Techno Viking is an internet phenomenon or

meme A meme ( ) is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme. A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural i ...

based on a video from the 2000

Fuckparade The Fuckparade is an annual summer technoparade in Berlin. The event began in 1997 as a demonstration against the increasing commercialisation of culture and public life and the misuse of the right of assembly by purely commercial ventures, in p ...

in Berlin, Germany.

Summary

The four-minute video shot by experimental video artist Matthias Fritsch at the

on 8 July 2000Matthias Fritsch
The Technoviking Archive
, Staatliche Hochschule für Gestaltung Karlsruhe. begins with the title "Kneecam No. 1". The camera is on a group of dancing people with a blue-haired woman in front. A man stumbles into the scene grabbing the woman. A bare-chested man (known colloquially as the Techno Viking) wearing a Mjölnir pendant enters the scene while turning to that man. He grabs him by the arms and the camera follows, showing the confrontation. The bare-chested man pushes the guy back in the direction he came. He looks at him sternly and then points his finger at him, ensuring he behaves.In the full video the offender is seen later, sitting on the back of a truck as the camera is turned to the side for a few seconds. Then the camera follows the bare-chested man as the techno parade continues. Another observer comes from the back of the scene offering an inverted bottle of water to him. As the situation calms down, the bare-chested man starts to dance down Rosenthaler Straße () to techno music.

Reception and release

Fritsch uploaded the video to the internet in 2001.Astrid Herbold
"Youtube: 20 Millionen Klicks für den 'Techno-Wikinger'"
, '' Tagesspiegel'' 23 July 2010 This includes an embedded version of the video. Fritsch intended to raise questions of whether the action was real or staged. In 2006 an unknown user re-published it to YouTube, and it went viral in 2007. According to Fritsch, its popularity began on a Central American pornography site.Kevin Morris
German court to decide the future of Technoviking"
, '' The Daily Dot'', 17 January 2013. After being posted on

Break.com Break.com (formerly Big-boys.com) was an entertainment and humor website founded in 1998 that featured comedy videos, flash games, and pictures among other material. The website's target audience was men aged 18–35. After shutting down on No ...

, it peaked on 28 September at more than 1 million views per day and was watched by over 10 million people over 6 months. More than 700 responses and edited versions were posted.Carmela Thiele
"Das Musik-Video Technoviking"
, ''Corso'', DLF Cologne, 5 May 2009, interviewing Matthias Fritsch (mp3) It was the #1 clip on '' Rude Tubes series-three episode ''Drink and Drugs''. Mathew Cullen and Weezer wanted to include Techno Viking in their compilation of Internet memes for the "Pork and Beans" music video but were unable to. Techno Viking was also rendered in oils as part of a series on internet memes. By mid-2010, the video had generated over 20 million hits on YouTube alone; , the original version had more than 16 million views. Fritsch mounted an installation and the online Techno Viking Archive "to research the strategies of participatory practice in digital social networks"Judith Staines with Ghislaine Boddington, Interview with Matthias Fritsch
Excited Atoms: an exploration of virtual mobility in the contemporary performing arts
On the Move April 2010, p. 43 (pdf) and presented lectures on the reception of the video. His ''Music from the Masses'' project was suggested by the Techno Viking experience: it explores web collaboration by providing silent films for artists to provide soundtracks. In response to legal action by the man featured in the video, access to the Techno Viking video itself has been restricted and annotations on YouTube blocked since late 2009.

Identity and lawsuit

Fritsch did not know the man's name at the time of filming. A man who appeared in the 2009 "Bodybuilding" broadcast of the German television show segment '' Raab in Gefahr'' was taken to be Techno Viking in a YouTube upload. In 2008, fans claimed MMA fighter

Keith Jardine Keith Jardine (born October 31, 1975) is an American actor and retired mixed martial artist who most notably competed in the UFC and Strikeforce. Jardine was known for upset victories in bouts he took at short notice against highly rated fight ...

was Techno Viking. The lawyer of the Techno Viking asserts that his client had never been a public figure and that he did not want to become one. The unnamed man's court case against Fritsch concerning infringement of

personality rights Personality rights, sometimes referred to as the right of publicity, are rights for an individual to control the commercial use of their identity, such as name, image, likeness, or other unequivocal identifiers. They are generally considered as ...

opened in Berlin on 17 January 2013. In June, a decision was reached for the plaintiff and Fritsch was ordered to pay the man

€ The euro sign () is the currency sign used for the euro, the official currency of the eurozone and unilaterally adopted by Kosovo and Montenegro. The design was presented to the public by the European Commission on 12 December 1996. It consists o ...

13,000 in damages, almost all he had made from YouTube ads and sales of Techno Viking merchandise, plus €10,000 in court costs, and to cease publication of his image.Leonhard Dobusch
"Interview zum erstinstanzlichen Urteil im Technoviking-Prozess [Update]"
, Netzpolitik.org, 20 June 2013, retrieved 1 July 2013 Olivia Solon
"Filmmaker gagged by the Technoviking, bankrupted by legal bills"
, '' Wired'', 27 June 2013, retrieved 1 July 2013.Kevin Morris
"Technoviking prevails in court, still can't erase Internet fame"
, ''Daily Dot'', 26 June 2013.

Documentary film

Fritsch raised money with a

crowdfunding Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising money from a large number of people, typically via the internet. Crowdfunding is a form of crowdsourcing and alternative finance. In 2015, over was raised worldwide by crow ...

campaign to make a documentary film about the case, ''The Story of Technoviking'', which was released in 2015.Attila Nagy
"Here is the Crowdfunded Film about Technoviking, One of the most Popular Memes"
, ''

Gizmodo ''Gizmodo'' ( ) is a design, technology, science and science fiction website. It was originally launched as part of the Gawker Media network run by Nick Denton, and runs on the Kinja platform. ''Gizmodo'' also includes the subsite ''io9'', whic ...

'', 20 October 2015, retrieved 23 October 2015.

Notes

References

External links

* Mikkael Kinanen
Matthias Fritsch: "Kneecam No. 1 (aka Technoviking)"
Inter-Cool 3.0.
Shinya Yamaoka making a statuette of Techno Viking
(YouTube slideshow)
Technoviking.tv
collection of fan responses and links * {{IMDb title, tt4082608, The Story of Technoviking Internet memes introduced in 2001 Viral videos 2006 YouTube videos Films set in Berlin Unidentified people German male dancers Internet memes