Frankly … social  Summer 2023, a final observation

Summer holiday time is drawing to a close. Maximilian Buddenbohm has detected a shift in conversations about holidays.

The general holiday season is gradually coming to an end – which for many people means that the year is broken up into two parts, the time before and after the summer holidays. First of all you spend quite a while, far too long as a rule, longing for the big trip, then afterwards you get on with the rest of the year, and that presumably accounts for the majority. You unpack your suitcases again after the holidays, return to work often with only moderate enthusiasm, and you think: “Okay. Now I’ve only got to stick it out until Christmas.” That’s approximately how it is for many people, it’s human nature to think and plan in big blocks like that. So that means we’ve put the first part of the year behind us now, with a counting method that has nothing to do with months and numbers, and we are able to take a quick look back and ask ourselves what we think of 2023 as a year so far, having added summer into the mix. Does it have a particular character, has it taken on a certain timbre, what kind of a year has it been?

A shift

There is indeed a change, a shift, that I’ve noticed in the past few weeks. It’s small, tiny almost, and unfortunately it’s almost impossible to translate from German, I fear. But with hindsight I suppose we will find it very appropriate for this year, and maybe later we will be able to say: “That’s right, that’s how it all started, and it was this year.”

What this is about is a tiny addition of two letters to our small talk. I’ve now heard this tag so often that I believe it to be universally applicable, even though I’m aware of the problems with unrepresentative sampling based on our experience. The thing is, in the past – and this “past” refers precisely to 2022 – it was completely normal for people on returning from holiday to ask each other: “So how was the weather?” This harmless question then reliably ensured at least ten minutes of further harmless small talk about holiday destinations and meteorological conditions. There was always a story to tell about the weather, one that might or might not reflect the postcards and travel guides, that was somehow either a success story or a hard luck tale – and the best-case scenario would be that it was entirely as expected, as though it had been booked and ordered. A plausibly harmless theme, it was.

Wetter and Unwetter

However this year we’ve traded this question in for a different one, a question that – though similarly suitable for small talk – does have a different tone, is not quite as harmless, and adds just two letters to the German word “Wetter” to make a specific reference to our present reality: “So how was the severe weather?” (in German: Unwetter) The fact is, severe weather featured in almost all the usual holiday destinations this summer in one way or another, whether we’re talking about heatwaves, storms, heavy rainfall, flooding, hail, forest fires or mudslides, or whatever – there was a plentiful selection of all varieties.

Tagging on these two little letters describes summer 2023 incredibly well, I think. And if things carry on like this, then the question will still be just as appropriate for people who go on holiday again in autumn. Maybe it will continue to be, for the unforeseeable future.

You could write pages and pages about climate change and its effects on everyday life, about methods of attribution research, about temperature and precipitation statistics et cetera, or you could simply take note of this shift, there’s plenty of material to work with. Of course we could add – as if we needed more evidence! – that this domination of headlines in the global media by severe weather of all types to such an extent for weeks on end has probably never happened before, and that there have never before been so many diverse severe weather warnings during the summer months on my smartphone (and presumably on yours as well). But actually we don’t need to wonder any longer or carry out extensive research. This humble little small talk question, for me this is the most profound description of 2023.

A further escalation

I went to Italy for my summer holiday, there were several severe weather events on the journey there and right there in the resort as well – some of which were spectacular. Then afterwards, when I returned home, went into the office and met up with friends, obviously some people knew that I had been there at around the same time that these holiday destinations had been on the evening news with images of devastation and lengthy reports. Because of this, I frequently found myself fielding another question similar to the one described above, but which was maybe a further escalation of the same thing, perhaps it’s a perspective on years to come. You see, some people didn’t stop at asking how the severe weather was.

On the contrary – they asked me with an animated interest: “Did you get caught up in it?”.
 

September 2023