Process
Status Items Highlights Done See section below Claims None Questions None Output None
Highlights
Time 0:16:42
Pneumatic Tube Flirting
- In 1920s Berlin clubs like Femina and Rezi, patrons could flirt via pneumatic tubes and table telephones.
- Patrons could send messages to others across the club in a low-stakes way.
- The tubes were stylized to look like golden snakes, adding to the allure.
- Some clubs even had switchboards that allowed patrons to send gifts to each other, much like streaming gifts on Twitch today.
- Femina was particularly large and tourist-friendly, with instructions in both German and English.
- Switchboard operators censored obscene messages. Transcript: Rachel Feltman You’re truly seated for a show. It’s not like a get up and mosh club. And everyone’s table has a glowing light above it with a number and you have phones and pneumatic tubes. Instead of talking to them in person, you send a message. But you might get things going while you’re sitting at your respective tables. Just like send a cheeky little hello. And then, you know, you can also that can also be the whole activity. You can just sort of be flirting with each other in a very low stakes way from across the club all night if that’s what you want. But then, of course, the evening can go wherever you want it to. So it’s texting. Yes, it is texting. It’s tube texting. It’s tube texting. I like that. And it’s also sort of like air dropping because you can tube text with a stranger just because you see them across the way. The tubes were stylized to look like golden snakes. So you like put your message in a snake mouth. It’s like very sexy stuff, honestly. And yeah, the phones at tables were a big thing. You actually, I didn’t realize this, but in Cabaret, there’s the telephone song that like has people communicating over telephone. And I’m very familiar with Cabaret. Like I did tech for a production my dad was in when I was a kid. And it never occurred to me like, oh, why are there phones at their tables? Why is this? I, you know, it didn’t occur to me that that they were referencing a real popular thing that happened in these, in these Weimar clubs. Kate Downey To be fair, there’s a lot in that musical that you should ask questions about. And then you go, okay, fine. Rachel Feltman Yeah. Yeah. You could even apparently ask the switchboard, you could, you know, write, write something down and put it in the tube and the switchboard could send another patron a gift from a list Of available options. So you could really like on Twitch. Yeah, yeah, totally. It’s like streaming gifts. Yeah. What is that called? Laura Bises But I know what you mean. That’s so much nicer than where my brain went. My brain went right to the Hunger Games and like airdropping. Really? No. But yeah, that sounds more. That sounds a lot nicer. Never mind. Yeah. Rachel Feltman Well, Femina was twice as big and had more than 225 table telephones with instructions in German and English. So it was very, very tourist expat friendly. Though apparently one note that I found really funny, Rezi at least did have women working in the switchboard room who would censor anything too obscene. I wasn’t able to find a primary