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To give a more serious answer:
Germans are a bit more privacy focused than most other nations (if you want to know how much read up on the google street view controversy). Germans tend to be much more aware how Meta/Google,etc. abuse their data (and while the average German won't care there are enough of them that you actually note it)
There is a very strong "antiITestablishment" subculture that is very active since the 80ies. The Chaos Computer Club and its congresses,etc. but also the recent trend toward digital sovereignty has increased the amount of people who see Reddit and (to a much much larger extent) Twitter in a critical light - and due to the close links of Mastodon to Lemmy that helps both.
German speaking people, especially in the,on Lemmy, overrepresented Tech field tend to understand English fairly well (but underestimate their ability to speak it themselves often). That enables them to consume English speaking content as well, not forcing them into other media formats that do cater more for smaller languages.
And let's face it: There are a freaking lot of German speaking people. Around 100 Million people speak German in Europe - and while that of course is nothing compared to other India or China it's the largest non-english language block in Europe. That gives one a large enough "crowd" to actually find an audience for a sub - while it's rather hard to get enough people for an Italian speaking niche sub it's far easier to do so if it's German speaking.
There are also some cultural issues at play - to quote an old German saying that says: "Three Germans meet - they found an association (Verein)". Germans tend to self-organise extremely proactively. Which is often tiresome, believe me. Additionally some Germans tend to find the Americocentrism on Reddit, but also to a lesser degree, on Lemmy, boring and at times nerve wrecking.
There is a big IT industry that is focused on mid size companies - some with a strong open source mindset.
Lastly the German main instance, Fediverse.org is operated by a pretty robust foundation who knows what it is doing. Which of course keeps the community more stable and hosts a lot of European (non German) subs as well.
Source: Am German, lived abroad for quite some time.
Yes, I am fully aware this question wasn't totally serious.
No, contrary to common believe we don't have to go to the basement to laugh. Germans go to the basement for sauerkraut and to watch German dungeon porn, Swiss to clean their bunkers and Austrians,well, I'd rather not talk about that.
Und nun is dein Schnitzel sonst gibt es keinen Nachtisch!
Based. I concur and approve. Wish I could do the same and steer away from it all. Not easy, though :(
Yeah. Personally I try to visit non-American subs for that quite often here. Australia, Canada,etc. provide different views and influences as well and are English speaking.
Knowing other languages isn't a problem for me. The difficulty is finding stuff I like online in other languages. I am mainly a YouTube person, and I have the ones I like. Most are in English, though. I've tried expanding to other languages, but to find stuff I like (and can comprehend) is not easy. A subset of a subset.
Edit: as for Lemmy, it's mainly where I go to waste some time. Rarely 'Time Well Spent', I just check whatever pops on the main feed at default sort. Best community is probably AskLemmy, where I can ask people stuff. But other than that, nothing I'd particularly seek in specific
Funny story about the language ability. I had a German-native friend in college. He had moved to America 1 month prior and never lived in an English speaking country. He had a perfect English accent and was overall better than some of my native born friends. I thought he was making it up. As an American I honestly can't comprehend it, it's like someone doing a double backflip and earnestly thinking it's normal. And very bashful about his incredible language ability!
Recently I met a Dutch-native person traveling in the US for a week. He had a flawless Southern Californian accent, my friends and I didn't believe him, thought he was Californian. His language skills were literally better than most Americans.
I can say the same about many India-natives I've worked with as well. Not just language but communication skills in general. The different accents are gorgeous.
I think non-American education is generally superior.
Wanted to comment with a few of these points but this comment is way better than anything I could've written. This is the right answer!
Can you elaborate on the self organizing thing? I don’t think I have a strong intuition on what you mean.
Germans have a tendency to associate in a formal association (called Verein). From sports clubs (often even the smallest rural villages have multiple), allotment plot gardening, hiking, environmental protection, neighbourhood based one, as parental associations, cars owners, professional ones to old folks and widows, etc. etc. These are all registered with the local court (e.V.), have a formal operations charter,etc.
As people tend to be multiple clubs/associations there are far more club members than people in Germany. Germany holds the world record in that regard since 1945. (Personally I am a member of...12 I think. Maybe more. Car, School of the kiddos, sports, sports of the kiddos, a few very niche professional ones, environmental ones, a local food one,etc.)
This tendency to formalize things also sometimes is visible online in terms of subcommunity formation.
Thanks! This sounds like community building to me. The peer pressure seems to be a double edged sword. I can see how it might become burdensome in some cases.
Yes and no. The zealousness of Germans to stick to rules but also to create rules is the issue.
Just a few mid 50 friends kicking a ball once a week in a public park to stay fit and have an excuse for a beer afterwards? Nope, that's regular use, join a club, get into a 50+ team and kick there, but don't forget that you need a player pass, pay club fees and often have to do 24 work hours per year.
Or even worse: Allotment gardening. Heavily regulated in most clubs by a few boomers (think HOA2.0) that will cite you for fallen leaves. And if you have the wrong type of hedge in your garden. Or if it's to high. They will then mandate that you cut it. Which you aren't allowed from March to October due to environmental protection laws. And of course if you sleep more than one (or two) nights in your garden it's also forbidden. And beware if they find another salad in that part of your patch,that one is only for flowers. (It's so bad that it is a meme in Germany)
There is a German word for all that, of course: "Blockwartsyndrom". A Blockwart(officially Blockleiter)was the lowest position with (very little) power during the Nazi times - they were literally responsible for a building block (around 40-60 flat). They were the ones who spied on their neighbours, organised the Volkssturm later on(aka sending poor kids and old folks to their death) and generally pestered their neighbours. Blockwartsyndrom simply means: Give a little man a little power and he will everyone's life hell.
Well there are some pros in case of your buddy's meeting once a week to play some ball. If they found a Verein, they can get a metro card and go shopping there. They can get a bank account for common costs, to gather money for a trip, to buy new equipment. Maybe some tax stuff? Don't really know but sounds like there have to be taxes involved somehow. And they get to found a Verein.
This is correct. If found a club ("Verein" in German) under German jurisdication you will be rehistered as a so called e.V. and get some benefits. The biggest one is that the club will not pay taxes (or at least pay less taxes) for earned money. However, there are some downsides. You have to have a legal statute, you need several formal representatives (one who is responsible for finances, and usually two who are legal representatives of the club). These have to be elected each year on the mandatory club member meeting. The protocol from this meeting has to be signed by a lawyer. AFAIK there are also limits on how much money you are allowed to have your bank account. This due to the the nature of the "e.V." label, which means that you are a non profit organisation and this means, that you can't just hoard huge amounts of money.
Ling story short: you have to do quite a lot of bureaucracy in order to save money on taxes. It definitely is nothing that is worth for playing a bit of football and chugging some beers with 3 people every two weeks
If you want those things, great! But making it a requirement is where Germany is stifling.
It is very burdensome if you just try to do stuff.
E.g. some friends and I wanted to train freediving, but we couldn’t book a lane in the local pools, because we don’t have a Verein registered for the activity.
In Germany, admin overhead is not something to reduce, it’s a requirement.
Das Schnitzel is oder is nicht? Was denn nun?