A television award winner who shouldn’t be on television: Thilo Mischke when he appeared in 2023 for his Afghanistan report “Abandoned and Forgotten?” Afghanistan in the Grip of the Taliban« received the German Television Prize
Photo: dpa
The satirist and author Sebastian Hotz, aka El Hotzo, is considered one of the most important left-wing voices on the Internet. With his special Millennial humor, he shoots caustically against the patriarchy, the boomer generation or Elon Musk on to freak out in the queue at the drinks market checkout on a completely random day.« His socially critical, astute tweets now reach an audience of millions on Instagram – and El Hotzo is also in demand outside of the Internet Personality: In addition to his bestselling debut novel “Mindset,” he has recently also been writing gags for Jan Böhmermann’s “ZDF Magazin Royale.”
El Hotzo is celebrated as “one of the good guys” because he fights against social injustice and rails against landlords, the upper class and the CDU. Jokes about toxic men are always on the agenda, but never jokes about women or minorities. The politically correct internet clown perfectly captures the millennials’ contemporary sense of justice: never step down, but always step up.
Recently, however, his posts have taken on an increasingly radical, almost left-wing populist tone, characterized by polarizing black and white contrasts: For example, he spat “Fuck you” at comedian Luke Mockridge, who was accused of sexual assault, on the street – and after the failed Trump assassination attempt, he wrote, among other things: “I think it’s absolutely fantastic when fascists die.” The RBB then terminated the cooperation.
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Shortly before Christmas, Hotz published a statement in which he admitted that he had manipulated, cheated on, and psychologically abused his ex-partners for years and systematically exploited his position as a “woker” media person. In a post he apologized and said he wanted to answer for his actions – and signed himself “Sebastian.”
The confession is a slap in the face for his bubble. It turns out: El Hotzo is no better than the others.
It is a problematic phenomenon that men who engage in public feminist activism often receive uncritical admiration, while women are ridiculed or ignored for doing so. Left-wing men in particular are often celebrated and morally elevated for having a minimum of feminist stance, which makes it all the more difficult to expose their internalized misogyny.
These men wear their supposed reflectiveness like a badge – an intellectual accessory that gives them recognition and belonging. They fight against the patriarchy with a raised fist, talk about love as equals, quote feminist theories and paint their fingernails. Often, all of this ends as soon as they deal with real partners. They idealize women in theory, but they fail in reality. And much more: the hypocrisy and double standards of these men are ultimately perhaps even more difficult to break through than outright discrimination.
The El Hotzo case is currently not the only case in which powerful media men are being criticized for their sexism. The fact that Thilo Mischke is to moderate the well-known cultural program “Titles, Theses, Temperaments” on ARD from February 2025 has triggered a large wave of protest. The journalist, who once worked for “Vice” and Pro Sieben, was criticized, among other things, for his misogynistic and racist positions in his 2010 novel “Around the World in 80 Women.” In addition, Mischke has repeatedly attracted attention in the past through provocative statements. For example, he claimed in a podcast that Homo sapiens only survived because, unlike Neanderthals, they raped women. Now over 100 cultural workers have signed an open letter in which, among other things, they accuse the author of having insufficiently distanced himself from his work and previous views.
Even though both El Hotzo and Mischke were equally exposed to a shitstorm, Mischke – in contrast to El Hotzo – has not yet commented on the allegations. Instead, the ARD emphasized that Mischke had dealt with his past “intensively and self-critically”. El Hotzo posted his own apology, an apology par excellence, without relativization or dismissal of blame, but with full willingness to accept responsibility. “I am an adult and am responsible for my own actions,” he writes, and: “I would like to apologize from the bottom of my heart to all the people I have hurt.” His followers still accuse him of an unbelievable performance. Because it’s really tricky: How can you believe someone who understands patriarchy and oppression so well, who has the “mindset” to understand it, and yet now lies and cheats? It’s hard to believe that El Hotzo himself is one of the toxic men he always rails against.
It may be that our expectations of such role models cannot even be met. And where one relies on absolute virtue, double standards are unavoidable. Given the magnitude of the case, an apology may not work at all.
So we should finally stop elevating individual people morally and accept the realization that in patriarchy no one is free from sexist behavior and prejudices, as these are deeply anchored in the system.
The cases of El Hotzo and Mischke show how fragile the image of moral integrity can be in public discourse – especially among those who supposedly stand for good. In the Mischke case, one has to say that people like him should no longer have any place in positions of power, distancing themselves or not. But these cases also raise the fundamental question: How do we deal with mistakes and apologies – and how do we ensure that the structures that promote sexism and abuse of power are not covered up by symbolic gestures?
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