Pankstraße Paper Purist Accused of Running Berlin’s First Analog Influencer Ring
Police say 34-year-old Jakob Reimann refused apps, but still found a way to monetize refusal—by photographing it and outsourcing the “unplugged” labor.
Public Order & Petty Enforcement Reporter
WEDDING — On Tuesday at 8:47 a.m., officers from Abschnitt 16 were called to the corner of Pankstraße and Badstraße after a crowd of confused visitors began waving folded street atlases outside a former tailor shop now operating as a “no-Wi‑Fi listening lounge.”
According to police, the confusion traced back to Jakob Reimann, 34, a self-described “analog Berliner” who lives in a refurbished unit at Gerichtstraße 63 and has built a 68,000-follower Instagram account documenting life without apps. The account, @JakobGoesPaper, is updated several times daily.
Investigators allege Reimann’s analog devotion was less a lifestyle than a business model with a firm grip on other people’s time. His followers received hand-addressed “Offline Routes” for €12 each—paper itineraries promising “pre-gentrification Wedding” experiences—delivered in wax-sealed envelopes. The routes directed customers to specific cash-only businesses and informal “heritage stops,” including a Turkish bakery on Prinzenallee and a long-standing cobbler on Müllerstraße’s less photogenic end. Multiple shopkeepers said they were never told they’d be turned into content.
“Suddenly I had Americans photographing my sesame bread like it’s the last scene of a Tarkovsky film,” said Nermin Yilmaz, who runs Yilmaz Backwaren at Prinzenallee 88. “They kept asking where to ‘check in,’ then got offended when I said, ‘with your feet.’”
The alleged scheme, police say, escalated when Reimann began employing “analog assistants” to maintain the illusion. A former assistant, Paula Henke, 27, told The Wedding Times she was paid €9 an hour to queue at copy shops, scuff Reimann’s notebook covers, and “age” his film rolls by carrying them in her bra during August.
“He’d say, ‘Make it look lived-in, but not poor,’” Henke said. “Then he’d post a caption about resisting platforms—on a platform.”
Authorities say the case is unusual because the suspected fraud contains no hacking, only stationery and mounting pressure to be seen as morally pure. “It’s a backdoor arrangement dressed as authenticity,” said police spokesperson Sven Laska. “We are examining whether consumers were misled by staged analog documentation.”
Reimann denied wrongdoing in a statement delivered by hand to this newsroom at 6:12 p.m. “I do not use apps,” it read, “I use principles.” He declined to explain why his statement included a link-in-bio.
Local sociologist Dr. Mareike Sohn of a nearby private institute called the phenomenon “a Benjaminian aura hustle,” noting that in Wedding, even refusing modernity is now a subscription tier. “People want the feeling of hardship,” she said, “but only if it’s printed on thick paper.”