Sense of humor in Europe

[Blind Guardian]

Looked like someone struggling to tell a story while awkwardly smiling....

I can see the humor in what happened, but the story by itself is not really worthy of more than a smirk.

Like if the video was of the man asking for a bucket and the other guy replying with "I've made a crossbow" it would be funny, but instead it's just the guy telling what happened.

Well see, the humor doesn't lie in the story, but rather in the man's subsequent analysis of his neighbour. He doesn't react negatively to his neighbour showing him a crossbow made out of meat, but he does find it odd that he won't lend it to him, and therefore calls him a "split personality", as if lending it would've made him any saner. The clip is funny because the man who tells the story is just as psychotic as the man he's talking about.

 

[Einherjar86]

I recently became curious about this. I've always heard the anecdotal stereotype about German people having no sense of humor, and though i've never really met a German person before i befriended a Polish guy recently and he seems to fit the stereotype to a t. Rarely makes jokes or smiles, to the point of being awkward.

That's likely just his personality; it's not endemic of all Poles or Europeans in general.

The only European country I've been to is Finland, and there were plenty of smiling, humorous people. Granted, most of them were drunk.

 

[Der Morgenstern]

Northern Europeans have great senses of humour. German humour can be completely off-the-wall. It's great.

 

[Hez]

Based on my experiences in the US, it's just that you guys have a very different way of showing/appreciating humour. Everybody in the US is a lot louder and more flamoyant, so I think a lot of you wrongly perceive quietness/subtlety as a sign of awkwardness in Europe. I think it's actually kinda the opposite; in the US everybody is so afraid of a social encounter going "wrong" that they all shout loudly and laugh heartily at everything to make sure everybody else knows "yes, i am a confident and sociable person." In Europe, fewer focks are given so people aren't afraid of the awkward silence following a poor joke if they don't deem it worthy of a favourable response.

These are obviously huge stereotypes but sum up my general impression having spent the last 2 months in LA. Maybe my observations apply more to southern Californians than the rest of Americans?

 

[Der Morgenstern]

Eh, I can assure that a lot of people in the United States could not give two shits about a social encounter going wrong and actually relish the prospects of that happening.