this post was submitted on 12 Apr 2025
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Comparatively to the rest of the internet, it seems like there are a lot more Germans here. I’ve always assumed it was just because I was on a German instance and was in a sort of echo chamber (join feddit.org btw πŸ₯³), but I just checked Fediverse Observer and it’s the 2nd largest country by users. Additionally, the German instances seem to be the biggest non-English ones.

Why is this?

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[–] barnaclebutt@lemmy.world 43 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Well educated, tech savvy, but also socially awkward. The Venn diagram is almost a circle.

[–] ColdWater@lemmy.ca 40 points 2 days ago (2 children)
[–] Hupf@feddit.org 1 points 1 day ago

Because Ger-many Carl!

[–] Tattorack@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago

Take your upvote and fuck off. >:V

For once, we are not the baddies

[–] finitebanjo@lemmy.world 20 points 1 day ago

They were also prevalent on Reddit but they're more sensitive to the enshitification that some other countries like the USA and France are more accustomed to, so more Germans made the leap than Americans.

A lot of the internet is USA and Europe, and more recently India, just in general. China, Russia, and North Korea all heavily restrict their internet access and normal people in those countries probably don't use english-centric online communities anyways. I'm not sure why the adoption rate seems much lower in other places, perhaps they're still developing.

[–] Tungsten5@lemm.ee 21 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Its just a scam perpetrated by Big Germany. Don’t let it scare you

[–] vrojak@feddit.org 16 points 2 days ago (1 children)

We tried Big Germany once, turns out it wasn't too popular

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[–] Samsy@lemmy.ml 70 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Simple, we germans were the biggest non-English ones on reddit, too.

[–] Blemgo@lemmy.world 13 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Funnily enough, AFAIK this is also reflected in the total webpages on the internet. There is an extraordinary amount of German webpages compared to other non-english ones.

EDIT: Third most used language, after English and Spanish.

And .de is also the third most used country code TLD. Only .cn and .tk are bigger. China is just so big and kind of has their own corner of the Internet, so that makes sense, and Tokelau is tiny but they offered free registrations to anyone for a long time.

[–] YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today 19 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Remember r/place ? Y'all were some colonizing mfers.

No one fucks with the Germans on r/place

[–] Linktank@lemmy.today 8 points 2 days ago

And we all learned that Osu players are a bunch of cheating whores.

[–] Irelephant@lemm.ee 43 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Mastodon was made by a german. I think that made the concept of the fediverse popular to germans.

[–] Goldholz@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 1 day ago

We germans also seem to have a thing for non central organisation in anything

[–] brognak@lemm.ee 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

No idea, but I love their here cus I realized I finally had a use for Gemini! Been using it to translate the memes πŸ˜…

I don't translate their memes, I mostly ignore them. but sometimes there's a meme that's close enough to English that I can understand it and those are hilarious

[–] Zahtu@feddit.org 44 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I guess, because Most of us are needs and Love the Open source Community. In contrast to nerds of other countries, we are far more interested in talking and participating on that stuff. Just as examples see KDE, Codeberg...

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[–] Wanpieserino@lemm.ee 3 points 1 day ago

This social media seems to be primarily eurozone folks

[–] CalipherJones@lemmy.world 16 points 2 days ago (1 children)

They yearn for the German federation of the 1850s.

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[–] Rolive@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 1 day ago

Keine ahnung.

[–] wildbus8979@sh.itjust.works 300 points 3 days ago (7 children)

Germany has always been a big hub for Free software as a whole, for alternative communications, etc. The CCC's presence is a big factor.

Also Germany has one of the largest populations in europe, and they tend to speak English very well unlike France/Italy/Spain.

If Lemmy is mainly made of western countries with high proportions of anglophone speakers, the prevalence of German speakers isn't really a suprise,

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[–] drmoose@lemmy.world 45 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Germans are low key into cool cultures

[–] bilb@lem.monster 14 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Then what are they doing here?

[–] Zentron@lemm.ee 7 points 2 days ago

Got lost going to a rave i guess ?

[–] Itdidnttrickledown@lemmy.world 35 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Just a guess. Because Germans are using it.

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[–] tischbier@feddit.org 84 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (17 children)

It’s because I’m specifically learning German and the universe shifted to my will. The universe created feddit.org to give me a clear path to achieve my goal of befriending Germans.

