The Good Column: Show me your tickets – just do it!

Remember what subway stations in divided Berlin (and even years after the so-called reunification) used to look like. They were dark places of desolation. Bare transit zones, created only for the bare purpose they had to serve: to be temporary storage space for the people who had to be transported from here to there. Bare tiled walls, semi-dark platforms, dirty trash cans illuminated by bright neon lights: a sadness that was palpable. The passenger didn’t even have the choice between dirt and boredom: there was an abundance of both.

The idea of ​​the beauty and happiness of unrestricted consumption and the idea of ​​the hedonism of a life entirely devoted to the consumption of goods had been completely eliminated from this environment. The only thing that could be read – on narrow, small rectangular stickers that were attached above the windows in one or another subway car – and which briefly gave the sad passenger a remnant of memory of the existence of an existence beyond the all-encompassing station gloom, was The poetry of the Berlin Paech bread factory, which is still criminally underestimated today: “Grandpa is complaining terribly / Grandma doesn’t have any Paech bread.” “Ham is no use, sausage and egg, / Are you missing the Paech bread?” “Oh, Dear mom, please, please, / Give me some more slices of Paech bread.”

Beyond that, there was nothing that gave rise to joy. The rest of the entire Berlin public transport cosmos was an area devoid of poetry and purged of all pleasure, from which every tiny trace of joie de vivre and bumfallera had been erased.

Until recently, a resourceful sporting goods company had the idea of ​​taking over an entire Kreuzberg subway station and transforming it into a gigantic, contemporary fun space. Not only are all the billboards covered with photos of young people smiling happily and enthusiastically doing sports, the pillars, platform and stairs are also completely decorated with colorful advertising. Fresh, dear BVG! “Run Your Way” and “Always On The Run” are the meaningful advertising slogans that ask us, those waiting, not to stand around in a bad mood and doing nothing for the rest of our lives. And the slogan fits perfectly: Never linger, always keep moving, that is the motto of the modern metropolitan person. Continuous activity must never come to a standstill. Run Your Way! What is now derogatorily called the “rat race” is actually a contemporary variant of self-optimization: being faster, tougher and more trained than all the losers in competition.

»Good afternoon, dear passengers. This ticket inspection is brought to you by Adidas. Impossible is nothing.” Or: “Please show your ticket. Just do it. Nike.”

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But why not go the decisive step further? There is still room for improvement! The free market economy is making seven-league progress. Modern product information should not be left to the faint-hearted and discouraged. Whoever dares wins: subway stations don’t just consist of walls with advertising posters on them, and they don’t just consist of pillars, stairs and platforms. You could also cover the benches in the wagons as well as the floors and windows with company advertising banners. I can already see the slogan in front of me: “Don’t sit, get fit.”

There are also no large screens on the walls and ceilings of the wagons, on which commercials from the sporting goods manufacturer are shown around the clock, in which you can see how tireless, optimistic, future-oriented people jog to their heart’s content and get fit with dumbbell training the market. Images that will certainly not fail to have a highly motivating and activating effect on the sullenly staring passengers.

I’m not sure that in a better future all train stations shouldn’t look like the one described here.

One thing is certain: there are endless possibilities to make the public transport experience even more intense. For example, all employees of the transport company could be integrated into this wonderful advertising paradise by giving them a new work uniform in the form of yellow tracksuits on which – significantly larger than the BVG company logo, of course – the logo of the advertising company is emblazoned: “Puma . Forever Faster.”

The inspectors’ wages could also be saved, and there would be sponsors for this in the future. However, the address to the passenger needs to be slightly modernized: “Good afternoon, dear passengers. This ticket inspection is brought to you by Adidas. Impossible is nothing.” Or: “Please show your ticket. Just do it. Nike.”

However, it would be best if passengers had a chip from the advertising company implanted in their brains when they purchased their BVG annual ticket. Yes, that would be the best. Because we love you.