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Comment by ThePadawan | Hacker News Reader

Full disclosure: I'm German.

They say the difference between a good prank and just being an asshole is if the victim can laugh about it afterwards.

To me, Wikipedia describing this as a "practical joke" and "surreal comedy" in the first sentence, then later going on to describe it as a "psychological experiment [designed to show the] pressure to conform" (which I would describe it as) makes me quite upset.

I don't see how anyone can derive pleasure from making fun of the victim's social ineptitude, desire to fit in, or desire to socialize.

I don't see how the victim could say after the fact "yes, that was a fun prank, I did enjoy this surprise".

This is the sort of "prank" that I would be happy to see delegated to the Social Psychology department at college.

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> Full disclosure: I'm German.

Just curious — why the disclosure?

The joke here is the stereotype that Germans don't get humor, and he goes on to explain why he doesn't understand think the joke is funny.

Very much correct!

Background: As a German living in Switzerland, I have a very thin line to walk.

The Swiss already think of Germans as exceedingly direct - whereas a Swiss person might say "Well I'm sure this idea could be good in some circumstances", a German popping in to say "I think this is generally a bad idea" is often looked at as if they had just threatened the speaker's mother with a loaded weapon.

I have a name that is not obviously un-Swiss. I have thus started to point out my nationality as a disclaimer for "Please read this as written. Do not imagine a Swiss person saying this; that would give you the completely wrong impression".

It's a bit saddening that this barrier exists; but rather than be constantly misunderstood, I have had to embrace highlighting my nationality-by-birth even though I have lived in Switzerland as an expat for over 10 years.

> I have had to embrace highlighting my nationality-by-birth even though I have lived in Switzerland as an expat for over 10 years.

You may have lived in Switzerland for 10 years, but by your own account, it seems like you've chosen not to adopt Swiss culture (at least this particular aspect). Culture emerges to facilitate communication with shared expectations; how can you be surprised that people will have difficulty communicating with you if you choose to disregard their communication norms, which you seeem very aware of? To me that feels like some person A complaining that he's lived in Germany for 10 years and is saddened that the average person has trouble understanding person A when he speaks Chinese.

I'm not complaining about it :).

I've simply found that this aspect of Swiss culture stands in real opposition to the engineering mindset I rely on in my work as a Software Engineer.

If my (fictional) non-tech-savvy CEO comes up to the engineering department and says "I just came back from %conference% and we need to put everything we have onto the blockchain!", then I will gladly be the one to speak my honest opinion on that rather than publicly agreeing with the CEO, but then ignoring him and continuing with the existing architecture.

Think of it like this: A convention in the USA is to tip service workers, because they are often legally exploitable (by being e.g. paid below minimum wage). So lots of people outside the S would say that "you always need to tip employees, regardless of if they do a good job" is a terrible part of US culture.

I still tip - but I also preferably simply spend my money at establishments that pay their employees living wages and make the concept of tipping extinct completely.

I see, so do you modify your directness, or are you still direct in a German way? Going by your tipping analogy, I would infer that the equivalent is you being indirect to go along with mainstream Swiss culture, but avoiding typically Swiss people and preferring to interact with people who are comfortable with directness

> Well I'm sure this idea could be good in some circumstances

Wow, this sounds pretty British or maybe American to my Eastern European/Hungarian ears. I thought the Swiss would be rather similar to the Germans in this regard.

The German reputation (undeserved) for not having a sense of humour?

Thank you for the complement to the German people! :).

I personally find that when people say "Germans have no humor", this is coming mostly from an American perspective, describing "Germans don't laugh at the idle chit-chat I'm trying to make with them", which I would subscribe to as mostly fact. (There's definitely cultural barriers regarding this within Germany too)

Well, I guess it depends on how hard they are playing it and what's the relationship between the victim and the perpetrators. Basically like with all other jokes.

Very troll-ish kind of prank, for sure.

Yeah, this sounds like a mean prank.

Maybe the victim would find it funny if they were shown the Wikipedia article after the fact and had the psychological experiment explained to them, similar to https://xkcd.com/1053/

Short of that though, this just seems cruel

I think the 1962 Candid Camera version [0] is a lot more poignant and harmless way to point out the human desire to conform.

I can't quite nail what the emotional difference is (to me) - maybe it is that laughing (at no-soap-radio) is a an action showing much more vulnerability compared to facing the "wrong" way in an elevator.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztFv6OSFeUA

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