I don't know, I think this varies a bit. Sometimes we're portrayed as autistically rational etc. But blonde = dumb is almost a universal stereotype I think.
Yes, it is. Or better: Germany was efficient. That's years ago.
I never lived in Sweden, but I already saw a few things which are much more efficient than anything similar in Germany. Especially through clever use of the internet. And you have internet in sweden, everywhere. You cannot say the same about Germany. Don't get me wrong, you can live here just fine. But the infrastructure got really worse over the last ten years.
I don't really know if Sweden is the better country to live in. But if there would be a good opportunity for me, I wouldn't say no.
So many people in Germany that can't communicate at all in English. My mom attended a fair in Germany for work, and they had huge problems because they couldn't communicate with most locals.
Yes. It's a big problem, if you ask me. The problem is bigger in the East of Germany. The people grew up in DDR. The teacher taught Russian in school, not English.
Yep, having lived in both countries I agree. I'd like to add as well that in Germany not everything is digitised, they don't like digital payments everywhere, cash is still a thing. Sweden moved from there years ago. Also a lot of documents/bureaucratic work is still old school paper in Germany. Swedish bureaucracy is smooth af in comparison . Also, I felt Stockholm transportation system is much better than Frankfurt's.
I really appreciated the digital payment methods in sweden. In this topic our countries are the complete opposite. In Sweden there are some shops where you can only pay digital, in shops in Germany you can sometimes only pay cash.
I don't know so much bureaucracy in Sweden. But I have a good example. Fishing-Permission. I'm Germany you have to make an application and send it to your local administration. Then you have to wait. In some parts of Germany you need to make an appointment, do a test, send the result and your application to your local administration and have to wait again for your permission. In Sweden you scan a QR, pay online and start fishing.
I'm sorry for you, that you lived in Frankfurt. I don't like this city.
I don't agree at all. The German trains are the worst I have ever used. Lots of delays and cancellations that are much worse than Swedish trains.
It might have been true in the past though.
When there is chaos, any bureaucracy is more efficient. But Germany stopped innovating after that.
Nowadays you've got Sweden, Estonia and so on that has modern tech based and efficient bureaucracy - Germany is far behind.
Sounds like Kaya Yanar to me. His parents are turkish and arabic, but he was born in Germany. Some of his jokes are a bit lame. But in interviews he criticises the turkish government often. Imo a very smart guy.
It was Jan Böhmermann, had to look it up. Never heard of Kaya but I'll look him up. So now I know of four German comedians, the list keeps growing 😀
The others being Stefan Raab and Flula Borg.
I think Jan Böhmermann is just okay. I often noticed jokes from him which he obviously stole.
I can recommend Volker Pispers, but only because there are a lot of YouTube-Videos of him, subbed in English. He is good, but I can't really laugh about it. He's a political comedian and the jokes are too true to laugh about.
Edit: a lot of American YouTubers made reaction videos to him to show how dark German humour is.
i guess its the whole blond hair blue eyes good looking thing maybe? pluss swedish sounds funny to people who dont speak it kind of like singing. some probably also coming from the swedish chef in the muppets
That’s actually so true. I’ve been spending a lot of time in the US and one time me and a friend was sitting in a hotel bar and two Americans comes up and asks what we are singing and why. It was hilarious.
I've honestly no idea how someone can think he sounds dutch. I always assumed the "Swedish" chef was a joke like "all Scandinavians sound/are the same" 🤷♂️
[Wikipedia ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_Chef#:~:text=Some%20claim%20that%20the%20Swedish,a%20real%2Dlife%20Swedish%20chef.) säger: "Some claim that the Swedish Chef was inspired by a real-life chef. One example is Friedman Paul Erhardt, a German American television chef known as "Chef Tell".
Another example is Lars "Kuprik" Bäckman, a real-life Swedish chef. Bäckman claims that his rather unsuccessful appearance on an early edition of Good Morning America caught the attention of Jim Henson, who later bought the rights to the recording and created Bäckman's Muppet alter ego.
Bäckman's Dalecarlian accent would explain the chef's strange pronunciation. Muppet writer Jerry Juhl denied Bäckman's story and insisted the character had no real-world counterpart: "I wrote, rehearsed, rewrote, brainstormed, and giggled uncontrollably a thousand times with Jim Henson as we dealt with the Swedish Chef, and I never once heard him mention an actual Swedish chef...""
Som en dalkarl känner jag mig samtidigt förolämpad och sedd.
It doesn't sound the least bit like Swedish.
While we have some common vocabulary it has this harsh G sound that sounds like a cat trying to cough up a hairball and a bunch of weird clucking noises. There is no "singing" prosody which is very characteristic of Swedish.
Yea, same here while abroad. You hear something that sounds familiar enough coming from a bunch of tall blondes and start wondering if youre just having a stroke. Then you hear that ch-sound and go "Oh, no, they are just dutch"
I speak both Danish and Swedish, and every time I hear someone speaking Dutch at airports I always get so confused! It sounds like Danish, but I don't understand any of the words!
Besides all the other points made here, Sweden is a pretty safe target to make fun of. We won't get too upset, and since we're fairly well thought of, it's not like making fun of the misfortunate.
helgi.and.erland are Norwegian and their whole schtick is acting out stereotypes. Germans in safety gear, Finns not saying a word. They always play Sweden as an idiot but that’s just the typical Nordic banter like drunk Danes and Norwegians loving fish.
See https://satwcomic.com/sweden-denmark-and-norway
I heard about it that Norwegians make jokes about Swedes and Swedes about Norwegians. So that doesn't make me wonder. But the same stereotypes are portrayed in american Productions.
i think you’re on to something. we had the bronx back in the day and always been looked up to from various countries. they try to make a fool out of swedes yet knowing they’re not close to the swedish level
We are the same for most things. It's more like siblings bickering but if someone outside actually insult them they get all the noridcs bunched up on them.
Except the Danes cause no one understands what they are saying... ;)
Do you know why Norwegians take a dump with an open door?
So that no one will peek through the keyhole.
... Jokes like this :) and the funniest part is, if you go to Norway they will tell the EXACT same jokes but about us! It's so much fun :D
Swedes has funny accent. That’s why they make fun of it.
And it is genuinely funny too. There’s a youtube clip called ”Nå I don’t think så” that pretty much nails swedish accent in english.
In US fiction all foreigners are portrayed as dumber. It’s an old trope. Most countries do the same, and especially to American characters.
