Ten years ago two German comedians pranked the nation with a fake Elven singer called Ulmo and made the charts
On November 18, 2015, a video by the singer Ulmo Ocin hit Youtube.
It is titled MANDALO.
In about two months time it was to amass more than two million views – a rather impressive feat for a debut single from a German musician. And it had ragebaited fans from all German-speaking countries with its absurd lyrics, fake-depth slow-motion camera work, and a singer that had obviously bought both clothes and style at a LARP store willing to sell anything to everyone.
Let’s talk about why this happened, who was responsible – and why I am writing about this, ten years later.
Ulmo Ocin– Mandalo
When the video premiered the text on the YT page was ridiculed by quite a few people as its pomposity was beyond anything the song actually delivered.
The future started yesterday and will end tomorrow. This motto has Ulmo Ocin oscillate musically between times to enchant his listeners with ethereal ease and eulogistic poetry.
YT page of Mandalo, my translation.
‘It was very important to me to have the polyvalence of my being mirrored in my words. Thus, it was only natural for me to sing in both the Elvish language Sindarin as well as in German’, he stated in an interview.
Ulmo: ’emerging from the waters’
Ulmo considers himself one of the Grey-elves who are considered to be very wise.
Who the heck was Ulmo Ocin?
The guy you can see in the video is named Nico Eiselt. Yes, his first name – Nico – turned into: Ocin. Clever, right?
Anyway, he is from Regensburg in Bavaria or the Upper Palatinate, if you prefer, and if you feel like pumping iron he will be able to help you. He is a fitness coach in Regensburg today and you can look him up on Instagram or with Facebook where he still has (Ulmo Ocin) in his page name – and as his profile banner. For the video he was turned into an elf, based on Orlando Bloom’s depiction of Legolas.
Now, you might ask yourself why would some young dude with a pretty heavy dialect be asked to sing a song as an elf? Or, to use the term that was meant to describe this song – ethno pop?
He wasn’t.
He just mimed it. The actual singer is named Matthias Stockert – and he references a hit in the single charts, with television program ProSieben and with the world premiere of Mockingjay 2 in Berlin – that was MANDALO, saying that he was the vocalist and co-writer. The other part of this imaginative desaster is chart-topping writer Nicolas Keil. No, really – that guy seems to be legit!
And lists the facts: #1 with the Viral 50 Germany at Spotify, Top 40 of the iTunes-Charts, more than 2,8 Millionen views with YouTube.
There is one more, wait for it.
And if this is not your kind of music – people made fun of this as it resembled the tonality of the Graf from Unheilig, or Oonagh, or Faun. If it is your kind of music – no judgment at all! Those are some amazing bands – but MANDALO certainly made fun of them. And if you have a look at this Youtube playlist from January 2016 titled ‘Elven music‘ you will understand why those connections were made.
People made fun of it a lot – have a look here & here (most of the links are with Facebook as this was the place to be in 2015).
Behind all of this – a tv show
The two German comedians and hosts mentioned in the title are Joko and Klaas. Yes, they have their own Wikipedia page and they have been a fixture of public television in Germany for something like two decades. And they have been winning quite a few awards as well, in the comedy / entertainment categories.
The show this was done for was called Mein Bester Feind. This is a pun on Mein Bester Freund (my best friend – not enemy / Feind) as the very simple concept of this gaming show was you needed to lie to your best friend who then had to compete for you in that show so you could win – not your friend. Basically, it was a test of any given friendship in any of the episodes because those poor people really had to do silly stuff. Here is the trailer to this MEIN BESTER FEIND episode.
Now, Nico from Regensburg who to this day is huge on fitness had to pretend to be an Elven singer – essentially for a couple of months he had to keep this persona secret while being forced to do a number of silly public stunts in full costume. Without being able to sing.
It started with the video release on Youtube. He was later on asked to appear with the show Teamwork – an appearance that led to a lot of derision towards him – and then to ask people at Cologne Central Station whether they wanted to have one of his autographs.
They didn’t.
Certainly the biggest publicity stunt was him promoting his single at the European premiere of Mockingjay 2. My respect for him – this man is no entertainer and to sing (sic!) in front of a huge crowd interested in Jennifer Lawrence, NOT HIM, must have taken a lot of courage. And that cheap ass sword he had to wave around, probably from some LARP store in Berlin and/ or Cologne, was just the icing on the proverbially distasteful cake. (Let’s not talk about the vambraces; you can get better ones like these; and I may have found the sword he was using. Why an elf would run around with a sword like that…)
The event in Berlin was pretty easy to organise, though. Most of these premieres were run by ProSieben, the station Joko and Klaas have been working for for most of their life. I know, I participated in one – The Desolation of Smaug.
When the evening of the gaming show came and went public perception massively changed. Not only did Nico win many hearts, a lot of people started to love MANDALO, have MANDALO parties, and even cosplayed for MANDALO to return – or suggested he should participate in the Eurovision Song Contest!
He even had something tattooed on his foot as part of the tasks he had to complete so his friend could win.
A massive FB group was opened and it still exists today – with 29k followers. There is a fan page called Stein um Stein – and his fans call themselves Ulmaniacs.
So after a couple of months Nico Eiselt finally had the chance of getting some love and appreciation from the public which had mostly ignored or really not liked him, perceiving him as some quick-money-making schemer.
In the official making of video he even said at the end of it: “Do not buy my single”, after having called the video “shit.” But let’s face it – he said that after months of humiliation and probably not knowing what else Joko and Klaas had in mind for him for the live show.
Das Musikvideo ist so scheiße, ich wollte am nächsten Morgen gar nicht mehr aufstehen.
The video is so shit, I didn’t want to get up the next morning.Nico Eiselt
German chart position
After the show aired on Jan 9, 2016, the song made it to #89.
Links to contemporary reports
Vom Nobody zum Youtube-Star (BR; Facebook Video)
Krass, krass, einfach so krass (Rheinische Post; zur MBF-Folge)
KULT: Als Elb durch die Hölle.
Some of Nico’s Instagram posts
https://www.instagram.com/p/BBpXLKYD7Mc
https://www.instagram.com/p/BAWff7jD7Gk
https://www.instagram.com/p/BA4nluEj7NS
https://www.instagram.com/p/BOxelvjlpxw
The mystery solved
Lyrics
The proper term for these in 2025 is cringe. There is no other way to put it.
I may one day translate them into English – but it is not this day!
My final comment
I know it was supposed to be funny and/ or satire… but words from Klaas like those do not make me feel too happy at the way their making fun of nerds was dealt with.
Was er da macht, muss bedeutungsvoll klingen, dass die Leute, die sowas hassen, sowas eben noch mehr hassen, und die Leute, die sowas schön finden, auch ein bisschen Antworten finden auf ihre Fragen.
What he is doing there has to sound important so that people who hate this kind of stuff can hate it even more – and the people who like this kind of stuff can maybe find some answers to their questions.
P.S. Why am I writing about this?
It’s been a running gag with my German-speaking Tolkien podcast – SmallTolk – that I would rather cut off a hand or something than do an episode on MANDALO.
Having never imagined we might need another fun episode just for shits and giggles I never really thought about doing this, then. And no, I am not going to cut off my hand.
But we lost our third Old Guy in 2024 to cancer and we have really been struggling to get back into being our silly old, Middle-earth loving, stand up comedy selves. And MANDALO has so much fun to offer and quite a few serious themes as well…
It is time. Another anniversary to celebrate. Another memory to be made.
