An essential part of any German person’s life is the consumption of huge amounts of audio-visual media. Actually, German people quickly experience a feeling of uneasiness when they are not able to consume audio-visual media for a prolonged period of time. In their constant battle to become more interesting to other people, they are putting a massive effort into being “in the know” about the latest music or movie trends from all over the world. Hence, any German person is required to be seen at a record store and / or specialist DVD rental shop at least 3-4 times a week. There, they will try to become friends with the staff, who are considered “elite” for their deep knowledge about that new project by Sufjan Stevens on limited vinyl or imported Korean “Film Noir” box-sets from the 80s. To be friends with the staff both enables them to 1-up other German people and have early access to new stock their peers haven’t had a chance to buy yet.

You might have noticed that whenever you visit a German person’s apartment, they are playing some indie music, surfing IMDb, or watching an underground movie on their DivX-enabled DVD player. Often, everything at the same time. If you surprise-visit a German person, he / she will be likely to quickly apologize for the lack of background audio-visual entertainment and play some newly acquired songs from their huge iTunes library or put some obscure vinyl record on their Technics 1210 turntable (a staple in German households). You will notice that the German person will never play the radio, as almost all radio is linked to “the wrong type of German”. An exception is sometimes made for specialist, independent music programming or talk radio like the “Deutschlandfunk” station, which German people revere for the “great journalism it holds up”.

In order to earn the respect of a German person, you should try to show a genuine interest in his / her audio-visual media collection. The German person will be pleased to tell you a long, complicated story about each of his acquisitions and can easily fill a whole evening showing you his new favorite scenes. However predictable and bland that German person’s audio-visual library is, you must maintain an awestruck expression at any time, as if you are blown away by the level of cultural knowledge this German person has, even if you’re actually fighting sleep. If you can’t take anymore, ask the German person to show you their book collection. This is usually quite small and manageable, as most books a German person owns are about bands, movies, or design.

Unless you live in a nice new building or your neighborhood is too remote to be comfortably traveled to by bike, it is likely that your German acquaintances will visit your place once in a while. German people love to have friends from “abroad” teach them about the audio-visual media of their respective country, so they can appear more interesting to other Germans for their knowledge about foreign cultures. It is mandatory for you to be ready to provide them with an extensive library of edgy and underground audio-visual material from your home country, which you must keep loosely organized in a few IKEA Expedit shelves. Don’t take this job easy - German people love to appear versed in foreign cultures and if you don’t put a lot of time into researching what audio-visual media to show to them, it is likely that they will already have seen or heard it, or worse yet, have read some bad reviews in their favorite cool review magazine. This could mean that you will lose any respect earned so far, and send you back to square one of the “blend wiz ze Germans” game. Mind you, square one is usually only inhabited by 40-something African guys who work for city cleaning and overweight tourists from the mid-western USA.

Do not, by all means, admit that you are not particularly interested in audio-visual media at all. For Germans, this is considered a trait of evil, sinister people, even more evil and sinister than Adolf Hitler who at least had a huge Wagner collection in quirky, “old skool” vinyl format. So, be careful to never be seen sitting around with no music playing in the background. German people will instantly associate you with some crazy serial killer from a “Miike Takashi” DVD they have seen lately, where the crazy killer guy also sat around in a quiet room a lot. Your social life will be over for good, and you will probably “get the voicemail box” a lot when trying to call your German acquaintances.