Angry German Kid

Still of the viral video.

Angry German Kid (also known as Keyboard Crasher, Unreal Tournament Kid, AGK or PC Spielen) is a viral web video from 14 February 2006. The fictionalized persona in the viral video, played by German teenager Norman Kochanowski, tries to play Unreal Tournament on his PC, but faces problems with it, such as the game loading up slowly, which causes him to get enraged and shout, as well as smashing his keyboard in some scenes, with the video ending with Kochanowski furiously slamming the keyboard against his desk before leaving. Business Wire awarded Angry German Kid second place in the top 10 internet videos of the year on 14 February 2006, and in 2007, The Guardian ranked it as number three on its Viral Video Chart.

For a long time, the behaviour demonstrated in the video was widely believed to be genuine, but it was later revealed that the video was staged and part of a series of comedic skits. After the video was prominently featured on German television by production company Focus TV, the video went viral online and was re-uploaded many times. The viral spread of the video resulted in its original context being lost.

Creation and initial reception

Ever since he received a camcorder for his 13th birthday, Kochanowski had been experimenting with it and releasing short films under a variety of aliases, the most popular being "Leopold Slikk", At first the videos were published in forums and video sites or exchanged on CDs. On 14 February 2006, he released a parody of rap music videos with the fictional character "Real Gangster" (German: Echter Gangster). It quickly spread to many platforms, and its success led to sequels featuring the same character. In addition to "Real Gangster", he often calls himself "Slikk" online.

On 14 February 2006, he released "Real Gangster 5: Play PC", in which he acts as a gamer who throws a tantrum because the computer game Unreal Tournament does not load fast enough. He grows furious, yells at the computer and smashes his keyboard. Even after the game loads, he still loses, ultimately destroying the keyboard in a fit of rage.

After its first release on 14 February 2006, the video was soon shared on other sites, including YouTube. The video and its protagonist became known in Germany as Unreal Tournament Kid, in English-speaking countries as Angry German Kid, in Spanish as El Niño Loco Alemán ("The Crazy German Boy"), and in Japanese as Keyboard Crasher (Japanese: キーボードクラッシャー, romanized: Kībōdokurasshā). The video was edited by others, music was added, or other words in other languages were put into the protagonist's mouth. It soon established itself worldwide as an internet phenomenon and spawned a fan made web series called "The Angry German Kid Show".

Misperception and effects on personal life

However, many viewers were not aware that the scene was acted. After the Emsdetten school shooting in November 2006, a discussion broke out in Germany about the dangers of computer games, in which Focus TV distributed the video of the Angry German Kid as an example of how games could make young people aggressive. The video was distributed further, with text commentaries naming the protagonist Leopold and claiming it was a genuine recording secretly filmed by Leopold's father, and that he was now in a clinic because of his internet addiction. The television report was sharply criticized by the scene media, which pointed out that the protagonist of the video was known for staging it. Nevertheless, he became a symbol of the fear that video games could turn young people into violent criminals. Years later, Focus retracted the article and flagged it from publication.

Due to the increasing distribution, Kochanowski was bullied by classmates. He tried to clarify that the scene was not real, but then deleted all his videos from the internet as far as he could and withdrew. He claims that he eventually went crazy from the relentless bullying, which led to him intimidating classmates, and drunkenly announcing a potential killing spree at his school. This resulted in him being expelled and serving a month in prison.

Later life

In 2015, Kochanowski began producing videos again on YouTube. They concern his fitness training and have no relation to his earlier videos. He was eventually recognized, but did not initially respond to inquiries about his previous videos or Angry German Kid. At the end of 2017, Kochanowski re-entered under the public sphere the new pseudonym Hercules Beatz. Kochanowski, who was 26 years old at the time and has trained for a bodybuilder's physique, published a diss track in which he talks about the events surrounding the publication of the web video 12 years earlier and insults those who bullied him. Since 2018, he has also published his own rap songs.

Today, the video is considered a prime example of web videos in the 2000s, and has been studied in the context of the psychology of computer users.

Documentaries

• Die unglaubliche Geschichte des Angry German Kid
  (Translation: The Incredible Story of the Angry German Kid), YouTube channel of Funk, 27 May 2020, runtime: 9:50 min)
• Zapp (magazine): Ausgerastet und abgestürzt: Der Fall des Angry German Kid
  (Translation: Freaked out and crashed: The case of the Angry German Kid), YouTube channel of NDR, 1 February 2023 (runtime: 23 min.)

External links

• Entry at Know your Meme (English)
• Original Video (archive.org)