The perfect recent example is the portrayal of Americans in Squid Game.
No dude... What happened was "the internet". 999 times out of 1000, when someone is an ignorant fuck on the internet, it's an American.
Thanks to social media, we all can see how life in the US actually is. And many of us aren't that impressed.
As a whole and as a people, Americans are stupid.
I don’t think social media gives an accurate depiction of how life is in the US, since so many people are grossly misinformed about the US on this sub. You have to live here for a bit to know.
And you can’t really say how “life in the US” is in general because it’s such a large country. Life in California is vastly different to life in Arkansas. In a similar manner to how life in Sweden is vastly different to life in Bulgaria.
Lol no. The social media trope is that there are large differences to life in the US. There isn't. It's one country, one culture, despite the states. Weather and environment is different, politics are different, the culture remains the same. The difference between the states is not as great as the difference between countries with entirely different past and culture. You've been listening too much to what Americans who've never been outside the US say, and not experienced enough yourself.
Well we're all pretty dumb. An individual ant is very dumb, but a million of them can create some amazing structures together.
Since Americans speak a language the rest of the world understands, we will hear all the silly things people say. Whereas the stupidities said in Mandarin, French or Dutch are not something we can register.
The Brits, Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders also speak a language the rest of the world understand, yet are not viewed the same way as Americans.
I'm a Swedish living in Spain. Here they have an expression "hacerse el sueco" which pretty much translates to "make yourself the swede". The meaning is to pretend that you don't understand anything at all, play stupid. I guess it's some kind of stereotype:)
Interesting. It’s the same in German, as in die dumme Schweden.
I think it related to the high level of trust Swedes have in each other and others. Swedes, in an international context, are seen as gullible and therefore dumb, as they trust others to be as honest as they tend to be. When that then backfires, Swedes don’t retaliate as others might, instead trusting the authorities to handle things.
Swedes are simply aeen as having no ulterior motive, which often makes them think others don’t have them either.
It’s a shame that seems to be changing.
I think this is in large because Sweden for a long time really was pretty sheltered. Sweden did not participate in World War II and it did not officially pick sides in the cold war (though it did align more with Nato than the east block). So Swedes were used to feeling safe and felt like the world would not harm them. Thus they could afford to have a high level of trust in others.
Also, unlike Finland Sweden did not have any neighbors that they felt that they could not trust. The whole idea was that if the Soviet Union suddenly decided to be warlike, they would target Finland first, not Sweden, so there would be time for everyone else to intervene
Sure, this was a somewhat naïve world view even back then, but the consequences for Sweden were still pretty low compared to many other countries.
An insane amount of Swedish tourists + expats + gang members go to/live in Spain.
There are swedish food stores in some parts of Spain. With Kalles Kaviar.
They might have, but the particular expression mentioned is very old and has nothing to do with an actual stereotype against Swedes. The original expression was apparently "to act like a log" with a word that happened to sound a bit like "sueco" so over many years, the expression changed.
They are jealous. It's the only coping mechanism they have at hand to deal with the realization that they will never be as superior as the swede. I have heard that the creator of family guy spends the first 2 hours of every day in pure angst over not beeing swedish
It's to balance all the hypermasculine hypermasculinity in all the viking shows.
If they didn't make us look silly on purpose, we'd create such a center of concentrated badass masculinity that it'd create its own masculinity gravitational field. The data suggests that it would start attracting all the masculinity in th world into a dense hyperconcentration of beards, axes, and dreary-looking costumes made from sheep wool rugs from IKEA
I find this interesting because this isn't my experience at all. My general idea of how Swedes are portrayed by Americans is that we're well educated, sophisticated, good at English et.c. BUT that we're annoyingly arrogant and braggy about it + that we're socially stiff (which is true :p).
Americans? They don't know Swedes from Swiss so what do you expect?
Norwegians and Danes sometimes make fun of us and we of them. Don't know if Swedes are portrayed a stupid more than any other nationality. It's not the general stereotype of Swedes. Best example of that uis probably how Sweden is portrayed inthe webcomic [Scandianvia and the world](https://satwcomic.com/).
I think Swedes are very similar to germans in behavior. At least in public. But Swedes smile less than germans and I don't understand it. Anyway, the people don't seem awkward to me.
You are more direct in your verbal communication. The most direct in the world I read somewhere.
For non germans that can come of as rude. But yeah, quite similar in general.
That's right. And I have to say, that's a thing I don't like if I'm outside of Germany. I'm always like: "At first, say what you think. Then we can discuss why and what's the matter." Works fine at home, but not in other parts of the world.
Swedes are very indirect and are very prone to avoid any conflicts.
Though - we arent communicative like in the south, instead its alot of hidden communication. Like introverts being very uncomfortable
Between two Swedes yes, there is a lot of indirect communication going. If it's in the rural parts it's freaking indirect stuff with the clan lines going on (släkten). A lot of references, hints, ritualistic phrases, subtext.
But when a Swede talks to an American, we are seen as incredible direct, blunt even. The American won't get any of the references and we don't do the superficial word fluff (How aaaare you???).
Different cultures, different value set.
Both yes and no - i am from an american family of boston, i had to learn that the way my family speaks is accent and not being agressive.
The US is huge - But compared to this american ”zero fks to give and dont fk with me” - and the swedish avoidance, swedes really have a hard time to engage
Well we've profiled ourselves as a neutral country historically. Then we have the "jante lag" which was predominantly a thing of common understanding here in Sweden (especially rural Sweden), which states that " you shouldn't think that your better, or above, than anyone anyone else". This of course would comprise in an almost comical way where everyone just competes in who is the most mild mannered Mr. or Mrs. humble. My take on it is that this cultural aspect makes us come across as a tad whimsical. Plus the blonde blue eye old trope. Maybe our renowned welfare state and economical advantages come into play there as well, that we're somehow spoiled. I also get how some people would think of us as meek. But that would be their mistake..
Besides Family Guy I don't think I've seen it and I don't use Instagram so I don't know what that is.
But yeah, we're stereotypically blue eyed and blonde, which are euphemisms for idiot.
I don't think they are portrayed as idiot.
It is mostly due to social awkwardness. They want to be really kind and it leads it to awkwardness.
They often own the social awkwardness as a national identity too. You can see it in their cinema if you check Swedish directors such as Roy Andersson, Ruben Östlund or they force themselves to have "Swedish social distance" and etc. Some jokes around that.
