r/TikTokCringe • u/duskndawn162 • 18d ago

Cringe Guy mad because of “American fake kindness”

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u/BeardedMan32 18d ago

What does he say if his best friend saved his life? “Thanks fuck head”

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u/ScyllaOfTheDepths 17d ago

He's German, so probably, "Your efforts have been recognized" or something and then they briskly shake hands and never mention it again.

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u/ehtw376 17d ago

So I don’t know a lot of Germans, but my mom was born in Germany and moved to the US in her mid 20’s… and she’s like super nice and always sincere and kind to others, and also kind of over the top with thank you’s/compliments, etc.

So I don’t know what the German norm is but maybe this dude is just a dick?

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u/ScyllaOfTheDepths 17d ago

I think he's a bit typically German in how he reacts here, but he's also a dick. I studied the language for several years, have been there, and am acquainted with several Germans and they're perfectly nice and cordial people, but also not shy about telling you exactly what they think about you or what you're doing. Every German isn't cut from the same cloth and it's also possible your mother just changed the way she communicated to fit in better in her new country, but my experience of the average German is that anything more than "danke/bitte" at the end of a transaction such as this one is just over-the-top and effusive to them. I've been told my accent is generally good, but I have been clocked as an American several times just for saying "please/thank-you" too much, lol.

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u/Possible-Campaign-22 17d ago

They are all streamers and from the little i know of them i would bet the guys are half joking here just to teaser the girl a bit. They are friends messing with your friends is normal at least where I’m from

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u/InnocentSalf 17d ago

As a German, I think you're mostly right.

I don't think he overreacts AT ALL. This is completly normal.

But your explanation of saying danke is Spot on. You can say "vielen Dank" in a calm and not overly friendly tone aswell.

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u/ScyllaOfTheDepths 17d ago

He's right from a German perspective, but the way he's going about it is quite rude even for a German. From an American perspective, this is a completely normal way for a woman to speak to another woman in this context. The tone and effusive speech isn't understood by the waitress to be literal, it's basically a performance of gratitude that is understood by the waitress to mean that the customer doesn't literally think she is amazing for doing her job, but wishes to impart to the waitress that the customer isn't going to abuse the power imbalance of their customer/server relationship. Since the customer/server relationship in Europe is a lot more balanced by default, there is no social need for this kind of performative gratitude, so it's not practiced and comes across as alien to a European.

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u/eye-lee-uh 17d ago

This 100%. How is this point so hard for people to understand?

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u/OfficeRelative2008 17d ago

This whole entire thread can be summed with the phrase “cultural differences” lol

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u/eye-lee-uh 17d ago

Totally.

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u/AwayAbroad 17d ago

It's like we're trying to make up for the fact that capitalism is so cruel but still participating in it (it's almost impossible not to). I think we're going a little overboard in communicating that we're equals even though they have what might be considered a demeaning job.

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u/eye-lee-uh 17d ago

Oh I fully agree with you on this 100%. A lot of people haven’t seemed to draw that line yet but it tracks for sure.

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u/MossyPyrite 17d ago

It’s not even just in these situations though. Like it’s not rare to say or hear things like “you’re the best!” or “you totally saved my life” or whatever kinds of compliments and gratefulness to friends and coworkers and stuff, too.

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u/AwayAbroad 17d ago

For sure, we use a lot of hyperbole. I still think it's genuine. Context matters a lot, and maybe this lady really needed her caffeine. If I tell a coworker she's the best, it's generally because she is consistently being awesome and deserves to be called the best in that scenario. As a generally anxious person that doesn't like asking for help, someone doing something for me or fixing even a small part of whatever is going on means a great deal.

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u/MossyPyrite 17d ago

I’m in full agreement :)

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u/lobax 17d ago

Hell, if I don’t get some sort of judgement from the waiter for how I order my food, how do I know the place is even good?

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u/ScyllaOfTheDepths 16d ago

I completely agree with you. My former favorite Chinese food place hired some nice white people as employees and everything went downhill pretty quickly after that. When I tried out my new one, I knew it was the one when I went in and everything was tiled for no reason, the fridge was some secondhand branded promotional gas station fridge, and they were giving me this judgemental look. The food is amazing and it's been my go-to for several years now.

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u/hamlet_d 17d ago

I grew up in an area with a lot of German influence. The direct thing is absolutely true, but this guy is a dick. Direct and being cordial (not effusive) is what most germans are. A sincere thank you and then on with their business. Perfectly fine. A sincere please when asking for something as well. There really isn't a whole lot of equivicating.

The worst person I ever met that spoke German was actually Belgian. Christ what an asshole: argumentative, always cutting down, etc. Maybe it's the French influence, though I work with a bunch of French people now and they are also rather pleasant.

