‘How can you make your work of activism?’, is a question from the audience. Angrythe YouTube program with presenter Tim Hofman that was awarded a Silver Nipkow disk a few weeks ago for the broadcast about transgressive behavior at The Voice of Holland, is on tour. In the Utrecht music building TivoliVredenburg, the makers managed to fill a room full of young viewers this Saturday, who sometimes want to make their work of activism – and in any case want to make work of it.
They are 23 years old on average and about five hundred people have come to what Hofman announced on Instagram as ‘an evening to sharpen our minds and make plans about how we pressure those in power and break constructs’. There are panel discussions about the working method of Angry and about bringing about change with, among others, Dolle Mina Petra de Vries, there is a silent disco, but with cabaret and spoken word, Tim Hofman interviews Arjen Lubach, and the audience is asked to ask a lot of questions.
He is also curious about it, says Hofman a few hours before the start: how infectious is the Angry-approach? Since the start, six years ago, Angry † 882 thousand YouTube subscribers – hundreds of thousands of mostly young viewers every Thursday. They help shape the program from the outset. Most episodes open with a viewer running into something and asking for help from Hofman and editor-in-chief Marije de Roode. Together they go to the cause of anger and frustration for a confrontation and if possible a direct solution of the problem.
An own Angryepisode for school
Still getting Angry story from companies that do not treat their customers well, but over time the program has also started to deal with larger social issues. In November 2018, Angry for example the documentary Back to your own country, with the Iraqi boy Nemr and VVD politician Klaas ‘Yes, so?’ Dijkhoff, about the children’s pardon. A signature campaign followed to get the subject on the agenda of the House of Representatives. Ultimately, the program was able to offer more than 250 thousand signatures, which forced the extension of the children’s pardon.
‘Sometimes we call someone to account, sometimes we place question marks, and sometimes we put an exclamation mark after a question mark and we try to encourage movement’, Hofman tells the audience in Utrecht about that activist side of Angry† The plan is to organize symposia in various places in the Netherlands in the near future on themes such as religion, euthanasia and mental health.
Regular viewer Joëlle van der Nol (18) drove from Vlaardingen to Utrecht for an answer to the question of how you can bring about change. ‘I think a lot of young people are now like: oh shit, I want that.’ She herself attended several Housing protests, but there are many more topics that she is concerned about. With a laugh: ‘Everything makes me angry, I’m going to argue with everyone.’
For a school assignment she made a Angryepisode where they raised an issue about which there were uneasy feelings. ‘During lockdown time, we were asked to film ourselves while exercising, as ‘proof’ for a mandatory sports module. There were people who did not like to commit themselves in yoga poses in front of the teacher. We also saw that the images were sometimes viewed up to 15 times. The head of sports reassured us and the school promised not to opt for this solution in the future if it comes to a lockdown again.’
‘It’s ridiculous that it had to be this way’
She finds Angry not only entertaining, but also ‘very infectious’ when it comes to standing up for yourself and others. ‘I think that’s because Angry shows the process step by step. You see Tim and Marije just going from zero to the solution, and also that it is not always easy and it involves trial and error. As a younger person they give me the feeling that I can make a difference myself.’
Anne Nieuwenhuis (21) finds Angry ‘just fun’ to watch anyway. ‘But I also think: if I had such a problem myself, I would go after it sooner. Because you see: you can achieve something if you take action.’ Andy Tsin (30) joined the program a few years ago when he was at odds with a large employment agency. Angry made it in 2019 an episode about. Title: ‘Randstad is cheating 300 temporary workers and withholding 240 thousand euros.’ Tsin: ‘I was happy, but at the same time I thought it was ridiculous that it had to be this way. I’ve been trying to get something done myself for half a year. When Tim Hofman came in, it was solved within a week.’
The spirit of the program is power, Hofman says in the afternoon. He is aware that the dominant position of Angry itself has grown a lot over the years, especially after The Voice† ‘With power comes the responsibility to carefully consider who to visit with a camera. I think that we can no longer approach a private scooter farmer and say: well, you have not supplied a battery. That man’s business is going to hell. Our approach is perhaps best translated as David versus Goliath: we never put heels in David’s face.’
Beermat solutions for world problems
That a better world starts with yourself is ‘lobbying bullshit’, he thinks. ‘It is ultimately up to those in power. No one has to walk out the door or to this place tonight Angry to look and think: I’m going to change this or that. But with the power that Angry meanwhile, we can offer a vehicle for that change.’
By eleven o’clock the wall next to the bar is full of beermat solutions for the world’s problems. Between ‘Fuck the farmers’, with a heart behind it, ‘repair mineral shortages in the water’, ‘free public transport’ and ‘ban trap algorithms!’ someone wrote down a sober insight: ‘Not everything is possible.’
Her hands were itching from the panel discussion, says Daisy Stoffer (20) from Amersfoort. She recalls the words of activist Asma el Ghalbzouri, who emphasized that activism doesn’t have to be fun: ‘There’s nothing wrong with getting fucking angry.’ For starters, you can speak out for someone close to you who could use support, Stoffer heard. What El Ghalbzouri said afterwards was met with cheers and applause from the audience: ‘Whoever finds that ‘angry’ is not the one you have to fight for at that moment.’
cracks
Angry is currently made by ten employees and two trainees, four more than at the start of the program. In the meantime, they make between 44 and 52 episodes a year, partly financed by the public broadcaster and partly with membership fees from broadcaster BNNVara. There is no shortage of topics and registrations from viewers. ‘Like-minded contemporaries who also want to make cracks in the status quo know where to find us’, says Tim Hofman. ‘I like that we are a safe haven for people who would otherwise not be heard, for example from a marginalized group.’