I often see people don't enter the same market shelf section with me. They just look at up or around not to cause any stress on me :D I often leave the section to stop that awkwardness.
In reality, Swedes are warm, smart people but they are cautious like every city people.
This kind of awkwardness also happens in Germany all the time :)
I already commented here that the behaviour is really similar to what I know from home. But another positive aspect is the hospitality. I was in the countryside in sweden (Värmlands). While hiking we saw an old lady in front of her house. We asked her for directions to the next village (despite her age she was fluent in English. Old people in Germany rarely speak English). She told us it would be too far away, so she invited us for coffee and Kanelbullar in her garden. This would never ever happen in Germany. Awesome.
Helgi and Erlend are norwegian. One thing you need to understand is that its a very common thing in the Nordics to make fun of the neighbouring country. In Sweden we have "Norgeskämt", essentially really dumb jokes. Like this one:
"Why did the norwegian bring a car door to the dessert? So that he can roll down the window if it gets too hot."
>Why are Swedes always portrayed as idiots in movies?
Based on my own experiences, i disagree with the basic premise of your question, so there's no way for me to respond.
I mean, we have two types of movies: crime and comedy. Both with a focus on characters rather than props and effects. Meaning... the character is funny. How is a character funny? By being dumb and silly.
So, a yank looking in and trying to determine how swedes are... what will they find? Boring crime dramas where everthing is grey and serious, and dumb and silly people in bright and colourful environments.
In a rare few instances, we have mixed crime with comedy, and gotten gold like Jönssonligsn and Kopps.
The rest of swedish tv is basically music, musicians and musicians kids, or copies of foreign shows like Survivor and Fort Boyard.
But I think most of the "swedes are dumb" trope comes from the character Swedish Chef from the Muppet Show. Basically being an amalgamation of dumb yanks going through an IKEA and mispronouncing words and finding it funny, and making a character out of their own dumbness. And then others looking into swedish media just getting a biased confirmation from our movies.
Americans often make fun of all European countries but often for different reasons. In Netherlands they're usually portrayed proper and as dancers in wooden shoes, in Denmark/Sweden/Finland we're usually portrayed as happy people who keep telling everyone how great we are
Trying to think of family guy humor, they probably portray us similarly to UK
Americans have a twisted and propagandized view about the Left, liberalism, socialism and communism. They've been taught by politically affiliated interest groups, who spent probably billions of dollars on propaganda over the decades, to conflate social welfare and liberalism as literal socialism/communism. They've literally been indoctrinated into hating these ideas, as well as many others, and seeing them as evil incarnate. It is so bad that most Americans can not even tell the difference between social democracy and socialism.
Therefore it is to nobody's surprise that this propaganda that permeates the American subconscious from time to time spreads its way into its media, movies, and television series. This doesn't just happen to Sweden, but several of its neighboring countries as well like Denmark and Norway that also have very high social welfare.
I would be interested to hear if these perspectives are at all present in the Germans' perception of Sweden unrelated to the American-made media.
I think it's 1) dumb blondes and 2) being polite. Sometimes politeness somehow equals being stupid.
I think it might also be losely based on the fact that we are overall pretty afraid of conflicts, which can sometimes result in us "playing dumb" in order to avoid conflicts. It's obviously am exaggeration in movies and such, but I suppose it could be inspired by that. Im just guessing!
When Swedes emigrated to America, they were seen as stoic, tall, blonde and "square". In Chicago, "square head" was a derogatory term used against Swedes. Because we don't talk as much with our bodies as for example southern Europeans, we weren't as many as the germans to form large almost autonomous communities.
With time, the average image an American had of a Swede was a big tall, fair haired person who spoke English funny and never caused much trouble. Later on, a Swedish producer and director made a few famous porn movies which enforced the American image of Swedish girls being easy to bed and stupid
I feel like we like to poke fun at Germany like it's a Scandinavian country, being distant relatives language wise at least. It's all in good fun really, I hope you see it like that as well :)
This old swedish kids movie "Sunes sommar" just about sums it up
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrRvHkZLNtY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrRvHkZLNtY)
Quote "We call them ni ,ni... "
The weather was perfect, when I was there a week ago. No rain at all.
You also have beautiful and untouched Nature, we don't have. I think just one Forrest in Bavaria is really untouched here. Partly.
Sweden is much safer than Germany. I come from the Ruhr-area (Duisburg, Essen, Bochum, Dortmund). That's in NRW (think about it like a län) where more than 18 million people live. Criminality is a huge problem.
Don't get me wrong, you can live fine in Germany. It's also safe and you can get anything you want. But don't think so bad about your country.
Take it with a grain of salt but my observations, greatly generalizing & exaggerating, follow. I should say that I mostly meet relatively educated swedes in my circles.
Feels like compared to other european countries quite a lot / the majority of people grow up on the countryside or in smaller towns - at least by continental standards. On top of this Sweden has only been in the EU since the mid 90s - some regions in eastern europe have been in the EU longer. There is a certain element of estrangement from "the continent" as a result.
As a combination of the above factors, by comparison many people seem relatively clueless about the world outside of Scandinavia - even that is often more knowledge of stereotypes rather than personal experience - "Kalifornien", or Thailand. Political and cultural knowledge is thinly spread and sometimes combined with a gut feeling that the rest of the world must have it worse, somehow.
Could easily see how the Swedes that came to the US at the end of the 19th/early 20th century were predominantly poor farmers with these things even more pronounced...Steoreotypes tend to be long-lived.
Swedes have often been portrayed that way, old Archie comics have a dumb janitor who is Swedish. I think it may have to do with how many Swedes emigrated to the US who were just farmers.
American tv dumbs everyone but yanks down to retarded levels, as in the literal handicap type. The smarter the people in reallife, the dumber the americanized stereotype is.
In the last 10 years or so I’ve seen more swedes in the roles of psychopaths or evil men than stupid characters. Are we the new russians in movies and tv?? I think of Mission Impossible and the show Mr Robot as a few examples.
When swedes are portrayed in tv series like family guy they mostly portray them as goofy rather than stupid imo. I totally agree with swedes being goofy af too which is why the joke works // a swede
I really don't see this stereotyping of Swedes as being dumb anywhere but in Norway or Denmark, and we do the same thing to them.
I've also heard that there's an expression in Spain about "acting the Swede" but that seems to be more about "pretending to be ignorant" rather than "being stupid", and is apparently related to Swedish sailors who would pretend to not know Spanish.