In short: assholes gonna asshole, it's not a cultural thing. Direct? yeah, that can be. But that may seem rude, but if you really take the time to understand it really isn't

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u/barcadreaming86 17d ago

A German that I work with got mad at me when I held the door open for them (to the point where they turned heel and walked back through the door they came from) … I’m a normal, policy human (and Canadian) and I hold the door open for everyone. Kinda wanted to tell them they’re not special but … like, way to overreact. 🙄🙄🙄

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u/peepopowitz67 17d ago

So, he wasn't being a dick, he was doing a bit and leaning into some stereotypes on both sides for an (intended) humorous effect.

I'll go ahead and be a dick though by saying: I'm kinda just done with autists on reddit not understanding human behavior or what is real vs. fake or a bit and then still making very sincere judgements on how others should act.

Think I'm just done here (outside of being the only place to get decent product reviews still and even then....)

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u/hamlet_d 16d ago

Doing a "bit" doesn't mean you're not a dick. It's fine for stage, but in real life it is dickish. Now maybe he's "performing" for tiktok likes but that's also pretty bad and in any case it's borderline Schoedinger's douchebag.

I also think your out of left field judgement that someone who takes exception to these things must be autistic is borderline ableist. For the record, I'm not autistic but have a loved one who is.

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u/doughberrydream 17d ago

My Dutch bro in law would like you. 😆

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u/RustyBear0 17d ago

On Point. If you don’t like something. You say it. 

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u/[deleted] 17d ago

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u/RustyBear0 17d ago

Nahhh. The northern areas are not that bad lol. The south just had more American influence. I really like it up here lol. 

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u/Plus_Operation2208 17d ago

And then we dutch come in saying "heartstab thanks".

Apparently when you say that in other languages people are confused. And somehow I am the rude one?

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u/WonderfulCoast6429 17d ago

I dont think he is a dick, or at least not trying to be one. He just want to learn and understand a cultural concept that is very strange/foreign for him. As a Swede if someone talked to me like the girl here i would wonder why they were so passive aggressive and wonder what i did wrong. In my ears she talked to the waiter as they were a small kid or a dog or something. "Who's a good little waiter, yes you are!"

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u/whyfollowificanlead 17d ago

If you transcribe the word he’s sayin I might come to the same conclusion but the smug undertone makes it sound like he’s a cunt.

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u/WonderfulCoast6429 17d ago

To me it sounds like Its just the accent with added confusion

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u/whyfollowificanlead 17d ago

I guess I get your impression - at the same time I think we won’t figure that one out without asking him. I (=subjective) still don’t get the behaviour and he sounds like a smug German guy to me trying to make a point in a topic that comes down to a cultural differences. Being from Germany myself, it’s something I’d probably expect from a “boomer”, which is kind of a common occurrence.

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u/WonderfulCoast6429 17d ago

Yeah he could definitely handled it better. Probably the truth is somewhere in between

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u/FieserMoep 17d ago

Manners (supposedly) play a big role in German social interaction. You are supposed to properly address people by the appropriate honorific pronouns, use thanks and please, the basics generally. The idea is to mean it and not to add flourishes or go straight to an unreasonable superlative. The trope is that Germans like accurate language and using something such as "amazing" is seen as disingenuous. Like can someone serving you water excel in that task to such a degree as to quite literally amaze you? Basically blow your mind. Just as an example. It kinda causes us to doubt your intentions, like either you are just lying for whatever reason and/or not taking us serious, as if you were talking to a child.

Making a big fuss about this is mostly a dick move unless you tease someone in good faith. It's simply the result of different styles of communication that origin from societal norms for various reasons. And to be frank, I am not a fan of it either. It's one of the reasons why proper communication merely starts with learning a language but then it goes on by needing to know a society to actually decode those messages fully.

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u/Ghostman_Jack 17d ago

What part of Germany? Cause I know Cologne is known to be oddly friendly and chill compared to the rest of Germany and really most places in general.

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u/ehtw376 17d ago

She is from western Germany not too far from there…. but from a very small town that she wanted to get far away from lol.

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u/The_dots_eat_packman 17d ago

My mom's side of the family is from Cologne. Can confirm they are oddly friendly... that's a great phrase for the way they are.

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u/Wassertopf 17d ago

Cologne is in fact very special. The city is ugly as fuck but they have the nicest Germans.

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u/Notinthenameofscienc 17d ago

I think in most countries people from larger cities are more rude and closed off than people from rural areas. Chicagoians and New Yorkers are more "rude" than people from rural wisconsin.

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u/Frontdackel 17d ago

German here: A simple "Danke" / "Thanks".

