Sometimes you are betrayed by your own reflection. You see a stranger in a mirror or shop window and think: is that me? And if you can’t get away from the fact that the answer is ‘yes’, the painful process of adjusting your self-image follows. Apparently you are a person who walks down the street with a frown. Or wake up with bags under your eyes. Or maybe you don’t look as good in leggings as you always thought. Just try to process that.
On Thursday I had the media equivalent of that experience when I passed by in the evening The Orange Winter (Talpa) zapped. The program had just started: folk singer Jesse Prins sang the last notes of his single ‘Thuis hier op hetplein’, Hélène Hendriks welcomed her guests. Then she turned to Fidan Ekiz. “You’re not going to be giggling all evening, are you?” Ekiz immediately understood what her hostess wanted to work towards. “I know what you mean.” “And also focus on the gut?” Hendriks asked. A newspaper headline appeared on the screen. “This was a column in NRC”said Hendriks, and she read it neatly to him: “’News of the Day’ is belly television with a lot of giggling.” The author’s head was pasted next to that text. Is that me?, I thought. And I couldn’t help but think the answer was yes.
A very short conversation about giggling unfolded at the talk show table. Was Ekiz going to do that less now? After all, she had been a guest on Monday on the first episode of Talpa’s new current affairs program News of the Daywhat that column was about, and then she had indeed giggled. But no, Ekiz replied, it certainly didn’t make her giggle any less. In fact, we should all laugh a little more. Then her neighbor Hans Kraay Jr. received a text from his wife who thought he looked very nice tonight and it was already time for the next item, while I was still busy adjusting my self-image. Suddenly I turned out to be the head of the giggling police – something I had never sought after myself. In the photo I was also smiling broadly, as if I had the exclusive right to giggle. Big Giechel is watching you. Unbelievable.
But the worst is yet to come: I think at News of the Day an anti-giggling wind has actually started blowing. To minimize the risk of fun, the first item on Thursday was about Elon Musk’s preference for Alice Weidel (leader of the German radical right party AfD) and was a permanently angry columnist from The Telegraph invited, who interrupted Raymond Mens’ analysis with a meandering monologue about MAGA, revolutions and mainstream media. When he unexpectedly ended up at “Pakistani Muslimrape gangsas they are called,” presenter Art Rooijakkers thought it was nice. They were broadening the subject “very much,” he protested. “I still want to bring it back to Musk and to Germany.” The other men didn’t want that, so the three of them shouted things together for a while, like: “One moment! One moment!” And: “We are here to help you, right?” And: “Yes, but it is not a speech.”
I wondered what Rooijakkers thought when the monologue was resumed a little later. He looked grim. Would his thoughts wander to his time at RTL? The chores he had given up for this new job? He just had too Winter full of Love can present, in which giggling is very appropriate behavior and candidates never use their airtime to talk about alleged rape gangs to discuss. They are far too busy getting to know each other well for that. Of all the love seekers, ski instructor Mike and pedagogical employee Denise have the most in common this season, because they both really, really love lasagna. Although it has been possible since yesterday trouble in paradise: newcomer Lena is also crazy about Italian food.
Maybe Rooijakkers was thinking about that. Maybe not. All I know is that he stopped giggling on Thursday. And I may be the head of the giggling police: I still thought it was awful to see.