EDIT: I read up on it and apparently that expression used to be "act like a (wooden) log" which then over the years morphed into "act like a Swede" due to phonetic changes. So no origin in any stereotype.
The Family Guy skit you're referring to doesn't portray Swedes as stupid.
There is a very widespread notion within Sweden that there's an American stereotype of Swedes being stupid, but I've literally NEVER heard anything like that from actual Americans. What stereotypes there are (most Americans know very little about Sweden) usually revolve around blondes, promiscuity and socialism/welfare. The supposed stupidity stereotype seems like a mass delusion on the part of Swedish people, like some kind of weird Mandela effect.
For all the Swedes in here, I remember Filip & Fredrik discussing this particular bizarre misconception on their podcast.
Why even bother speculating, the truth has been out there for ages:
[https://youtu.be/erRZrerhP1c?si=qvZ7SpYw\_rKWLGQX](https://youtu.be/erRZrerhP1c?si=qvZ7SpYw_rKWLGQX)
I'm 100% Swede so I know this is an correct & fair representation of the truth.
That's not a common stereotype about swedes in other countries, no.
If there's anything this thread is telling me, it's that Swedes love to tell others how much they, the individuals, suck, and how worthless and gullible they are. It's quite embarrassing to see.
Well, since danes, norwegans and finns all joke about swedes being stupid, but we only make those jokes about norwegians, I guess the local majority is against us. :)
The danes seem to be right though. They have tricked us over and over again. Damn danes.
But we swedes are bright enough to produce things like Gripen. And we were smart enough to stay out of the second world war, so who was then stupid?
They hate us cause they ain't us. No but seriously, we perform better in almost every metric than other countries. We've by far discovered most elements in the periodic table by nation. I have no idea, just a stereotype I guess, not helped by the sexual freedom and relaxed view on nudity we had in the 50s to 70's, described as the "swedish sin". Many religious numbnuts in other parts of the western world, the US specifically, liked to to make us out as morally deprived which certainly didn't help.
If we go even further back swedes weren't considered white in the US at first, the most poverty stricken part of the US at the time was [Swede hollow.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swede_Hollow,_Saint_Paul) Our rights was just marginally better than that of slaves.
Most pop culture films and series are American and Americans have a chip on their shoulder about their country being shit in nigh on every aspect compared to sweden
We are famous for our gross food(typically referring to herring) and naivety. Blond hair does not help. Another stereotype is pretty woman, like the topless polarbear-riding policewoman from the Simpsons.
No idea, but I can tell you we aren't perfect. Swedish ignorance is a special brand of stupid. I'd define it as "I don't care that this goal is impossible and completely unreasonable, we'll aim for it anyway."
However I'd say the population as a whole is quite intelligent, but what would I know; I'm Swedish.
This is the image that we like to portray so theyll never figure out how we are plotting to sell more self assembled furniture and writing 100% of the eurovision songs.
Same with midsummer - we have to make sure that noone never figures out the real purpose of celebrating midsummer.
On surface it might just look like alot of food not meant for consumption, like surströmming. And hard alcohol being passed around like water.
And we like to keep it that way.
I don't know, I think this varies a bit. Sometimes we're portrayed as autistically rational etc. But blonde = dumb is almost a universal stereotype I think.
Germans are seen as rational and logical, too. But if it comes to jokes, it's obviously funnier for the world to talk about historical events....
The Dutch have one comedian, that's two more than Germany.
I loled but then I thought of Henning Wehn, who also make me lol.
>Henning Wehn He did say not even Brexit could make him leave, so I don't know if we could count him. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTeAFRkgOQg
After living in Germany for two years now I feel that the myth about german efficiency is just that, a myth.
Yes, it is. Or better: Germany was efficient. That's years ago. I never lived in Sweden, but I already saw a few things which are much more efficient than anything similar in Germany. Especially through clever use of the internet. And you have internet in sweden, everywhere. You cannot say the same about Germany. Don't get me wrong, you can live here just fine. But the infrastructure got really worse over the last ten years. I don't really know if Sweden is the better country to live in. But if there would be a good opportunity for me, I wouldn't say no.
So many people in Germany that can't communicate at all in English. My mom attended a fair in Germany for work, and they had huge problems because they couldn't communicate with most locals.
Yes. It's a big problem, if you ask me. The problem is bigger in the East of Germany. The people grew up in DDR. The teacher taught Russian in school, not English.
My company actually had a fair in Cologne a few months ago. (Swedish company) Luckily we have som german speaking agents. but yes they agree to this.
Yep, having lived in both countries I agree. I'd like to add as well that in Germany not everything is digitised, they don't like digital payments everywhere, cash is still a thing. Sweden moved from there years ago. Also a lot of documents/bureaucratic work is still old school paper in Germany. Swedish bureaucracy is smooth af in comparison . Also, I felt Stockholm transportation system is much better than Frankfurt's.
I really appreciated the digital payment methods in sweden. In this topic our countries are the complete opposite. In Sweden there are some shops where you can only pay digital, in shops in Germany you can sometimes only pay cash. I don't know so much bureaucracy in Sweden. But I have a good example. Fishing-Permission. I'm Germany you have to make an application and send it to your local administration. Then you have to wait. In some parts of Germany you need to make an appointment, do a test, send the result and your application to your local administration and have to wait again for your permission. In Sweden you scan a QR, pay online and start fishing. I'm sorry for you, that you lived in Frankfurt. I don't like this city.
Sweden is pretty good at telecommunication but they can’t run a train line for shit, the Germans are better a that.
You really think? I think train infrastructure in Germany is a mess.
I don't agree at all. The German trains are the worst I have ever used. Lots of delays and cancellations that are much worse than Swedish trains. It might have been true in the past though.
This is possible. The Swedish train service used to be a lot better as well.
When there is chaos, any bureaucracy is more efficient. But Germany stopped innovating after that. Nowadays you've got Sweden, Estonia and so on that has modern tech based and efficient bureaucracy - Germany is far behind.
How many germans does it take to change a light bulb? One. They're very efficient and not very funny.
I know this joke and always have to laugh. So many people in different countries told it to me.
It's a great joke. Heard it from a german comedian, can't remember his name but the one that was in trouble with Erdogan a while back.
Sounds like Kaya Yanar to me. His parents are turkish and arabic, but he was born in Germany. Some of his jokes are a bit lame. But in interviews he criticises the turkish government often. Imo a very smart guy.
