Overview

• Fjodor Busik, 23, is touring towns across Thuringia to film 'Tuff im Osten' clips after seeing West German users employ the trend to mock the region.
• He has posted roughly 80 videos and grown his @fydoz.tts account to about 20,000 followers, with a Bad Frankenhausen clip drawing around 260,000 views, and 'tuff' is nominated in Langenscheidt’s youth-word voting.
• Using consistent visuals such as station backdrops, a black puffer jacket and a golden waving cat, he aims to visit every town in Thuringia before expanding to Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Brandenburg to build a community without party ties.
• Socialization scholar Nina Kolleck says the viral aesthetic foregrounds Plattenbauten, run-down stairwells, old cars and strong dialects, reinforcing a narrative of deprivation that can be exploited by right-wing actors.
• Comment threads often feature calls to rebuild the Wall, a demand some East German youths now repeat as self-empowerment, and Busik reports receiving hate messages.