• 1/17/2022
  • Reading time 4 min.

Champion slam poet Marcel Schneuer

“I’d like to be successful, but not famous”

Marcel Schneuer, who is studying Politics & Technology at TUM, is the Thuringia state poetry slam champion. How much time should he put into his hobby? Is there a job where he can combine both worlds – poetry slams and politics?

Poetry slammer Marcel Schneuer Gabriela Neeb
„Ampeldiskussionen“ oder „Teilwarmmietenmodell“: TUM student Marcel Schneuer develops a Twitter bot for terms from Bundestag debates.

Marcel – born “somewhere between Hamburg and Lower Saxony” – has been taking the stage in poetry slams for five years. It started when he interviewed a slam poet for a Hamburg radio station and thought this art form “might be worth a try”. Before long he was facing a live audience. His first performance was “just ok”, he recalls. He had a serious case of stage fright and “only about one line in five landed”. Two years later he was on tour. Since then he has competed in championships and even appeared on television.

Can he imagine a career on stage? After a moment’s hesitation: "I'm not the type to completely rule anything out” – but: “not without a solid backup plan”. A career in the arts could be fulfilling, but “a lot of things could go wrong, too”. After years of hard work, you might “just about succeed” and then watch as “16-year-old ‘influencers’ leave you behind”.

Future in internet policy

Marcel can sooner see himself working in internet policy. After studying political science and informatics in Jena, he is now working on his master’s degree in Munich. In his three semesters at TUM, he has seen the university from the inside just once. So he really hasn’t made a lot of friends outside the apartment he shares. “I wouldn’t like to be an 18-year-old freshman right now,” he says. But even at 26 the current situation is obviously not much fun.

When he took part in the Munich city poetry slam championship at the end of November, the state of Bavaria had again tightened its pandemic restrictions. Performing in a venue where only 25% of the seats are filled is of course “an entirely different feeling”. But it was still a great night because everyone sensed that it might be the final live show of the year.

Poetry slammer Marcel Schneuer Gabriela Neeb
Poetry slammer Marcel Schneuer at the Munich City Championship at the end of 2021 at the Volkstheater.

The Munich slam scene got together one last time. “It’s not a big scene and everyone knows everyone else.” Although Marcel is in what he calls the “comfortable position” of not having to live on what he earns on stage, “it’s painful on an artistic level” not to be performing. “At a poetry slam, it’s all about the audience response,” says Marcel. “The poems aren’t just there to read.”

He’s also learned a lot from his hobby: With time, you start “putting yourself across” to the audience more and more. At some point he began wondering how others see him. “When I was first performing on stage, my self-image often collided hard with reality. What people find funny – including body language – is something you learn over time. And you also get to know yourself.”

Twitter bot and other text forms

What is he hoping to do in the next few years? For now he wants to graduate and then see what happens with various small projects and plans. At the moment he is developing a Twitter bot, for example. The account @BT_First_Said sends out a tweet whenever a word is used for the first time in a debate in the German Bundestag. A recent example: Teilwarmmietenmodell − a compound word meaning "tenancy model with a portion of heating costs included in the rent."

In a few years he can imagine trying out other text forms and perhaps writing a play or an entire novel. The idea of exploring a theme over that number of pages – this “entirely different type of storytelling” – intrigues him. But he admits that he would need “the necessary discipline”. One thing he struggles with: how to find the right balance between his art and a future career. He knows that he “has to find a job that doesn’t take up his whole life” and will leave him the freedom he needs for his artistic pursuits.

Further information and links
  • Marcel Schneuer graduated from high school in Seevetal/Lower Saxony and then did his bachelor's degree in political science at Friedrich Schiller University in Jena.
  • He wrote his Bachelor's thesis on "Threat Politics and Cyber Dangers - A Framing Analysis".
  • Since 2020, he has been studying Politics & Technology at the TUM School of Governance.
  • Website Marcel Schneuer

Technical University of Munich

Corporate Communications Center

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