“I wrote a novel. It’s called ‘Mindset’ and will be released on April 5, 2023.” Sebastian Hotz, who calls himself El Hotzo on social media, announced his online debut months ago. This post is pinned and pinned to his Twitter and Instagram profiles, it always stays at the top of the timeline, no matter what else El Hotzo publishes. The post now has over 144,000 likes. 1.3 million people have subscribed to El Hotzo on Instagram, and a good half million on Twitter.
Hotz, born in Upper Franconia in 1996, belongs to a new generation of humorists who spread their jokes in the most compact form on the internet, namely the tweet. “Tastes differ, for example some tastes are right and others are wrong,” that would be a typical El Hotzo punch line. He also writes for moderator Jan Böhmermann’s “ZDF Magazin Royale”.
So now Mindset is out. The media attention for the book is huge, Hotz gives interview after interview, he is everywhere. The publisher doesn’t advertise the work with a portrait of the author, but with his profile picture on Instagram and Twitter, he’s wearing sunglasses and a mullet hairstyle.
“Mindset” tells the story of Mirko, a young computer scientist from Gütersloh, who leads an unremarkable and uneventful life. Even after years of employment, he is still called “the new guy” in his company. Mirko wallows in self-loathing. And he’s lonely. Only his somewhat older work colleague Angela takes care of him and tries to somehow support the insecure young man.
Sebastian Hotz, “Mindset”. Novel. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 288 pages, 23 euros.
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Image: dpa
But when Mirko became aware of the seminars of the success coach Maximilian Krach on the Internet, who wants to help men to gain self-confidence and likes to work with analogies of wolves and sheep, Mirko recognizes the opportunity to emancipate himself and change his life. He calls in sick at work to attend Krach’s seminars.
The guru is afraid
Gradually it turns out that the Guru is not so dissimilar to his disciple. Krach is also afraid of being exposed. The Patek Philippe on his wrist is fake. Borrowed his Mercedes. He cannot pay the rent for his conference room in the hotel. Krach turns his seminarians on an imaginary cryptocurrency.
Sebastian Hotz found the material for his first novel on the Internet. “Mindset” revolves around the phenomenon of success coaches: they are mostly trained men who advertise dubious cryptocurrencies on social media or fool their followers into thinking they can make big money quickly and passively or get women around. In “Mindset” the program for this is called “GENESIS EGO by Krach Consulting”.
But this novel is also about the so-called “fragile masculinity”, about men who want nothing to do with toxic masculinity and do not follow the traditional ideals of masculinity. Think of Andrew Tate, the chauvinist influencer who was recently arrested on charges including human trafficking and rape. Shortly before his arrest in Romania, he made fun of climate activist Greta Thunberg and posted photos of his big cars.