Term “Talahon”: Is it suitable as a youth word? | NDR.de – Culture

by Alexandra Friedrich

Hassan is said to have laid the foundation for the “career” of the term “Talahon”. Around two years ago, the rapper released the song “Ta3al Lahon”.

“Ta3al lahon, I’ll give you a poke, I’m the patron
Ta3al lahon, you make Marjalle, you say to me: ‘Pardon'”
Song quote from “Ta3al Lahon”

“Ta3al lahon” means “come here” and is a threat. Come here if you dare. In the video, he and a few masked guys pose with guns and joints between prefab buildings. It’s a play on gangsta rap clichés. Hassan emphasizes that it’s just “performing art.”

“Performing arts” and playing with clichés

What has been happening on TikTok for months under the hashtag “Talahon” could also be called “performing arts”: Young city dwellers pose in macho gangster poses, film themselves shadowboxing each other or doing push-ups in front of the main train station in Bremen, at Jungfernstieg in Hamburg or in the subway station in Hanover.

The whole thing is usually completely exaggerated and self-ironic. The protagonists: young people who are often perceived as migrants with neatly shaved side parts. The costume: Gucci cap, skinny jeans and Louis Vuitton fanny pack. The soundtrack: Hassan’s song “Ta3al Lahon”.

Media reduces to sexism trend of people with migration background

Newspapers like Bild call it a “disgusting TikTok trend”. Bild writes: “They are 14 to 25 years old, most of them migrants, often with German passports – and they have a worldview from the Middle Ages. They are the ‘Talahons’! Misogynistic, sexist, patriarchal and glorifying violence.” From individual quotes from young self-proclaimed Talahons, who, for example, think that their dream woman belongs in the kitchen, “a frightening insight into the young migrant milieus” is constructed.

Jutta Brennauer has taken a closer look at the reporting on the phenomenon for the organization “Neue Deutsche Medienmacher*innen”: “We took a closer look at these quotes and noticed that they always come from the same two or three videos. The vast majority of videos under the hashtag ‘Talahon’ on TikTok were videos in which young people perceived as migrants simply performed and shadowboxed to the song ‘Talahon’ by rapper Hassan,” explains Brennauer.

“The song glorifies violence – that’s for sure. But many media outlets are now reducing all of these videos to a pure sexism trend – a sexism trend among Muslim women and people with a migration background – instead of addressing sexism as a problem affecting society as a whole.”

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Self-staging as a reaction to social injustices?

Carsten Heinze, a youth and media sociologist from Hamburg, also advocates a more differentiated perspective: “These staging strategies that I saw among the so-called Talahons are something that can also be found among the so-called ethnic Germans. I think we need to talk much more about the social problems that we are facing. It is also quite normal for young people and youth cultures to react to these problems and to position themselves in whatever way or to develop ways of reacting to them.

The positive use of certain characteristics of young people as a demarcation against a society that is no longer open and positive about migration, but also has critical, discriminatory and racist discourses, is well known. This can be traced back further into the past.

Self-designation or label from outside?

The self-portrayal as Talahon: a response to social injustices, social exclusion and stigmatization? What came first, the self-designation or the external label to which the young people react, is a controversial issue. What is clear is that even last year, before the big Talahon TikTok hype died down, derogatory content about “Talahons” was published, for example on the Twitch platform.

Devaluing young people who perceive themselves as Arabic and Muslim and their clothing style with this racist and classist term: That is what this was about, explains Jutta Brennauer from the New German Media Makers. “That means the origin is a racist foreign term that then trended on TikTok.”

Media, creatives and the New Right are jumping on the phenomenon

The song “Verknallt in einen Talahon” follows the same line. It was the first AI-generated song to make it into the German singles charts a few weeks ago. Artificial intelligence is only responsible for the instrumental and vocal parts; the lyrics were written by Josua Waghubinger, also known as Butterbro, who, he says, wanted to denounce misogynistic behavior, but reproduced racist and classist stereotypes:

“I think I have a crush on a Talahon
With Louis belt, Gucci cap and Air Max shoes
He does shadowboxing and is the coolest of his bros
And the knife in your pocket is definitely not just for your sandwiches.
Song quote from “Crush on a Talahon”

It is not just the media and creatives who are jumping on the Talahon phenomenon. The New Right is delighted with a new battle cry, a new enemy image with which it wants to underpin its own ideology. Right-wing conservative channels are calling for all Talahons to be deported, right-wing extremist influencers are supplementing Sylt’s “Foreigners out” videos with Hassan’s Talahon song, and the AfD is calling on people on social media to vote for “Talahon” as the youth word of the year. The word is in the top 10 candidates for youth word of the year.

“Talahon”: Not a suitable word for young people

The word should be removed from this selection, says Silke Müller. She is Lower Saxony’s first digital writer, writes book commissioners about the effects of social networks and is a school principal in Lower Saxony. They experienced the Talahon hype both online and in the schoolyard: “In my opinion, it is absolutely not a suitable word for young people. It would be a fatal signal if we gave people the opportunity to vote on it, because it is simply an honest, humiliating and democratic term.” Could be. I don’t want to overstate this, but I think it would be fatal to make it a word for young people and thereby give it even more social acceptability.

Jutta Brennauer is of the same opinion. She knows about the power of language: “The words we choose to describe people also have real consequences.” The nomination and potential choice as a youth word leads to a narrative that is spread about the dangerous Muslim man. “We know that such right-wing extremist narratives can ultimately lead to real violence,” says Brennauer.

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