Award
First Grimme Online Award for Tiktok Videos
The laudators Schlecky Silberstein (l-r), Nazan Eckes, Riccardo Simonetti, moderator Ninia LaGrande, Markus Barth and Samira El Ouassil at the Grimme Online Awards ceremony. Photo: Rolf Vennenbernd / dpa
The Grimme Online Award has been awarded again. This time, formats that were created in the Corona lockdown are also included.
For the first time, a format of the video portal Tiktok has been awarded the Grimme Online Award.
Moderator Niklas Kolorz, who presents bulky knowledge topics in one-minute videos in the network, awarded two prizes at the award ceremony on Thursday in Cologne: a jury prize in the category “Knowledge and Education” and the audience Prize.
He reported that the idea had come to him in the second Corona lockdown. “I just wanted to create some kind of creative balance.”This has had an incredible response:” After eight days I had the first viral video with 800, 000 views, and from then on the channel has exploded, this is insane.»
Tiktok belongs to the Chinese group Bytedance and became the first global online platform in the hands of a non-American group. It is especially popular among young users. The award makes it clear that the perception of Tiktok has changed in the meantime.
In the category” Culture and Entertainment”, a particularly creative response to the contact restrictions of the corona pandemic was awarded. Björn Lengwenus, head of a school in Hamburg-Dulsberg, went on air for six weeks during the school closures with the nightly Youtube show “Dulsberg Late Night”. From the empty auditorium of the school, he switched on students, sometimes performed a dance, slipped into an Easter bunny costume and strengthened the cohesion in the lockdown.
Lengwenus had already received the Golden Camera for his initiative. Now he also received the Grimme Online Award in the category”Culture and Entertainment”. Entertainer qualities would definitely benefit teachers, Lengwenus said at the award ceremony, added from Hamburg. “The students made such wonderful contributions, “he enthused,” they actually carried me through the show.”He had the feeling that the Corona period had greatly strengthened the school. “It is very important that we get a different view of schools. Because schools simply have to be good places.»
Comedian Enissa Amani won a prize in the category” Special “for her format”The best instance”. The talk show was a reaction to an edition of the WDR talk “Die letzte Instanz”, in which, among other things, the question ” The end of Gypsy sauce: Is this a necessary step?”had been discussed and there had been a lot of criticism. Among other things, it was alleged that the discussion had been conducted exclusively by white guests.
Amani then very quickly initiated her own talk panel on her Youtube channel. In the opinion of the jury, this shows the “democratizing potential of the Internet”. Amani said she took the experience with her: “If the idea is right, you can also implement things without becoming dependent.»
One focus of this year’s winners are offers dealing with right – wing violence – such as the podcast “190220-Ein Jahr nach Hanau” and the web documentary “Gegen uns”, which brings victims of racism and right-wing violence out of anonymity. “#StolenMemory”, on the other hand, tells the life stories of Holocaust victims on the basis of personal legacies, which are stored in the Arolsen Archives in Bad Arolsen in Hesse. The archive tries to locate descendants of the previous owners in order to return the memorabilia to them.
In particular, the explanatory pieces of “Dekoder Specials”, which give insights into Russian culture, politics and society, were awarded for their outstanding design. Johannes Kram received another award for his podcast “Queerkram”.
The undoped Grimme Online Award is the most important German award for outstanding online journalism and has been awarded since 2001.
