• Hubi@feddit.org
    192·
    2 months ago

    Not to take all the credit, but a factor might be that I, as the top mod of the second largest German Subreddit, promoted Lemmy heavily to the point where the admins banned me “for breaking reddit”.

  • philpo@feddit.org
    73·
    2 months ago

    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 iss dein Schnitzel sonst gibt es keinen Nachtisch!

    • PastafARRian@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      8·
      2 months ago

      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.

    • lemmyknow@lemmy.today
      8·
      2 months ago

      some Germans tend to find the Americocentrism on Reddit, but also to a lesser degree, on Lemmy, boring and at times nerve wrecking.

      Based. I concur and approve. Wish I could do the same and steer away from it all. Not easy, though :(

      • philpo@feddit.org
        2·
        2 months ago

        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.

        • lemmyknow@lemmy.today
          2·
          2 months ago

          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

    • polle@feddit.org
      4·
      2 months ago

      “Three Germans meet - they found an association (Verein)”.

      This is especially funny because feddit.org actually is a verein.

      • philpo@feddit.org
        3·
        2 months ago

        I know. But an Austrian one.

        One could say they are more German than the Germans, but… well…that didn’t work out well before…so we don’t say that anymore I think.

    • 4shtonButcher@discuss.tchncs.de
      3·
      2 months ago

      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!

    • anton@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      1·
      2 months ago

      “Three Germans meet - they found an association (Verein)”.

      Stop spreading misinformation on the Internet!
      Everyone knows, that while 3 is the minimum membership (§ 73 BGB), 7 people are required to found one (§ 56 BGB).

      • philpo@feddit.org
        3·
        2 months ago

        Yeah. For an “eingetragener Verein”. For a Vereinsgründung of a non registered association two members are enough. So if you want to be a Klugscheißerle, read your BGB first. Micdrop

  • vxx@lemmy.world
    32·
    2 months ago

    German community was huge on reddit. There were also a lot of users that were unhappy with the biggest german subreddit and reddit in general.

    I guess quite a lot jumped ship when reddit started banning third party apps.

  • sasquash@helvetiverse.ch
    29·
    2 months ago
    • there are many germans on reddit
    • germans tend to be more privacy aware in my opinion
    • and I also think Germany has a large and very dedicated open source community.
    • then there are just many german speaking people. lemmy is popular in the west and together with austria and switzerland (and some other areas) you have almost 100 million native speakers.
  • Rentlar@lemmy.ca
    13·
    2 months ago

    A huge group moved from ich iel subreddit (meirl but almost like 196 in practice)… most german redditors were there. The main German instance was called feddit.de but the frontend and database got very messed up. The main admin was MIA so feddit.org was made instead.

  • melsaskca@lemmy.ca
    12·
    2 months ago

    I want to read the German language posts. Is there a translate button on Lemmy? I tried the “Select Language” button but nothing happened.

    • SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de
      8·
      2 months ago

      The problem is, that a lot of the more memey communities are using Zangendeutsch, which is basically militantly and very literally translating English words into German. Translation tools will have a hard time translating those correctly

    • Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de
      4·
      2 months ago

      “Select language” is to mark the language you are using in your posts and comments. Don’t know for what, maybe for others to filter stuff out?

    • tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip
      3·
      2 months ago

      Firefox has a built in translator, and there are add-ons you can install if you want a different version. Won’t work on image posts though

  • qyron@sopuli.xyz
    6·
    2 months ago

    Because they can.

    I can’t read a single word of german but I’m glad to randomly stumble on a german post.

    Makes the fediverse more pluralist.

  • Pulptastic@midwest.socialEnglish
    4·
    2 months ago

    It is possible to block all of the primarily foreign language communities, but the bad news is you have to do it one at a time. When I see posts from a community in a language I do not speak, I block it so it does not clutter my feed.