You better be prepared, so just to be sure I watched the explanation that Annefleur Schipper gave early in the evening about the new daily talk show that she would present late in the evening on Monday. Looking at the announcement of the program, breathes On the matrix youth. That has to be the case, because the program is intended for NPO3, the youth channel of the NPO. The average age of the NPO3 viewer is twenty years different from that of NPO2, but I should note that the NPO2 age fluctuates around seventy.
Anyway, young “makers, journalists and creatives” in the program. And they talk about music, games, technology, fashion, social media. If it would have been just talking, I wouldn’t have felt tired earlier in the evening Khalid & Sophie need to watch to understand the precise program idea. Presenter Khalid asked On the matrix-presenter Annefleur Schipper whether she wanted to “try” to explain it to him. That’s never a good start when a program first has to be explained, but Schipper had attributes with him. A crompouce, a button with Kees van der Staaij and a kind of shuffleboard with an image of Beyoncé. The idea is that the young makers and creatives will ‘rank’ the topics on a kind of scoreboard. Is a crompouce ‘iconic’, ‘trash’ or both? Is the Christmas video in which former SGP party leader Kees van der Staaij sings, his wife plays the flute and his daughter plays the piano ‘highbrow’ or ‘cringe’? “It’s cringe-worthy,” Khalid translated smoothly. I understood: there would be discussion and assessment.
Half past ten – the starting time of On the matrix – was still far away. A not very young children’s book illustrator and an old(er) writer filled the airtime with flair and ease, and if I had to combs, I would definitely call Charlotte Dematons and Adriaan van Dis iconic, a bit highbrow, but still quite light. Bee Khalid & Sophie illustrator Dematons explained the difference between her book Saint Nicholas from 2007 – which she withdrew from the market due to being dated – and that from 2023. She had 50,000 copies of the last version printed, and they have all already been used up. Black Petes no longer exist for her, and she doesn’t do Soot Pete. “A Pete doesn’t have dirty smudges on his face the morning before breakfast, does he?” Her Pieten have all the colors that are left over when people wash the paint off their faces. Furthermore, Sinterklaas’s household in Spain is organized very “horizontally”. Sinterklaas also packs parcels these days and the head Pete has been given his own room next to the swimming pool, where there is plenty of room for his grand piano.
On talk show Van Roosmalen & Groenteman, also on NPO3 by the way, Adriaan van Dis disagreed with Marcel van Roosmalen on almost everything. About the NS promising to deploy more trains. About the growth in the number of solar panels on roofs. About the pathos of seals – one was found on the highway to Assendelft. Where Van Dis was lyrical or reasonably excited, Van Roosmalen was himself. They agreed on the return of Matthijs van Nieuwkerk on television, which was predicted by Joop van den Ende (81). It was about time, everyone near or over 50 at the table thought it was time.
Sensible things
At half past ten the choice of topics on the youth channel changed drastically. It was about friendship therapyabout bare knuckle fighting, about the female hip-hop wave. Annefleur Schipper is, or should I say, a smooth presenter host. Her four guests were good talkers who said sensible things about phenomena I had never heard of before. Only for three of the four I had no idea who they were. And if I don’t know who or what they are, how should I rate their rating?
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