Ich bin empöhrt!¹ Let’s take a deep moderate dive into this.

From personal experience Germany is internationally known for Angela Merkel, Nazis and Till Schweiger I guess, since he had an international career (Inglorious Basterds). Which - yes - warrants the image of a pretty unfunny nation. But none of these people or groups are meant to be funny. Most of it is politics.

So Let’s look at people who actually try: Commedians. So who is internationally known beyond the german speaking regions? I can’t think of one (our government does not count). Does that mean that there are none? Of course not. I also couldn’t think of any commedians from most european countries that are not englisch speaking. Language seems to be key here.

Let’s talk about culturally learned behaviour: Germans are known to be analytical - duh - rule abiding, efficent, direct and punctual. Sadly, none of which have been true for our railway system in years. Spaß beiseite. ² Maybe it is our habit of being direct that makes people think we are no fun, especially when only being in contact with germans in a work environment, if they have contact to germans at all. And I guess this comment isn’t helping to shift this perception xD But I’ll give it to everyone from abrod: Germans are really uptight and private, so you often have to break multiple layers of ice.

I didn’t read the whole article because their privacy settings scared me, so I don’t know if they actually broke down the methodology of the survey. Also if this turns out to be satire I’d kinda confirm the articles point, won’t I? :D Anyways, how did they gather participants? Online? Then a huge part of the global population wouldn’t be able to take part. Did they offer physical copies of their questionnaire? And if so, were they localised or in english, since this is one of the most popular languages. And if they did in fact offer physical and/or localised copies, who would finance such a big undertaking for a reletavely begnign survey? So participants were most likely english speakers with internet access and a decent education - therefore the survey would not be representative. Furthermore I’m just gonna point out that americans fit well within my defined group of most likely participants and are iconically unknowlegebale about anything not including the US or their neighbouring states.

To tie a neat bow around all this: There are likely various reasons why Germans were voted unfunny. But I think most of it is based on stereotypes, lack of relationships with germans, our rather cold behaviour towards strangers and also our history, including prussia and the third reich. But come on. A country so heavily invested in beer consumption can’t possibly be all serious. At least give us that.

¹ I am shoked!

² Joking aside

Henning Wehn - Germany’s Comedy Ambassador