Kultur 6

Guten Tag!

I found the first two articles - the one about the popular German tabloid and the one about the proper etiquette of knocking and entering nach Deutschland - were the two most interesting.

I guess I wasn't fully informed about the extremes of certain American and British tabloids - I knew they were just full of useless celebrity gossipy shit, but I had no idea any living soul actually read them. I was absolutely shocked to find out about the vastness of the German tabloid's audience, and how large of a role it had in the country's mass media industry. Not only did it contain all the gossipy and playboy bullshit of a standard tabloid, but it also included actual political opinion and news stories that people actually respected and trusted. Amazing. I was slightly confused, though, whether the tabloid itself was supposed to be satirical or not. The snippet about its motto being "we form your opinions, so you don't have to." This seems sarcastic, as if it's poking fun at the reliability and gullibility (not sure if that's a word) of people who take everything from the mass media at face value, but I have also heard that Europeans (or maybe it was just Italians) neither understand nor use sarcasm. It reminds me of programs like The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report on Comedy Central, which are satirical but also include relevant information.

The article about the closed doors and knocking was one of the most intriguing Kultur articles, in my opinion. It made German culture seem pretty intimidating, as if everyone wanted to be left alone and if you bothered to ask anyone for something they would be incredibly annoyed. Oh well, just something you have to deal with I guess. There's a stereotype that Americans smile too much, and maybe they are just as annoyed as Germans are with people but they just don't put forth the effort to hide it. I don't know, maybe not. An awful lot of generalizations here, which is never good when learning/talking about a different culture - that's how different cultures distance themselves from each other.

Auf wiedersehen!