I wrote that, since it sounds like I was blaming Larson. It's also plausible that his syndication/distribution deal make it difficult/impossible to embrace online publication.
@n8 Yeah, he passed relatively early in the internets growth, the business models hadn’t caught up yet, at least with syndication which was lucrative.
Gen Z and alpha seem to favor absurdism and nihilism over non sequitur humor, at least judging by things like skribidi toilet.
n8 Doesn't follow you 🇺🇦
Jeremiah C. Foster 🇸🇪🇺🇸🍥