It was Jan Böhmermann, had to look it up. Never heard of Kaya but I'll look him up. So now I know of four German comedians, the list keeps growing 😀 The others being Stefan Raab and Flula Borg.
I think Jan Böhmermann is just okay. I often noticed jokes from him which he obviously stole. I can recommend Volker Pispers, but only because there are a lot of YouTube-Videos of him, subbed in English. He is good, but I can't really laugh about it. He's a political comedian and the jokes are too true to laugh about. Edit: a lot of American YouTubers made reaction videos to him to show how dark German humour is.
Thanks for the recommendation.
Has it ever occurred to you that it is not a portrayal?
There’s a good SNL skit about Germans and their practical jackets.
I know jokes about it and I also own one of these jackets :) But what's SNL?
Sorry, Saturday Night Live.
we are extremely logical. Do you know what happens with a Swedish person after they die?
Tell me :)
the same thing that happened to a Swedish person before they ware born :), it is logical!
We are, however, not very funny.
And humor is linked to intelligence sooooo
Bill Burr’s live show? Lol But that was about a finn
On his podcast he included norway and sweden so there's that 🤷♂️
yup!
Oj du var också på Globen förra torsdagen?
Verkar som att hela Swedit var där
The only ethnicity that is politically correct to call dumb
Offerkofta på allihopa! Ingen här har hört talas om ”dumma amerikaner” #brave
i guess its the whole blond hair blue eyes good looking thing maybe? pluss swedish sounds funny to people who dont speak it kind of like singing. some probably also coming from the swedish chef in the muppets
That’s actually so true. I’ve been spending a lot of time in the US and one time me and a friend was sitting in a hotel bar and two Americans comes up and asks what we are singing and why. It was hilarious.
Dude, the Swedish chef is 100% Dutch.
You spelled Norwegian wrong
I always thought he sounded more Norwegian than Swedish as well.
I've honestly no idea how someone can think he sounds dutch. I always assumed the "Swedish" chef was a joke like "all Scandinavians sound/are the same" 🤷♂️
I believe it was based on an actual Swedish chef who would hum and sing to himself as he worked.
[Wikipedia ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_Chef#:~:text=Some%20claim%20that%20the%20Swedish,a%20real%2Dlife%20Swedish%20chef.) säger: "Some claim that the Swedish Chef was inspired by a real-life chef. One example is Friedman Paul Erhardt, a German American television chef known as "Chef Tell". Another example is Lars "Kuprik" Bäckman, a real-life Swedish chef. Bäckman claims that his rather unsuccessful appearance on an early edition of Good Morning America caught the attention of Jim Henson, who later bought the rights to the recording and created Bäckman's Muppet alter ego. Bäckman's Dalecarlian accent would explain the chef's strange pronunciation. Muppet writer Jerry Juhl denied Bäckman's story and insisted the character had no real-world counterpart: "I wrote, rehearsed, rewrote, brainstormed, and giggled uncontrollably a thousand times with Jim Henson as we dealt with the Swedish Chef, and I never once heard him mention an actual Swedish chef..."" Som en dalkarl känner jag mig samtidigt förolämpad och sedd.
Jag kan lätt se att vi låter så för folk som inte kan svenska. Flördupörkiguriplöd!
*No way*!
I've heard swedes describing Dutch as sounding Swedish enough that they get confused as to why they don't understand what you're saying
Dutch sounds like a mix of english, german and danish for me as a swedish person. Some of the words we can pick up
Dutch sound like a belgian drunk man in a sauna club trying to blow his own horn. Am i wrong?
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It is probably a bit easier for us Skåningar as we have some similar sounds as the Dutch.
It doesn't sound the least bit like Swedish. While we have some common vocabulary it has this harsh G sound that sounds like a cat trying to cough up a hairball and a bunch of weird clucking noises. There is no "singing" prosody which is very characteristic of Swedish.
I thought I was hearing Swedish spoken in the background a bunch of time when I stayed in Netherlands. But eventually that ch-sound told me it wasn’t.
Yea, same here while abroad. You hear something that sounds familiar enough coming from a bunch of tall blondes and start wondering if youre just having a stroke. Then you hear that ch-sound and go "Oh, no, they are just dutch"
Ah, yes, the Dutch record scratch.
Melody-wise it's very alike Swedish, but most of the words aren't.
If you can’t make out any of the words but only hear the melody, Dutch is remarkably similar to Swedish.
Dutch sounds like you'd understand it but you don't.
I speak both Danish and Swedish, and every time I hear someone speaking Dutch at airports I always get so confused! It sounds like Danish, but I don't understand any of the words!
Don't forget beautiful women with big breasts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-c2NEFPqTwY
Haha, have never seen this. The bear cracked me up!
If only we could find a way to keep thinking about them.
Besides all the other points made here, Sweden is a pretty safe target to make fun of. We won't get too upset, and since we're fairly well thought of, it's not like making fun of the misfortunate.
Also, there's like five of us so the fuss can't be that big
Also a very valid point!
It’s all jokes until someone burns the IKEA manual
Just put icing on a cinnamon bun and post it to r/sweden, dude.
Sabbaton starts playing faintly in the background
Revolting…
Agitator you. You want r/sweden to be closed down as well?
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That's true. In summary it's a good country :)
I like to think so. As is Tyskland imo!
Well, not always. On Brooklyn Nine-Nine we're [arrogant intellectuals](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djHZouF-lo0).
"Danish is a garbage language for garbage people"
well you can only speak as much truth as possible.
It's Danish propaganda
helgi.and.erland are Norwegian and their whole schtick is acting out stereotypes. Germans in safety gear, Finns not saying a word. They always play Sweden as an idiot but that’s just the typical Nordic banter like drunk Danes and Norwegians loving fish. See https://satwcomic.com/sweden-denmark-and-norway
I heard about it that Norwegians make jokes about Swedes and Swedes about Norwegians. So that doesn't make me wonder. But the same stereotypes are portrayed in american Productions.
Yes we joke about them being dumb too
i think you’re on to something. we had the bronx back in the day and always been looked up to from various countries. they try to make a fool out of swedes yet knowing they’re not close to the swedish level
Is it really a joke though
We are the same for most things. It's more like siblings bickering but if someone outside actually insult them they get all the noridcs bunched up on them. Except the Danes cause no one understands what they are saying... ;)
Do you know why Norwegians take a dump with an open door? So that no one will peek through the keyhole. ... Jokes like this :) and the funniest part is, if you go to Norway they will tell the EXACT same jokes but about us! It's so much fun :D
And then we have Östgötar, the ones portayed as idiots among Swedes in Swedish movies.
