Three post-modern dance moves, two Snapchat jokes and a large serving of contrarianism – that's the balance sheet for Sascha Lobo's talk on Day 1 of the re:publica 2016. A minute-by-minute protocol.

7:47pm Sascha Lobo begins his talk on Day 1 of the re:publica 2016 with a little irony: "I give about 60 to 80 absurdly well-paid lectures a year, but this is the only one I get afraid of doing". Then he admits to that being a lie. But did he really? You can't be sure. Double-down irony in the first minute – that's Sascha Lobo's post-modern dance move number 1.

7:49pm Lobo makes fun of the name of his own lecture to get things rolling: "The Age of Trotzdem." How did that come about? "Drunken conceptualism!" he explains.

7:54pm If the Bavarian conservative party CSU already uses Snapchat, does the old differentiation between blogger and non-blogger still apply, or aren't we just all digital now, Lobo mused. His answer: "It has become completely impossible to differentiate oneself solely through the use of specific internet software."

7:56pm A quick Snapchat joke to pass the time: "We consider ourselves to be the digital avant-garde because we didn't understand Snapchat way before anybody else did."

7:58pm After a quarter of an hour things get a little melancholy. Bloggers used to believe that they could bring about some kind of resounding change in the world with their articles. That hope is long gone.

8:01pm Still, Sascha Lobo calls for more optimism. One has to stay optimistic about the web. Optimistic about society. Even if there doesn't seem to be any reason to. The one reason for optimism, according to Lobo, is a pure feeling of contrarianism, a tireless "Trotzdem!"(Nevertheless). If Lobo's talk was a rap song, then this "Trotzdem" would be the hook.

8:03pm Lobo turns into a cheerleader and calls on the audience to scream "Trotzdem!" together with him. "I'm afraid this keynote is morphing into an awkward participatory lecture". But despite it all he calls out: "Three, two, one: Trotzdem!" And it works quite well.

8:04pm There's a touch of mass movement lying over the re:publica, as the audience – a little timidly at first, then louder – begins to respond with their calls of "Trotzdem!". The "Trotzdem" is Lobo's post-modern dance move number 2.

8:12pm Sascha Lobo is talking himself into a cynical mood. Fueled by the digital feeling of contrarianism he takes time for a minute-long bashing of Germany's digital infrastructure.

8:23pm Another Snapchat joke to pass the time. "Using Snapchat makes me 25 years younger", says Sascha Lobo. Highly quotable, as always.

8:27pm Dropping a topical remix, Sascha Lobo cruises through his oeuvre and conjures up theories about the digital society. One of the best is this one here: the digital economy is transforming into platform capitalism, according to Lobo – a capitalism where platforms such as Uber bend the rules of the market. You can see exactly what he means by that here.

8:36pm Ten minutes before the end of his talk, Sascha Lobo tears down the wall between the online and the offline world – with a daring thesis. "Pegida", Lobo says, "is nothing more than an offline online community." What used to live as hate online has now become part of the real world through Pegida. His conclusion: online is offline and offline is online. A deconstruction of opposites, that's Lobo's post-modern dance move number 3.

8:49pm As we reach the end, Lobo's cynicism is driven out by euphoria. Suddenly everything seems possible again – even the utopia where bloggers can change the world. Lobo closes his talk with this call-to-arms for all media people: "I want to urge you all to become entrepreneurial activists. That way, the generation after us will be able to live in a humane internet." Let’s do business!

Image: re:publica/Gregor Fischer (CC BY 2.0)