“Conni can’t take it anymore”: Carlsen Publishing wants to ban incorrect Conni memes
Conni has long been a thorn in many people's sides. She can always do anything and has such a sweet laugh. Conni is a nerd, good, blonde, and middle-class. For 30 years, she has played the anti -Pippi Longstocking in small-format children's books, who succeeds terribly well at everyday things and pleases everyone. Many children love her for it, but some parents are annoyed.
Now the publisher Carlsen feels compelled to come to the heroine's aid, even legally if necessary. What's happened? Conni is now naughty. Politically open to the point of being quite incorrect. Conni is also being used. From left to right, by cheeky users, some of whom are using artificial intelligence to turn sweet Conni into a bad one. By manually adding new titles to the regular cover images (for children ages three and up).
For example: "Conni plays shooting games all day because her daycare center is understaffed," "Conni is scared of beer," "Conni has her first burnout," and, yes: "Conni wants to know if you want to say that out loud again." Many memes are quite funny, some go too far. Conni goes to beat up Nazis, but also clubs protesters, and becomes a porn actress. The children's heroine goes political: "Conni catches Jens Spahn in the mask deal," "Conni lets Friedrich Merz do the dirty work ." Very funny: "Conni steals from Rewe." You also feel strongly for her: "Conni can't do all this anymore."
The publisher, however, isn't amused. They have now responded with a letter stating: "Since 1992, the Conni books from Carlsen Verlag have accompanied millions of children in their everyday lives, teaching them that even difficult situations can be overcome with empathy, friendship, and solidarity." The meme trend, they say, constitutes "unwitting violations of copyright, trademark, and/or title rights." They distance themselves from "dehumanizing, racist, violent, and pornographic uses of the Conni character and will examine legal action if necessary." At the request of Wirtschaftswoche, they also initiated "legal action."
The memes are being shared on all sorts of social media platforms, some with great success. The Instagram account "Connimeme" just had 280,000 followers, but now it says: "Unfortunately, this page is unavailable." The legal action seems to be starting to take effect. Anyone interested can still check out "connimemes.de." For example, the latest update: "Conni is on her phone all day, creating Conni memes."
Berliner-zeitung