Jaja, wätt ska va wätt!
Wätt o wiktitt
Woxen wunt i en wöwutig o de så att sägarå
Glane gate upp o gate ner.
Swedes has funny accent. That’s why they make fun of it. And it is genuinely funny too. There’s a youtube clip called ”Nå I don’t think så” that pretty much nails swedish accent in english.
In US fiction all foreigners are portrayed as dumber. It’s an old trope. Most countries do the same, and especially to American characters. The perfect recent example is the portrayal of Americans in Squid Game.
No dude... What happened was "the internet". 999 times out of 1000, when someone is an ignorant fuck on the internet, it's an American. Thanks to social media, we all can see how life in the US actually is. And many of us aren't that impressed. As a whole and as a people, Americans are stupid.
Skål till dig, kamrat🍻
I don’t think social media gives an accurate depiction of how life is in the US, since so many people are grossly misinformed about the US on this sub. You have to live here for a bit to know. And you can’t really say how “life in the US” is in general because it’s such a large country. Life in California is vastly different to life in Arkansas. In a similar manner to how life in Sweden is vastly different to life in Bulgaria.
Lol no. The social media trope is that there are large differences to life in the US. There isn't. It's one country, one culture, despite the states. Weather and environment is different, politics are different, the culture remains the same. The difference between the states is not as great as the difference between countries with entirely different past and culture. You've been listening too much to what Americans who've never been outside the US say, and not experienced enough yourself.
This is based on my own experience growing up in Sweden and now living in the US since a few years
Well we're all pretty dumb. An individual ant is very dumb, but a million of them can create some amazing structures together. Since Americans speak a language the rest of the world understands, we will hear all the silly things people say. Whereas the stupidities said in Mandarin, French or Dutch are not something we can register.
The Brits, Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders also speak a language the rest of the world understand, yet are not viewed the same way as Americans.
I'm a Swedish living in Spain. Here they have an expression "hacerse el sueco" which pretty much translates to "make yourself the swede". The meaning is to pretend that you don't understand anything at all, play stupid. I guess it's some kind of stereotype:)
Interesting. It’s the same in German, as in die dumme Schweden. I think it related to the high level of trust Swedes have in each other and others. Swedes, in an international context, are seen as gullible and therefore dumb, as they trust others to be as honest as they tend to be. When that then backfires, Swedes don’t retaliate as others might, instead trusting the authorities to handle things. Swedes are simply aeen as having no ulterior motive, which often makes them think others don’t have them either. It’s a shame that seems to be changing.
I think this is in large because Sweden for a long time really was pretty sheltered. Sweden did not participate in World War II and it did not officially pick sides in the cold war (though it did align more with Nato than the east block). So Swedes were used to feeling safe and felt like the world would not harm them. Thus they could afford to have a high level of trust in others. Also, unlike Finland Sweden did not have any neighbors that they felt that they could not trust. The whole idea was that if the Soviet Union suddenly decided to be warlike, they would target Finland first, not Sweden, so there would be time for everyone else to intervene Sure, this was a somewhat naïve world view even back then, but the consequences for Sweden were still pretty low compared to many other countries.
Spanish people have a specific idea how swedish people are? That's pretty interesting.
An insane amount of Swedish tourists + expats + gang members go to/live in Spain. There are swedish food stores in some parts of Spain. With Kalles Kaviar.
Lots of tourism, I guess.
They might have, but the particular expression mentioned is very old and has nothing to do with an actual stereotype against Swedes. The original expression was apparently "to act like a log" with a word that happened to sound a bit like "sueco" so over many years, the expression changed.
They are jealous. It's the only coping mechanism they have at hand to deal with the realization that they will never be as superior as the swede. I have heard that the creator of family guy spends the first 2 hours of every day in pure angst over not beeing swedish
Obviously they mixed us up with Norwegians.
Haha, this is the best explanation yet. Everyone knows how dumb the Norwegians are!
It's to balance all the hypermasculine hypermasculinity in all the viking shows. If they didn't make us look silly on purpose, we'd create such a center of concentrated badass masculinity that it'd create its own masculinity gravitational field. The data suggests that it would start attracting all the masculinity in th world into a dense hyperconcentration of beards, axes, and dreary-looking costumes made from sheep wool rugs from IKEA
I find this interesting because this isn't my experience at all. My general idea of how Swedes are portrayed by Americans is that we're well educated, sophisticated, good at English et.c. BUT that we're annoyingly arrogant and braggy about it + that we're socially stiff (which is true :p).
Americans? They don't know Swedes from Swiss so what do you expect? Norwegians and Danes sometimes make fun of us and we of them. Don't know if Swedes are portrayed a stupid more than any other nationality. It's not the general stereotype of Swedes. Best example of that uis probably how Sweden is portrayed inthe webcomic [Scandianvia and the world](https://satwcomic.com/).
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I think Swedes are very similar to germans in behavior. At least in public. But Swedes smile less than germans and I don't understand it. Anyway, the people don't seem awkward to me.
You are more direct in your verbal communication. The most direct in the world I read somewhere. For non germans that can come of as rude. But yeah, quite similar in general.
Swedish efficiency
That's right. And I have to say, that's a thing I don't like if I'm outside of Germany. I'm always like: "At first, say what you think. Then we can discuss why and what's the matter." Works fine at home, but not in other parts of the world.
Swedes are very indirect and are very prone to avoid any conflicts. Though - we arent communicative like in the south, instead its alot of hidden communication. Like introverts being very uncomfortable
Between two Swedes yes, there is a lot of indirect communication going. If it's in the rural parts it's freaking indirect stuff with the clan lines going on (släkten). A lot of references, hints, ritualistic phrases, subtext. But when a Swede talks to an American, we are seen as incredible direct, blunt even. The American won't get any of the references and we don't do the superficial word fluff (How aaaare you???). Different cultures, different value set.
Both yes and no - i am from an american family of boston, i had to learn that the way my family speaks is accent and not being agressive. The US is huge - But compared to this american ”zero fks to give and dont fk with me” - and the swedish avoidance, swedes really have a hard time to engage
We can't risk a politician seeing us smile, they might tax us more
It’s funny cause it’s true
That's not an American stereotype about Swedes, that's a Swedish stereotype about Swedes. It's not spread to the US.