This only happpened because me, Tischbier, decided to take an interest in Germany.

You’re welcome.

(Joking aside, I noticed on Reddit before I left and before I started to learn German, that ich_irl was hitting the front page a lot too. My family decided to learn German together probably in part because of how funny Germans are. I watch German YouTubers now too (Spacefrogs and Staiy). Germany is a pretty big country and I think them the top leader of the free world! I have enjoyed reading the actual Germans takes on this topic. Prost!)

[–] cows_are_underrated@feddit.org 11 points 1 day ago (2 children)

The universe created Feddit.org

Actually Feddit.org is only a follow up instance. Originally there was an instance called Feddit.de, which was basically the same as Feddit.org. however, last year the only admin travelled to south-asia and went missing. To this day no one knows what happened to him. In his absence the pictrs box of the instance overflowed causing image uploads to not work anymore. As time goes on the instance started to get more and more unreliable. It started getting downtimes, federation didnt work anymore. After months of seeing the instance degrade the community started to take matters into the own hands and create a new instance. However it was clear, that there shouldn't be a single admin in order to not have the same problem as before. After some time where we considered creating an own association to care for the instance we decided, to instead hit up the "Fediverse foundation" which are now hosting Feddit.org

[–] tauren@lemm.ee 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

How many admins feddit.org has and is there a policy prohibiting them from traveling to South-Asia together?

[–] BurningTurtle@feddit.org 3 points 1 day ago

There are 3 admins including myself from the Lemmy side and one from the foundation.

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[–] tischbier@feddit.org 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I actually knew this! The creation origin is why I inhabit feddit.org consciously. In a dying instance, you found each other and came together to build where we speak now. I found that very human. Poignant.

I did a dive on the history of Feddit.org. I went back and read all your (our I guess) original threads. I have also read the posts where the decision was made to changeover. I liked that the posts were kind, empathetic, although slightly sad. It made me understand the spirit of this instance.

So, it’s true that no one has had contact with him? No one has any scraps of information from his real life? My guess is some of us do and the leads were exhausted. I have tracked down a fair share of anonymous friends across the world whom have disappeared. That is very sad.

I didn’t know about the β€œFediverse Foundation” nor the multiple Admin. Where may I learn more about this? Or is this just word of mouth?

Thank you for sharing.

[–] cows_are_underrated@feddit.org 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

AFAIK no one knows anything about what happened to the old admin (he was called wintermute). The only thing that everyone knows is, that he went to south Asia and was expecting to not have internet access at all times. If someone would have known anything furthet I'm pretty sure I would have heard about it. You can find all the instances the fediverse foundation hosts here (German): https://fediverse.foundation/instanzen/. The thing with the multiple Admins is something known by the people. I know two people who are Admins ( @ZonenRanslite@feddit.org and @BurningTurtle@feddit.org the first one was one of the people who was very invested in the creation of this instance), but I guess there are more and of course the fediverse foundation itself.

[–] tischbier@feddit.org 3 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Wow thank you for sharing all this and taking the time to explain to me. This is so sad and confusing about wintermute. I hope that against the odds wintermute comes back to us one day.

I feel very happy to have found you all and I would like to support our instance in whatever way I can. Vielen Dank ❀️

[–] cows_are_underrated@feddit.org 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

If you want to support Feddit.org The easiest and best way is by donating money to the fediverse foundation. You can find everything needed here: https://fediverse.foundation/spenden/

[–] tischbier@feddit.org 1 points 1 day ago

Ok I will! Thank youuuu

[–] ZonenRanslite@feddit.org 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

But i am no longer an admin, for reasons^^

[–] needanke@feddit.org 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] ZonenRanslite@feddit.org 1 points 1 day ago

Dumme Geschichte

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[–] rumschlumpel@feddit.org 221 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (15 children)

German subs were really big on Reddit, too.

Germany is the second largest country in Europe by population, they don't really have their own social media like e.g. Russia or China and they're much better at English than most other big countries that are not already English native speakers.

[–] Crackhappy@lemmy.world 54 points 3 days ago (10 children)

To be clear, native Germans are far better at English than most Americans are at this point.

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[–] Prime@lemmy.sdf.org 106 points 3 days ago (6 children)

One factor is German history with Stasi und ww2 fascism. We like increased independence and privacy, so lemmy rather than Facebook

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They're also heavy on Mastodon and the clone I use, Catodon.

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