Techno Viking is an internet phenomenon based on a video from the 2000 Fuckparade in Berlin, Germany.
The 4-minute video shot by experimental video artist Matthias Fritsch at the Fuckparade on 8 July 2000 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. Techno Viking pushes the guy back in the direction he came. He looks at him sternly and then points his finger at him, telling him to keep walking. That moment captured the most popular meme in the world.
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.
This is what we all know, so what is the true story behind it.
Truth was that Fritsch uploaded the video on YouTube in 2006, where it continued to exist in obscurity for months. Once it passed 4 million views, YouTube started sending Fritsch checks.
Fifteen years later, Fritsche has successfully crowd-funded a campaign to release a complete documentary about the viral rise of the Techno Viking himself so the rest of us can get some insight into what the fuck was actually going on in Germany that day so long ago. This was followed with a lawsuit from the Techno Viking himself. In 2009, the star of the video, whose real identity is still a mystery, hit Fritsch with a legal notice asking him to stop using the video and all derivations of it. Fritsch immediately stopped accepting money from YouTube and original video was deleted shortly after, but then uploaded by numerous users.
Find our more about the story in documentary below.
