Just insult everyone: Our author tests what it feels like to be Dieter Bohlen

Today Dieter Bohlen celebrates his 70th birthday. I barely noticed modern talking before. For me it just wasn’t music. And then all the misery with Dieter and Thomas and Nora and Naddel and Verona. It was clear that Bohlen would suffer a broken penis at some point.

But then the turning point came when this Bohlen, the most uninteresting creature in the universe, suddenly became cool. Friends of mine suddenly celebrated his sayings that he used to insult young people when he was a judge in a “talent show”. Example: “You just don’t have anything on you, except maybe plaque.” Or: “It sounds like they sewed your ass shut and the shit is coming out the top.”

The audience went wild, the magazines cheered, finally we had someone who could take it the way it is. Dieter Bohlen became a titan. I didn’t understand that. In the last jungle camp, young people dreamed of having sex with him.

Dieter Bohlen can keep the villa in Tötensen

But I also have to admit that Dieter Bohlen, now 70 years old, has come a long way. He can keep the villa in Tötensen, but the millions who love him and the financial ease he must feel must be very nice. I’ll never be able to do that in my life.

Now I’m not a music producer. But I could adapt the other, Bohlen’s really great ability, the one that made him rich and famous. Maybe it will help if I discover the Dieter in me. That’s what it was thinking in my head last night. I decided to take a tougher approach to my environment, to simply insult people, at the bus stop, in the kebab shop, at the bakery. Maybe I would become popular like Dieter, people would smile at me on the street, and everything else in my life would fall into place. I pulled Bohlen’s nastiest sayings from the internet, wrote them slightly modified in my palms and on a cheat sheet and went home.

“You are like a cloud”

First try right at the bus stop. A young mother stands in the drizzle in a thick quilted jacket, with her little baby wearing a bear ear hat in the buggy in front of her. A quick look at the cheat sheet: “You’re like a cloud. If you disappear, it could still be a beautiful day!” Before I can even say it, a wave of embarrassment hits me and I look between mother and child, at a loss as to who I should tell. The bus comes, I carry the buggy and the baby in. Fuck.

I have to make it easier for myself to insult people. After all, what are friends for? I go to my buddy Aadil, he works in a bakery, and sometimes I hang out at his place and we smoke and drink coffee. Lucky, no customers inside, get in quickly. Leaning over the counter with rolls, croissants and cakes, I say a little too loudly: “Do you know what the difference is between all this and a bucket of shit? The bucket!”

Aadil looks slightly irritated, I get a bad feeling in my stomach and quickly add: “A display to kneel down on, but only so that you don’t puke on your feet!”

Aadil smiles. “That’s a good one, I’ll have to remember it!” And tells one of his stories from his life in which exactly that happened to him. Then I ease my guilty conscience and explain my experiment to him. Despite his cool reaction, he found me a bit strange. As I leave he says: “Take good care of yourself!”

“You have to take a look at yourself in the mirror at home!”

Döner snack bar, quite deliberately not my regular shop. I look the young salesman straight in the face: “You have to look at yourself in the mirror at home! It somehow looks like a strange animal has died in your face!”

The poor man’s features slip and he touches his face: “WHAT? WHERE? WHAT DO I HAVE THERE?!? SAY, IS THERE ANYTHING?!?” I give in and explain to him my whole plank misery. He laughs and taps his phone, holding it up. “Is that this one?” There is a picture of Thomas Anders on the display. Then he taps again and “Cheri Cheri Lady” clatters loudly between the snack tiles. I never thought my karma would reach out to Modern Talking songs.

At home, one last quick attempt on the phone. For reasons of gender equality, it should be a woman’s turn. My girlfriend? That would be crazy. My daughter’s mother as well. So my mother. She’s on the phone straight away, but first talks about a concert for five minutes. Then I interrupt her somewhat rudely: “Your voice sounds like a shredded cat.” Silence. Breathing at the other end. My hands are clammy. Then, distant and uncertain: “Hello?” Me: “If the weather was like your voice, it would rain shit… um, well…” I stop and explain everything to her. My mother is really a bit confused. But he’s already 83.

It’s not easy to be Dieter Bohlen

Conclusion after two hours of Being Bohlen: It’s not easy to be Dieter Bohlen. I felt misunderstood and less loved more often. Was constantly accompanied by feelings of shame and embarrassment. But to be honest: What I organized there was just a nice attempt. I just don’t have it. Must be my childhood. Or to Dieter – to put it in the words of the immortal bard from Tötensen: “Every man has a hard-on, but not everyone plays in a porno.”

Congratulations!