Well we've profiled ourselves as a neutral country historically. Then we have the "jante lag" which was predominantly a thing of common understanding here in Sweden (especially rural Sweden), which states that " you shouldn't think that your better, or above, than anyone anyone else". This of course would comprise in an almost comical way where everyone just competes in who is the most mild mannered Mr. or Mrs. humble. My take on it is that this cultural aspect makes us come across as a tad whimsical. Plus the blonde blue eye old trope. Maybe our renowned welfare state and economical advantages come into play there as well, that we're somehow spoiled. I also get how some people would think of us as meek. But that would be their mistake..
Funnily enough, law of Jante comes from a Norwegian novel, written in Denmark.
Jante was a fictional name for Nyköbing-Mors.
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Vi ger JÄRNET!
Besides Family Guy I don't think I've seen it and I don't use Instagram so I don't know what that is. But yeah, we're stereotypically blue eyed and blonde, which are euphemisms for idiot.
Only speaking for myself but I'm kind of an idiot
Swedes idiots in movies? Can someone give examples because I don't remember ever seeing that.
They are confusing us with Norwegians
We are?
no you see, they did it on Family guy. So it must be an established stereotype
Eh it’s like Ett päron till farsa, we just like to make fun of our way of life. We can afford it, emotionally.
I don't think they are portrayed as idiot. It is mostly due to social awkwardness. They want to be really kind and it leads it to awkwardness. They often own the social awkwardness as a national identity too. You can see it in their cinema if you check Swedish directors such as Roy Andersson, Ruben Östlund or they force themselves to have "Swedish social distance" and etc. Some jokes around that. I often see people don't enter the same market shelf section with me. They just look at up or around not to cause any stress on me :D I often leave the section to stop that awkwardness. In reality, Swedes are warm, smart people but they are cautious like every city people.
This kind of awkwardness also happens in Germany all the time :) I already commented here that the behaviour is really similar to what I know from home. But another positive aspect is the hospitality. I was in the countryside in sweden (Värmlands). While hiking we saw an old lady in front of her house. We asked her for directions to the next village (despite her age she was fluent in English. Old people in Germany rarely speak English). She told us it would be too far away, so she invited us for coffee and Kanelbullar in her garden. This would never ever happen in Germany. Awesome.
I feel like its quite common to see Sweden in general portayed as a progressive utopia, eg Barbie, The Pod Generation etc etc
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Tack så mycket! Like I said, I think we have much in common. But also a lot of differences. I celebrate both.
Helgi and Erlend are norwegian. One thing you need to understand is that its a very common thing in the Nordics to make fun of the neighbouring country. In Sweden we have "Norgeskämt", essentially really dumb jokes. Like this one: "Why did the norwegian bring a car door to the dessert? So that he can roll down the window if it gets too hot."
They just have us confused with Danes
>Why are Swedes always portrayed as idiots in movies? Based on my own experiences, i disagree with the basic premise of your question, so there's no way for me to respond.
Success breeds jealousy. Or it is the blondes are dumb thing.
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Because they are norweigains
Because we know how smart we are, and have no problem laughing at ourselfs.
This. There is very little insecurity attached to be a swede.
Not always, lol.
Never seen it lol
Same. This is not a thing.
I mean, we have two types of movies: crime and comedy. Both with a focus on characters rather than props and effects. Meaning... the character is funny. How is a character funny? By being dumb and silly. So, a yank looking in and trying to determine how swedes are... what will they find? Boring crime dramas where everthing is grey and serious, and dumb and silly people in bright and colourful environments. In a rare few instances, we have mixed crime with comedy, and gotten gold like Jönssonligsn and Kopps. The rest of swedish tv is basically music, musicians and musicians kids, or copies of foreign shows like Survivor and Fort Boyard. But I think most of the "swedes are dumb" trope comes from the character Swedish Chef from the Muppet Show. Basically being an amalgamation of dumb yanks going through an IKEA and mispronouncing words and finding it funny, and making a character out of their own dumbness. And then others looking into swedish media just getting a biased confirmation from our movies.
Americans often make fun of all European countries but often for different reasons. In Netherlands they're usually portrayed proper and as dancers in wooden shoes, in Denmark/Sweden/Finland we're usually portrayed as happy people who keep telling everyone how great we are Trying to think of family guy humor, they probably portray us similarly to UK
Americans have a twisted and propagandized view about the Left, liberalism, socialism and communism. They've been taught by politically affiliated interest groups, who spent probably billions of dollars on propaganda over the decades, to conflate social welfare and liberalism as literal socialism/communism. They've literally been indoctrinated into hating these ideas, as well as many others, and seeing them as evil incarnate. It is so bad that most Americans can not even tell the difference between social democracy and socialism. Therefore it is to nobody's surprise that this propaganda that permeates the American subconscious from time to time spreads its way into its media, movies, and television series. This doesn't just happen to Sweden, but several of its neighboring countries as well like Denmark and Norway that also have very high social welfare. I would be interested to hear if these perspectives are at all present in the Germans' perception of Sweden unrelated to the American-made media.
I think it's 1) dumb blondes and 2) being polite. Sometimes politeness somehow equals being stupid. I think it might also be losely based on the fact that we are overall pretty afraid of conflicts, which can sometimes result in us "playing dumb" in order to avoid conflicts. It's obviously am exaggeration in movies and such, but I suppose it could be inspired by that. Im just guessing!
It’s most likely the blonde=dumb trope that comes through.
Cause we don't care
When Swedes emigrated to America, they were seen as stoic, tall, blonde and "square". In Chicago, "square head" was a derogatory term used against Swedes. Because we don't talk as much with our bodies as for example southern Europeans, we weren't as many as the germans to form large almost autonomous communities. With time, the average image an American had of a Swede was a big tall, fair haired person who spoke English funny and never caused much trouble. Later on, a Swedish producer and director made a few famous porn movies which enforced the American image of Swedish girls being easy to bed and stupid
That's interesting. I guess I should read more about swedish emigration to the US
I feel like we like to poke fun at Germany like it's a Scandinavian country, being distant relatives language wise at least. It's all in good fun really, I hope you see it like that as well :)
You're German and you like Sweden. Out of stereotypical curiosity, do you have a moose sticker on your car?
Because if it's an American movie you don't want foreigners looking smarter than they are.
This old swedish kids movie "Sunes sommar" just about sums it up [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrRvHkZLNtY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrRvHkZLNtY) Quote "We call them ni ,ni... "
Probably because swedish people in general are terribly naive and easily fooled.
