Yannick Frickenschmidt, better known as Rezo, is a German YouTuber, vlogger and influencer who in 2019 ignited a fiery political debate with his video "Die Zerstörung der CDU". In it, he heavily critized the then ruling grand coalition in Germany, especially the coalition leading party CDU. The video is thought to have significantly influenced the results of the 2019 European Parliament election in Germany. He publishes on his two YouTube channels and is managed by ALL IN - Artist Management. He previously belonged to the Influencer network Tube One, which is marketed by Ströer Digital.
Life
Rezo grew up in a pastor's family. He names Aachen as his place of residence. According to his own information, he studied computer science at the Technical University of Dortmund and graduated in 2016 with a Master of Science. From the age of 14 until one and a half years before his Master's degree, he played in various bands. He plays the guitar. A distinguishing feature is his blue-colored hair.
Internet presence
On 18 May 2019, a week before the 2019 European Parliament election, Rezo published under his second YouTube channelRezo ja lol ey a video named "Die Zerstörung der CDU", which means literally "The destruction of the CDU", in which he said that essential political positions, especially of the parties CDU/CSU and SPD, are destroying "our lives and our future". The 55-minute video, with a list of 247 references and citations of scientific literature, accused the governing conservative alliance for a range of unsustainable policies such as inactivity in politics of global warming, making politics for the rich, war and internet censorship. He explicitly warned against voting for the right-wing populistAfD, as they would "only make the world worse". Towards the end, he stated: "You always say that young people should be political, in which case you have to get to grips with it when they think your politics are shit". His video went viral, received more than 13 million views within the first eleven days and triggered a broad social debate. On 24 May 2019, two days ahead of the vote, Rezo was joined in a three-minute followup video entitled A Statement of 90+ Youtubers by more than 90 known vloggers in which the statements of the first video were supported. They asked voters not to back Angela Merkel's bloc or the SPD, because of their politics of global warming. After the election the leader of the CDU Merkel's successor Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer announced she wanted to "regulate" political opinion in election campaigns. She was met with a wide political backlash. Bundestag Vice PresidentClaudia Roth stated: "For years, the Union has said that populist-right-wing discourse shifting, sometimes even national-right-wing agitation should not be approached too hard." As soon as a vlogger expressed himself critically, " fabulates about the restriction of freedom of expression in the election campaign, one can only hope that it is rooted in helplessness and not in political conviction." Despite the backlash, Kramp-Karrenbauer put the item "asymmetrical campaigning" on the agenda for a meeting of her party leadership on 2 July 2019. After the Halle synagogue shooting in 2019, Rezo took to Twitter to criticise German interior minister Horst Seehofer for suggesting increased surveillance of the country's gaming community. Rezo accused Seehofer and the CSU of incompetent leadership. In 2019, Rezo won a Goldene Kamera Digital Award as a special jury prize.
