If you’re not familiar with Berghain, there are two things I will say to you. Firstly – ugh, what a normie. Secondly: it’s a popular and highly secretive nightclub in Berlin, widely known as the world capital for techno and for its extremely restrictive door policy. Unless you fit the profile, you’re not getting in.
The hedonistic clientele of Berghain aren’t particularly keen on attempts to mainstream the club, which is why the community goes to such effort to keep tourists out and keep the club’s internal workings relatively secret. So you can imagine they’re not loving the fact that Conan O’Brien was spotted shooting a segment outside the club.
Famed DJ/producer Black Madonna, a Berghain mainstay, took to Instagram to criticise the segment, saying that Berghain is a deliberately private space. “I don’t need to know what he’s joking about to know that he’s taking millions of people into a space that is private for a good reason.”
She continued in the comments, referring to Berghain’s reputation as a space for transgressive sexual experience and its history in the Berlin gay scene:
I’m not humorless about any subject. But turning a space like this into a comedy spectacle for a largely straight American audience with no context other than the club being private and gay is a problem. It’s private for a reason. Taking your selfie out front is one thing. Conan is a comedian that millions of people watch nightly in a country on the verge of having Donald Trump for a president. That context matters.
Many in the comments are agreeing, but others think that Berghain’s culture of exclusivity deserves to be ripped on. User reubentaskar went in on the club’s elitism. “Imagine thinking Berghain was anything but a corny, racist parading as elitist club,” he writes. “People looking for an inclusive and welcoming club environment don’t go to Berghain.”
“[It] deserves all the piss taken out of it.”
Source: Pitchfork.
Photo: Getty Images.
