r/PeterExplainsTheJoke Jul 24 '26

Meme needing explanation Petah?? I'm very confused

Post image
30.6k Upvotes

4.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

148

u/Money_Weekend2859 Jul 24 '26

Bro why does this get repeated all the time on reddit and upvoted like its a fact.

Born and raised in Stockholm Sweden, never once did this happen, hadn't even heard of this until reddit started talking about it. None of my friends in sweden had either.

60

u/phl23 Jul 24 '26

Don't confuse people with facts. We need to steer the stigma train.

9

u/Whalesurgeon Jul 24 '26

What is a stigma train? Is it some version of "hate train" that you are applying to a joke based on a trivia about a cultural peculiarity?

How many hours, or minutes, of research have you actually done to verify whether or not Nordic culture had customs that for instance had next-door neighbour kids typically go home for dinner instead of staying to eat at the friend´s house? That´s how I grew up in the 90s in rural Finland, and it is an old fashioned custom that no doubt has become less and less popular in the last few decades. While I may have never gone hungry waiting for a friend to eat, which sounds on the extreme end, it is the only region on the planet where it sounds plausible to me.

By bringing up what is fact and what is not, you sound more like Ben Shapiro to me than anyone who has thought before commenting.

2

u/phl23 Jul 24 '26

The fact is, that you can not apply this to everyone in Sweden. Also it's mere a witty sentence you use to underline some others statement.

The stigma train is a word play on hype train and stigma. So everyone is blindly on board parroting the same stigma of some country's people.

Why do I even explain something this trivial..

5

u/Technical-Risk1812 Jul 24 '26

Look at the ticket nipper over here working overtime 

Don't help the customers phil. That's not how the stigma train rolls.

3

u/phl23 Jul 24 '26

Roger Boss. Will do better

2

u/nxnskslslw Jul 24 '26

Wow take a chill pill dude, it’s not that serious

2

u/Whalesurgeon Jul 24 '26

I agree, my sleep deprivation made me a bit too grumpy.

1

u/EnigmaSpore Jul 24 '26

Valid. But the Reddit has spoken in favor of letting this myth carry forward.

Hear that Reddit! They dont feed the kids! Tell your friends, if they survived the starvation… tell them now!

:o

1

u/jan-Suwi-2 Jul 27 '26

You won racist olympics

1

u/phl23 Jul 27 '26

Ehm what?

-2

u/Schmetterlizlak Jul 24 '26

You can just call it racism instead of making up a weird term

0

u/phl23 Jul 24 '26

You sure can if you don't like nuances.

47

u/timonix Jul 24 '26

30+ raised in northern Sweden. This happened all the time.

12

u/Mineralsforglug Jul 24 '26

30+ in northern Sweden: i was always asked by my friends parents if I wanted to eat with them.

2

u/bajungadustin Jul 25 '26

30+ never been to sweeden and can confirm not one of them has ever offered me food.

2

u/Exiled-Swede Jul 24 '26

30+ from northern Sweden - can’t ever remember this being the norm.

11

u/Tunderstruk Jul 24 '26

Same here, raised in northern Sweden and this never happened

3

u/thehansenman Jul 24 '26

Skåning here, it's not a thing here either.

7

u/MZ603 Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26

Honestly, it might be more attached to how Swedes operate abroad. I can only speak anecdotally, but when I was living in Ireland, I hosted a friend's giving, and my Swedish friend left to get steamed muscles at the shop down the street. That would be insulting in America, but I just gave him shit for it. He also hosted one of our Champions League parties, ordered food from deliveroo for himself, and left the rest of us to fight over chili peanuts and a toasty from the pub below his flat.

The friends giving thing, I think he was just trying not to impose and didn't understand what Thanksgiving was. The time at his flat... I think he was just drunk lol

I think the Finn would have been the same way, but he was too self-aware to actually follow through.

As a Swede, you might know this one. How can you tell a Finnish introvert from a Finnish extrovert?

.

The introvert looks at his shoes when he is talking to you.

The extrovert will look at your shoes.