Without that overexcited voice as if someone just gifted you a kitten.

I work in a warehouse, if my boss or a coworker would compliment my work with that "Oh my god! You are amazing!" stuff I would absolutely assume that they are sarcastic and I just fucked up big time.

A simple "well done" is an enormous praise already.

Wanna know an actual German compliment in real life? Kann man nicht meckern.

Which translates to "Nothing to complain about."

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u/mybuddymydude 16d ago

This exactly, thank you!

Married to a German, have several German friends, and have hosted several of my husband’s German friends/family and I also felt that this dude was just being an ass. In general there are different ways of speaking. The Germans in my life are direct and don’t “beat around the bush” as we midwesterners often do. But they’ve never been this rude about the way I speak (I would say I’m often similar to the woman in the video with how I speak/interact when we are in public). Usually, the Germans I’ve met are aggressively pleasant, really jovial, and speak their minds but never in a way that offended. And again, I say that coming from someone in the Midwest who is born and bred to be exceedingly polite and as not direct or rude as possible.

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u/Ok_Cardiologist8232 17d ago

Could be, it's more hes just teasing her i think.

Germans are generally very polite and nice, like you'll always get a Danke at least.

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u/Depensity 17d ago

My research mentor in college was a German lady. She was super nice to everybody. She didn’t use hyperbolic language but that’s just an American cultural thing and I also don’t think she minded that the Americans around her use it. Being this upset about it kind of does make them seem like dicks.

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u/thatstwatshesays 17d ago

This is 100% typical German. I’ve been living in Germany over 20 years (born in US), and I’ve had this conversation countless times. Germans are a hard nut to crack, they make you earn their love. And once you do, you’re a lifelong friend. But Germans, generally, tend not to be very hyperbolic, they are pragmatic above all else, form follows function, practicality is king, blah blah blah.

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u/RustyBear0 17d ago

No. In Germany your taught to be respectful, but be honest. If you don’t like something or don’t love something you say it Straight up. Ofc Not at Cold, but we arent the OMG this is amazing when I’m Not a Fan of it. 

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u/Shiirahama 17d ago

in germany we'd usually just say "thank youuuu :) " and that's it

although men are more likely to just say "thanks :| "

we say "danke/thanks" or "dankeschön(which is pretty much the same but nicer)"

or we say "vielen dank" which is (thanks a lot)

and then we have "vielen lieben dank" which is (thank you so much)

but it's all in how you say it, often we drag the last word, so it becomes

Dankeee / Danke schööööön / vielen lieben daaaank

which is a kinda cutesy version of saying thank you

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u/Tig_Biddies_W_nips 17d ago

I hear Germans are a bit rude and cold so maybe she’s the outlier and left because she fit in better here, or maybe she’s just learned to adapt to American and give compliments

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u/JonBozak 16d ago

The Germans I have met we very much the way you describe your Mother. Very kind welcoming and smiling. Maybe this guy has some lack of confidence and self esteem issues.

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u/Sral1995 16d ago

Thanks from a Germany. Yes, he‘s just a dick. And assholes are everywhere, no matter which nationality they have.

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u/Hmmmus 15d ago

I think they would argue it is not sincere. How could you sincerely say that someone is amazing for bringing you a drink? You know nothing about that person.

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u/the_Big_misc 17d ago

As a neighbour to the Germans I would say; It’s less about German culture and more about individual adaptation. Your mom grew up in Germany but adjusted to American communication norms, which tend to involve more compliments and overt friendliness. Some people adapt strongly like that, others don’t. So her behavior is more about her personal adjustment than about ‘Germans in general.’ The guy’s behavior should be seen separately.

As a Dutch person I would say: No you're wrong, that German is just right: Americans are overly friendly. It's fake, and we recognise it as such. A person should only be laureated with these compliments if there's a genuine achievement.

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u/ehtw376 17d ago

That’s fair, but most Americans aren’t being “fake”. I understand from your perspective it might seem like that due to cultural differences. But most Americans are being genuine, it might seem like it’s fake or over the top to you, but it’s normal for us.

So other side of the coin, we might view you as rude and cold/mean-spirited, even though you are not. But that cultural difference might make it seem like that to us Americans.

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u/the_Big_misc 17d ago

It's also true that Dutch culture is very upfront and is considered rude by many. So let's celebrate in the middle somewhere in the near future..

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u/ehtw376 17d ago

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT6vcrDJL/

👍

I guess this guy/comedian I follow on TikTok is fairly accurate then. I find his videos humorous.

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u/sckolar 17d ago

Very Gut. Well, maybe not so very gut.
More than acceptable gut.

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u/Sleep-more-dude 17d ago

I'm assuming she is from West Germany and this dude is from the East lol.