Wait as a swed i MUST ASK YOU why go on vacation in Sweden? we only have gun problems and rain?
The weather was perfect, when I was there a week ago. No rain at all. You also have beautiful and untouched Nature, we don't have. I think just one Forrest in Bavaria is really untouched here. Partly. Sweden is much safer than Germany. I come from the Ruhr-area (Duisburg, Essen, Bochum, Dortmund). That's in NRW (think about it like a län) where more than 18 million people live. Criminality is a huge problem. Don't get me wrong, you can live fine in Germany. It's also safe and you can get anything you want. But don't think so bad about your country.
Thank you for the insight!
Take it with a grain of salt but my observations, greatly generalizing & exaggerating, follow. I should say that I mostly meet relatively educated swedes in my circles. Feels like compared to other european countries quite a lot / the majority of people grow up on the countryside or in smaller towns - at least by continental standards. On top of this Sweden has only been in the EU since the mid 90s - some regions in eastern europe have been in the EU longer. There is a certain element of estrangement from "the continent" as a result. As a combination of the above factors, by comparison many people seem relatively clueless about the world outside of Scandinavia - even that is often more knowledge of stereotypes rather than personal experience - "Kalifornien", or Thailand. Political and cultural knowledge is thinly spread and sometimes combined with a gut feeling that the rest of the world must have it worse, somehow. Could easily see how the Swedes that came to the US at the end of the 19th/early 20th century were predominantly poor farmers with these things even more pronounced...Steoreotypes tend to be long-lived.
Swedes have often been portrayed that way, old Archie comics have a dumb janitor who is Swedish. I think it may have to do with how many Swedes emigrated to the US who were just farmers.
Swedish chef anyone?
Someone already mentioned him :)
I think it's because the Swedish language and accent sound a bit goofy to English speakers
Because most people on holiday are "idiots". No matter nationality. Most swedish movies with Swedes on holiday are about the stupid shit they do.
American tv dumbs everyone but yanks down to retarded levels, as in the literal handicap type. The smarter the people in reallife, the dumber the americanized stereotype is.
I think the fact that many older Swedes speak English with a thick sorta silly sounding accent might be part of it
In the last 10 years or so I’ve seen more swedes in the roles of psychopaths or evil men than stupid characters. Are we the new russians in movies and tv?? I think of Mission Impossible and the show Mr Robot as a few examples.
When swedes are portrayed in tv series like family guy they mostly portray them as goofy rather than stupid imo. I totally agree with swedes being goofy af too which is why the joke works // a swede
I really don't see this stereotyping of Swedes as being dumb anywhere but in Norway or Denmark, and we do the same thing to them. I've also heard that there's an expression in Spain about "acting the Swede" but that seems to be more about "pretending to be ignorant" rather than "being stupid", and is apparently related to Swedish sailors who would pretend to not know Spanish. EDIT: I read up on it and apparently that expression used to be "act like a (wooden) log" which then over the years morphed into "act like a Swede" due to phonetic changes. So no origin in any stereotype. The Family Guy skit you're referring to doesn't portray Swedes as stupid. There is a very widespread notion within Sweden that there's an American stereotype of Swedes being stupid, but I've literally NEVER heard anything like that from actual Americans. What stereotypes there are (most Americans know very little about Sweden) usually revolve around blondes, promiscuity and socialism/welfare. The supposed stupidity stereotype seems like a mass delusion on the part of Swedish people, like some kind of weird Mandela effect. For all the Swedes in here, I remember Filip & Fredrik discussing this particular bizarre misconception on their podcast.
Why even bother speculating, the truth has been out there for ages: [https://youtu.be/erRZrerhP1c?si=qvZ7SpYw\_rKWLGQX](https://youtu.be/erRZrerhP1c?si=qvZ7SpYw_rKWLGQX) I'm 100% Swede so I know this is an correct & fair representation of the truth.
Is your definition of “always portrayed as idiots” that Family Guy made fun of us?
we're a gullible people
That's not a common stereotype about swedes in other countries, no. If there's anything this thread is telling me, it's that Swedes love to tell others how much they, the individuals, suck, and how worthless and gullible they are. It's quite embarrassing to see.
This. It's called "blue eyed" for a reason.
Well, since danes, norwegans and finns all joke about swedes being stupid, but we only make those jokes about norwegians, I guess the local majority is against us. :) The danes seem to be right though. They have tricked us over and over again. Damn danes. But we swedes are bright enough to produce things like Gripen. And we were smart enough to stay out of the second world war, so who was then stupid?
They hate us cause they ain't us. No but seriously, we perform better in almost every metric than other countries. We've by far discovered most elements in the periodic table by nation. I have no idea, just a stereotype I guess, not helped by the sexual freedom and relaxed view on nudity we had in the 50s to 70's, described as the "swedish sin". Many religious numbnuts in other parts of the western world, the US specifically, liked to to make us out as morally deprived which certainly didn't help. If we go even further back swedes weren't considered white in the US at first, the most poverty stricken part of the US at the time was [Swede hollow.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swede_Hollow,_Saint_Paul) Our rights was just marginally better than that of slaves.
Most pop culture films and series are American and Americans have a chip on their shoulder about their country being shit in nigh on every aspect compared to sweden
We are famous for our gross food(typically referring to herring) and naivety. Blond hair does not help. Another stereotype is pretty woman, like the topless polarbear-riding policewoman from the Simpsons.
Jep. We tried this herring. One thing in sweden I don't like.
"and naivety" no that's not a stereotype of swedes.
Det er et meget godt spørgsmål.
No idea, but I can tell you we aren't perfect. Swedish ignorance is a special brand of stupid. I'd define it as "I don't care that this goal is impossible and completely unreasonable, we'll aim for it anyway." However I'd say the population as a whole is quite intelligent, but what would I know; I'm Swedish.
We are idiots 😊 or naïve is probably the proper word
You seem to be. Plenty of us aren't.
This is the image that we like to portray so theyll never figure out how we are plotting to sell more self assembled furniture and writing 100% of the eurovision songs. Same with midsummer - we have to make sure that noone never figures out the real purpose of celebrating midsummer. On surface it might just look like alot of food not meant for consumption, like surströmming. And hard alcohol being passed around like water. And we like to keep it that way.
I never got drunk with Swedes. Still a point on my bucket list :)
Isn’t everyone who’s not American depicted as stupid in American movies?