Hi, I’m 21/male from Germany and to me it seems like people here are constantly negative and complaining compared to people from other/non-Western countries who seem way more chill.
I assume this is probably the worst here in Germany since this is also a stereotype about Germans that they constantly complain about things and in my opinion this is very true from experiencing real life here every day. But I would say I’ve also noticed this from other western countries, maybe not as extreme but for example in America people also seem to be pretty hateful and seem to make a drama out of everything (at least from what I can tell on the internet).
I just wonder why these people unnecessarily spread this negativity because in my opinion here in these western 1st world countries we have so much luxury compared to other places. For example other countries have wars, people live in terror and extreme injustice/corruption, people starve to death, get abused, raped and tortured and need to seek refuge in other countries. But we complain that eggs are too expensive and that we have too many migrants, which goes so far that America is deporting all illegal migrants including those who might’ve fled from the things mentioned earlier such as violence and rape.
Why do people waste all this time with complaining and being negative if they could use this time to be grateful, enjoy life and make the world a better place? To me this seems like people are destroying their own life and make it unnecessarily harder/unhappy with that behavior. I think I’m noticing this particularly in older people including my parents. It almost feels like they’re unable to be positive and only know how to complain.
Because the internet is majority English speaking, giving us a louder voice to shout with, also the profit incentives of social media and “news” outlets have them running the most outraging stories that will sell adverts and attention
What do you mean English speaking? Not all Western countries speak English. For example here in Germany we speak German and people constantly complain in German
You’re speaking English right now
Oh yea my bad I think I now understand what you mean. Online the majority is definitely English but I think if you look into each country locally like Germany you will see that they also constantly complain irl in German and not just online. That’s what I meant
Social media gets more engagement (and therefore more ad money) from people who are upset, so it intentionally shows you stuff that’s bad/stuff to complain about.
Also, it’s important to complain about stuff. Not too much, but definitely some. If people never complained about 16 hour workdays in poor working conditions, we’d still be doing that.
I don’t mean just social media. I’m particularly focusing on actual life here in Germany. They don’t just complain about bigger things like work but seem to be dissatisfied with every littlest thing
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You gotta watch that short YouTube about a book called “cultural map”.
It’s gauging various cultures and how they handle different aspects of society. It doesn’t cover openly talking about positivity or negativity since it’s focused on business. But the framework is all the same.
For example it put in words things that everyone knows, like Frenchmen are confrontational, Japanese are very hierarchical. Then it goes into plot twist territory.
It is my experience that people who have little tend to appreciate what they do have while those who have more complain about not having even more. It doesn’t matter what “IT” is, the monkey part of our brain always wants even more of it. When that doesn’t happen, the tendency is to focus on others as being the cause of not getting what they perceive to be deserved, hence complaining.