Swedish People Don't Feed Their Guests / #SwedenGate

Submission 17,069

About

Swedish People Don't Feed Their Guests refers to a viral debate surrounding the cultural custom of Swedish people not necessarily sharing their meals with their guests, especially unexpected visitors. Spawned by a Reddit comment that was later retweeted, the debate went viral on Twitter as it spawned jokes and memes, later developing into a larger discussion around the hashtag #SwedenGate.

Origin

On May 26th, 2022, Redditor^[1] sebastian25525 created a thread in the /r/askreddit subreddit in which they asked others to share the weirdest things they had to do at someone else's house because of their culture or religion. In the thread, Redditor^[2] Wowimatard replied with a story about how he, as a child, was not invited to eat with the others at his Swedish friend's house, but instead left to wait in the room. In the same thread, Redditor^[3] TeaRaveler shared a similar story about not being invited to breakfast at his friend's house. The replies received over 30,700 and 13,800 upvotes in five days, respectively.

Later on May 26th, 2022, Twitter^[4] user @SamQari posted a screenshot of Wowimatard and TeaRaveler's replies, with the tweet gaining over 21,200 retweets, 27,600 quote tweets and 127,300 likes in five days (screenshot and tweet shown below, left and right).

Spread

While posted on May 26th, 2022, the thread did not go viral until May 28th. On that day, several Swedish users on Twitter replied to the post, describing the phenomenon as a normal occurrence in Sweden, particularly when the guests are unexpected. Other users proceeded to roast the replies^[5]^[6]^[7] (several humorous exchanges are shown below), further promoting awareness of the custom.

On May 28th, Twitter^[8] user @sighyam posted the earliest found viral meme based on the post, a video caption meme that gained over 6,900 retweets and 45,400 likes in three days (shown below).

On May 29th, 2022, Twitter^[9] user @lovettejallow created a thread about the custom, sharing her personal experience growing up as a kid in Sweden (shown below). The first tweet received over 5,000 retweets and 58,800 likes prior to the account being set to private.

In late May 2022, the phenomenon became a subject of jokes and memes as users shared them online, primarily on Twitter. Additionally, the discussion developed into a larger #SwedenGate discussion pertaining to Sweden's historic role in colonialism.^[10]^[11]