In various posts on Facebook, the party leader of “Alliance 90/The Greens” is currently being quoted with this suggestion, which is causing tempers to run high on social networks and encouraging the worst kind of hate speech against the politician. However, this sentence was never used in this context. The quote is fake!
The Sharepics
These memes suggest that Ricarda Lang, as the top politician of the Green Party, is proposing to counteract the currently significantly rising food prices by reducing consumption, i.e. eating less. Rising food prices while incomes remain the same represent a devaluation of money or inflation. The fake in this first meme is actually recognizable at first glance, but the comment threads show that many users' media literacy does not enable them to do this, or that they use the opportunity to vent their latent aggression.
The post is presented as a BILD article. A red square with the typical BILD font, but different letters, namely STUPID. A logo imitating the BILD logo, under which satirical content is regularly distributed. Story actually ends. It's about satire.
Below the logo, in typical BILD typography, is the sentence: “Sharply rising food prices”. Both the logo and the headline are slightly blurred. Then the next headline follows in crisp black text: Ricarda Lang on inflation: “Simply reduce portions”.
The accompanying picture shows Ricarda Lang in front of a background that clearly refers to the studio backdrop of Markus Lanz's talk show. Ricarda Lang was actually a guest at Markus Lanz on February 9th. Her appearance there can be found in the corresponding video from the ZDF media library ( HERE ). Dress and backdrop match the photo. And there are also sentences that are later picked up in the STUPID meme and shared with misleading intent.
Another variant of the fake was shared by an AfD politician from Chemnitz, an ex-journalist by the way, and has already been marked as misinformation by Facebook fact check. The content is therefore only accessible if the user confirms that they are aware that they are trying to view false information. The logo is not used here, so the supposed source cannot be recognized at all. However, a publication date of March 20th, 11:39 a.m. is given here in order to give the whole thing a serious, newsworthy appearance.
What happened?
Research into whether Ricarda Lang has recently commented publicly on the subject of portion sizes and eating less comes to nothing.
There is no evidence to be found that she expressed herself in any way that would support this conclusion. Neither via the search engines nor on other fact-checking portals. Let alone a direct quote, as suggested by the quotation marks. Has Ricarda Lang commented on inflation? Yes, she has. But about inflation not in connection with food prices, but with one of the main green issues, “fossil inflation”. At Lanz she says at around 33:00 minutes:
“Energy prices are currently rising massively. Why is that? Especially due to the skyrocketing prices of gas and coal. That means we are experiencing fossil fuel inflation. The dependence on fossil (energy sources) means that energy prices become expensive.”
(HERE)
In the Greens' language, “fossil inflation” is the increase in the price of fossil energy sources. These sharp price increases are undisputed, as we see every day, and not just at gas stations. There is also a corresponding tweet in which Lang speaks in more detail about the federal government's relief package on February 23rd and also uses the term fossil fuel inflation in the introductory tweet. ( HERE ). The transformation of society away from fossil fuels towards renewable energy suppliers is one of the central issues of the Greens, who have always felt committed to environmental and climate protection. With the Green Economics Minister Robert Habeck, economic issues are becoming even more relevant for the party leader.
Resolution of the fake
Since this sharepic is available in different versions with different photos of Ricarda Lang and sometimes with a satire logo, sometimes without a sender, but always with the similar text, it cannot be determined where the actual fake, the alleged quote from Ricarda Lang, originally came from comes from.
Quite obviously, her comments on the subject of fossil fuel inflation were used as an opportunity to formulate this fake quote about the general rate of price increases, which also manifests itself in food. Taken alone, the story would really end here. Ricarda Lang never said these sentences.
Body shaming motive?
However, another factor comes into play here that makes this fake particularly perfidious and has caused the comment columns to explode. The politician is full. And clearly the unknown authors of the fake found it amusing to make a “joke” with her that focused on the topic of food intake. The comments are overflowing with comments that are absolutely disrespectful and humiliating about Ricarda Lang's body. In the post above, the teaser for the two photos is also captioned with a disdainful remark about Lang's also full accompaniment.
This is clearly body shaming, i.e. derogatory comments about the appearance of others. The young politician has been struggling with this problem ever since she moved more into the public eye following her election as co-chair of the party at the beginning of February ( HERE ).
And it doesn't seem far-fetched that this quote is also aimed at providing a template for hate speech to denigrate Ricarda Lang based on her appearance by misleadingly repurposing the term (fossil) inflation to the current price increases in food prices. The reactions in the comment columns and the widespread use of the sharepic with predominantly derogatory intent clearly indicate this connection.
Conclusion
Memes and sharepics that attribute a quote to the co-chair of Alliance 90/The Greens Ricarda Lang that, in essence, the problem of inflation can be gotten under control by eating smaller portions are wrong. The politician has recently commented on the topic of fossil fuel inflation several times, including with Markus Lanz, where one of the pictures was taken.
However, there is no evidence that she made any comments about smaller portion sizes or suggested eating restrictions as a solution to the food price increases. In view of the furor over the alleged quote, it can be assumed, not only in the comment columns, that body shaming against the politician was deliberately being fueled here. Ricarda Lang was meant to be personally hurt and hurt by derogatory comments about her physical appearance. Because that’s not funny!
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Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )

