The year 2000 stands for a time we now look back on with a peculiar warmth. There was a sense of peace, the economy was booming, the internet was opening up—and for a brief moment it seemed as if technology would make society more democratic and more connected.

With a reenactment of the first season of Big Brother, BOYS* IN SYNC opens a time portal to Germany in the year 2000. It’s the show with Zlatko and Jürgen! The show that promised to democratize television. The show that became a massive success. But while the male contestants were celebrated, hostility was directed primarily at the young women in the container. The term “haters” did not yet exist, but every evening hundreds of Germans gathered outside the container in Cologne - cheering for their favorites, booing others, even hurling threats. In chanting crowds, headlines, and early online debates, a country reveals itself - its longings, its resentments, its ideas of community. 

After watching all 116 episodes of the first German Big Brother season, BOYS* IN SYNC reconstruct its 100 days on stage. Using neither props nor a set, they uncover a forgotten story that raises a strikingly contemporary question: When did collective excitement turn into collective outrage?

Are you aware that about 85 percent of all Germans know you now?
Even the BILD newspaper wrote about you. It says it was hell with you in the house, that you had a nervous breakdown.
Did you have a nervous breakdown, Manu? Was that the case?

Percy Hoven, Episode 61