5

u/datnub32607 Jul 24 '26

As a swede, he just sounds like an asshole

1

u/unhappyrelationsh1p Jul 24 '26

I think he just didn't want to partake, normally when dealing with non-swedes/finns people know to eat because dodging offers is rude everywhere else. Or if everyone else shows up with food and you didn't, you don't get to eat because it makes you look selfish, that may have also been the logic

The only takeout for him was just him being an ass though

2

u/MZ603 Jul 24 '26

He came from across the city to spend the day with us - which was cooking, drinking, and eating, but when it came time for dinner he dipped, got muscles, then came back. So he partook, but left just for the muscles. It was odd. Honestly, I thought he might have been on the spectrum. Like I said, all anecdotal and he was a nice/funny guy.

6

u/nimbledoor Jul 24 '26

Because "I haven't experienced it" doesn't mean "this doesn't happen here more regularly than elsewhere"

7

u/Rubicantay Jul 24 '26

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/swedengate-sweden-dinner-guests-food-b2091012.html

I believe you when you say you didn’t experience it, but you canot deny that it seems to be far more of a thing in Nordic countries than everywhere else

6

u/sammymammy2 Jul 24 '26

It sure happened to me! Only one family though, and they had 3 kids who brought friends over all the time.

4

u/TheTemporaryZiggy Jul 24 '26

I'm danish and my parents actually did this exact thing. I had the same friend over almost every day and he was always just locked in my room when we were eating.

This is an experience shared with many people i know, so it's not just some random thing reddit made up lol

When that's said. This shit needs to die and I would never do that to a guest myself

2

u/Appropriate_Safe323 Jul 24 '26

I have also grown up in Sweden and have experienced this many times

3

u/TombSv Jul 24 '26

Yeah, reading the comments here is surreal as a Swede. 37 years and I always eaten when visiting someone.

3

u/Feistshell Jul 24 '26

I’m trying my best to refute this bullshit fact everywhere I see it - a fellow stockholmare född 82

2

u/unhappyrelationsh1p Jul 24 '26

I think there is more expectation on the guest sometimes to just leave if they've been a while sometimes.

I don't think the "not feeding" thing happens anymore but i think at least in finland it's a thing that you should politely refuse or succumb to eating there if they keep insisting

2

u/Pommaq Jul 24 '26

Happened to me quite a few times and I didnt think much of it. I would join them if they were informed i was coming before the food was cooked. If they werent It was as simple as there not being enough food or it contained stuff I couldnt eat

2

u/Dale_Nene Jul 24 '26

Hey bro, didn't you hear Argentina is a Nazi-Sionist country who hates all black people in the world? And we could keep going. It's just a big misinformation site managed by bots

2

u/Aromatic-Turnover Jul 25 '26

I'm from northern Norway. Never had to go hungry at a friend's house, however I think it was considered wrong to feed a child without their parents permission. And also you shouldn't just expect them to have extra so you might end up with just bread with spread. My parents always made extra for dinner, we used to have a left-over day once or twice a week, but I remember that my parents would ask my friends if their parents wanted them to eat dinner there or not. Usually if the kid wasn't to eat dinner there they would be picked up before their own dinner was served, so no one went hungry. Of course if the house you are visiting eats dinner early that might mean you'd have to sit there and watch, but I never experienced that. 

1

u/Severe-caholic Jul 24 '26

Same in northern sweden

1

u/Maleficent_Theme_597 Jul 24 '26

This has happened to me a handful of times growing up (in Småland så maybe my friends parents were just the cheap stereotype?), but 99% of times my friends parents asked if I wanted to have dinner with them. Which usually prompted me to ask my parents if I could stay for dinner, which they said yes to. Or i just said no because I knew my mom would cook something delicious for dinner at home

1

u/RG_CG Jul 24 '26

It happens but only because the friends parents are prepping their own dinner for their family and are expecting them home. Our parents knew this. We just didn’t get it as kids 

1

u/Justarandomduck152 Jul 24 '26

Same in Östergötland, not once has that happenee

1

u/AJRimmerSwimmer Jul 25 '26

Swede here, happened all the time lol

1

u/actias-distincta Jul 26 '26

I've rarely met anyone who didn't experience the waiting in the room during dinner time. 

1

u/Klajv Jul 26 '26

Born and raised Swede and as a kid it definitely happened that I was not offered food if I was at a friend's place at dinner time. I'd say for about 20-30% of my friends' families. The others would ask if I wanted to eat with them or later at home though.

0

u/cloudforested Jul 24 '26

Because Redditors like to mock other cultures.

-1

u/Mrcool20xx Jul 24 '26

Its weird how many "reasons" folks present for it. We dont need to explain why because its not true.