“I think it’s within my comfort zone,” said Alex Honnold in a recent US podcast. “So it’s not so much about, what if I die?” The 40-year-old American is a master of the vertical and is one of the best rock climbers in the world.
If the weather cooperates, Honnold will be out in Taiwan next Saturday (January 24th) morning local time on unfamiliar terrain: He wants to climb up the facade of the Taipei 101 skyscraper – “free solo”, that is, alone and without any security.
Netflix, the world’s largest streaming provider with more than 300 million subscribers, will broadcast Honnold’s rise live. In the trailer for the spectacle, Netflix plays with the thrill of a potentially deadly project.
“I think I’ve gotten used to the fear over the years. It’s an ever-present part of climbing,” Honnold says in the clip, which was shared on social media. “No matter how well you prepare, sometimes things just happen. If you fall, you die.”
Warning about copycat effect
The streaming service Netflix crosses a line because “the concept and setting promote voyeuristic dynamics,” Claudia Paganini told DW. The philosopher and theologian from Austria teaches at the University of Innsbruck, and one of her research focuses is media ethics.
“I consider the live broadcast of a potentially fatal risky event to be problematic because the media no longer just documents, comments on and classifies it, but also actively co-produces the event as a spectacle,” said the scientist.
The risk is deliberately used here to increase attention and reach and thus also financial profit. This means that the responsibility “no longer lies primarily with the athlete, but rather with the media that distributes it”.
In addition, the live broadcast of Honnold’s rise is “suitable to normalize risky behavior and encourage imitation, even if it is emphasized that this is an exceptional athlete,” warns Paganini. “In this respect, the planned project must also be viewed very critically from the perspective of child and youth protection.”
Oscar for climbing documentary
During his climbing career, Honnold often walked the fine line between life and death. In 2017, he was the first person to climb the 900 meter high granite wall of the legendary El Capitan in Yosemite National Park in the USA without rope protection in just four hours – on the extremely challenging “Freerider” route, which was opened in 1995 by the top German climber Alexander Huber.
The documentary “Free Solo” about Honnold’s rise won an Oscar in 2019 and reached an audience of millions in cinemas and later via streaming services.
The film thrived on the thrill that the spectacular images from the wall gave the audience. But they already knew – unlike the upcoming live broadcast from Taiwan – that the climbing had ended well.
Alexander Huber: “Not relevant for climbers”
The climbing scene observes the upcoming spectacle rather calmly. “Climbing Taipei 101 will not provide any new insights into climbing, so from that point of view the action is not relevant for us as climbers,” Alexander Huber, who has mastered several difficult tours free solo in his career, told DW. “But of course it will have a very wide reach through Netflix, and Alex is of course entitled to do that.”
Honnold has been one of the top earners in the scene since his coup at El Capitan in 2017. The climber puts a third of his income into his own foundation. The “Honnold Foundation” supports private solar energy initiatives worldwide. How much Netflix is paying the climber for the project on the skyscraper in Taiwan was not communicated.
Eight overhanging blocks
Taipei 101 – the number stands for the number of floors – was completed in 2004 and was the tallest building in the world at the time with a height of 508 meters. Three years later it was replaced by the 828 meter high Burj Khalifa in Dubai.
The shape of the landmark of the capital of Taiwan is reminiscent of a Chinese pagoda. Eight identically shaped blocks rise above a trapezoid-shaped first element and overhang upwards. The uppermost, narrower part of the building is crowned by an antenna system. The facade consists predominantly of glass and aluminum.
“Spiderman” Alain Robert: “He will do it very easily”
It’s not the first time someone has climbed there. The French free climber Alain Robert did this at Christmas 2004. Contrary to his usual habits, the “French Spiderman”, as he calls himself, was secured with a rope from above during this facade climbing and was traveling completely legally.
The Taiwan government hired him for this campaign to promote the then new Taipei 101. During his career, Robert climbed the facades of around 200 buildings all over the world, mostly free solo. According to his own statements, he was arrested more than 170 times because of this.
In Taipei 101, the most important thing is not to lose concentration, the now 63-year-old told the magazine “Climbing”: “What makes it complicated is repeating the same movement over and over again. But otherwise you just take one step after the other.”
After each of the eight blocks, Honnold can also rest on a wide ledge before continuing to climb, says Robert. He is sure that the American will achieve promotion “very easily”.
Father of two small daughters
What if something happens and millions of people are watching? Last October, 23-year-old US climber Balin Miller fell to his death because of a mistake while rappelling on El Capitan – in front of hundreds of viewers who were watching another climber’s live stream filming Miller. Many of these users spoke afterwards of a traumatic experience.
With such live streaming there is no editorial distance, says media ethicist Paganini: “If an accident occurs, there is no longer any way to check images, classify them or protect the audience and especially the relatives.”
Honnold is married and has two small daughters. Alex Honnold says he has been climbing since he was a teenager and has always been concerned with risk management. His attitude to this did not suddenly change because he had children.
In his own words, Taipei 101 doesn’t give Alex Honnold any sleepless nights. “My vision is to die at the age of 80 surrounded by my grandchildren,” says the extreme climber.
