Tropes/Germans Love David Hasselhoff

Something is inexplicably very popular outside its birth nation. Perhaps far more than within.

(Laconic description)

Anime & Manga

 * Since the 1990s, Anime became very popular in Labligary.

Video Games

 * PC gaming is popular in Yablaria, Landincastan, Las Laticia and Riraland since the 2000s.
 * Nintendo Switch is popular in Riraland, Landincastan and Tinnesia.
 * Sega Mega Drive is pretty much synonymous with the 16-bit era in Haclosia, Kedikerto and Labligary. In contrast, Super Nintendo is virtually unknown to everyone other than retro gaming geeks and the very few rich kids who had it back in the day.
 * Meanwhile in Landincastan, Las Laticia and Riraland, Super Nintendo is more popular than Mega Drive.
 * When The Sims 2 released, The Sims series is a big hit in Riraland.
 * Minecraft is very popular in Riraland.
 * Pop'n Music series and Cookie Run are very popular in Labligary.
 * Animal Crossing series is a big hit in Tinnesia.
 * PaRappa the Rapper is the same way in Danuvia, to the point a statue of him was erected on the Danube embankment in Felvigrad, in front of the Parliament building, and another in the Danuvian Video Game Museum.
 * Brawl Stars is a huge hit in Patagonia, specifically the Antarctic Territory and Oshovia.
 * Pokémon enjoys popularity in Brittany. Even to this day, the game, and corresponding anime, are synonymous with the younger generations in Brittany. Ask any Breton kid about what his/her favorite toy is, and (s)he'll likely respond with a Pikachu plush or a Pokéball.
 * This got to a point where the Pokémon fan community in Brittany in conjunction with SWB created their own cartoon, namely An Labouradeg Pokémon.
 * As with Pokémon above, Friday Night Funkin' became insanely popular in Brittany within two months of the game's release. A Breton-language version of the game, An Nozvezh Kanañ Brezel was eventually developed and published in June 2021.
 * The Mitchell van Morgan series was developed by MTM Interactive in North Carolina. However, it became quite popular in Japan, probably because of the anime-inspired art style in the publicity materials.

Live-Action TV

 * Japanese tokusatsu is extremely popular in Russia, especially Super Sentai and Kamen Rider (which are known by their localized names of “Сюпер Сентай” and “Камен Райдер”). It gets to the point that the Western-localized adaptations such as Power Rangers are officially confirmed by TV network ViD (which airs a lot of toku) as No Export For You status.

Networks

 * Despite Haclosia and Kedikerto isn't Malaysian territories, RTM, Media Prima, and Astro are gaining attention in these countries and it can be found in cable and satellite television providers in Haclosia and Kedikerto.
 * Cartoon Network and Disney Channel are both successful US-originated kids channels in Xutrijan, while Nickelodeon is almost dead-last in kids' television.

Technology

 * Commodore 64 and Amiga were popular in Riraland.
 * VHS was hugely popular in Riraland.

Toys

 * The Transformers toy line is extremely popular in Danuvia.

Internet

 * Online shopping is very popular in Xutrijan while online shopping is batting with retailers in Haclosia and Riraland.
 * WhatsApp is popular in Catrari but Kairocord then Discord is popular in Riraland.
 * While Neocities was created and is still based in the United States, it is extremely popular in Russia (and, to a lesser extent, other parts of Eastern Europe, as well as Russian-speaking areas of Canada), to the point where it has overtaken simpler-to-use sites such as Wix and Carrd. Since HTML code and tags are all-Latin-alphabet (specifically, heavily-abbreviated English), this means combination Cyrillic/Latin keyboards, which had became a niche item due to the rise of “Punycode” domain names, became big again, to the point where keyboard manufacturers started making gaming versions, for these who want to both code HTML and play video games.
 * While the Internet was invented in El Kadsre and Switzerland, it reached popularity in the United States in the late-1990s when it went beyond CERN and “vlokboxes”.
 * Micronesia has the most internet users per capita in the world. It’s a relatively small (but huge if you count territorial water) country, and it was introduced to the internet before the States were, through El Kadsreian companies looking to expand their market share. The result: 99% of Micronesians have some form of internet connection (satellite, dial-up “cheapnet”, or in more populated areas, DSL or fibre). Micronesia is known as the “World Capital of Hackers”, with both cybercriminals and online vigilantes operating out of the nation; one of the most notable vigilantes, a young woman going by the online handle “Bastet”, has met with American Presidents, British Royalty and Prime Ministers, and El Kadsreian heads of state. It helps that the only things that are downright illegal in Micronesia are things like child porn and bestiality.
 * Recursively, the free domains offered by the Micronesian government under .tk, which is an ISO code reserved for the “stamp issuing area” of Tokelau, have gained popularity in the Internet’s homeland of El Kadsre.
 * YTMND managed to retain its popularity and distinct meme (fad) culture throughout the rise of YouTube and VidSpace. But it can be said that Japanese-speaking internet users (from the Japanese States of the USA, western half of Kozankyo, the El Kadsreian archipelago, and other Japanese-speaking regions) helped that. NicoNico OTOMAD culture has influenced western YTMND culture, and vice-versa.
 * YTMND has also gained popularity in the EU, and “Global South” countries such as Brazil, Latin America, and India. It helps that YTMND is centred around music/image juxtapositions, and both music and photography transcend language barriers.
 * YTMND is especially popular in aforementioned Micronesia. You look at the Micronesian music charts, and a lot of it is YTMND-associated music (or YTMND-adjacent music, like anime OPs used in OTOMADs, SoundClown music, and whatever SiivaGunner is currently incorporating into “high-quality rips”).

Sports

 * Soccer is the most popular sport in Catrari except Las Laticia.
 * While soccer is Europe's most popular sport, Danuvians prefer baseball over soccer (which they still cherish regardless of that).

Restaurants and Food

 * Pumper Nic, the long-gone Argentine fast-food chain, lives on in Riraland.
 * The Israeli dairy snack pudding Milky, produced by the Strauss corporation, is incredibly popular in Labligary.
 * After Tinnesian Revolution of 1999, Indonesian instant noodle, Indomie is popular in Tinnesia.
 * This is led to opening of Tinnesian Indomie factory in 2003.

Game Shows

 * In Antarctica, Wheel of Fortune is especially popular. There are 2 local versions: the daytime version which airs on ABN, which has been running nonstop since 1979, and a nighttime version with higher prize values that has been airing in local syndication since 1991. (Though, in the 23 markets with an ABN O&O station, that station usually airs the syndicated nighttime version as well as the daytime version.)
 * Press Your Luck is in second-place behind Wheel. The Antarctic version of the show has been airing on ABN since 1985, and like Wheel, a nighttime syndicated version with higher prize values has been airing since 1995. (Again, in the 23 markets with an ABN O&O station, that station usually airs the syndicated nighttime version as well as the daytime version.)
 * Russia loves its game shows. ViD, which is pretty much THE Russian TV network, has a local version of Wheel of Fortune, which draws the same ratings NFL games do in the States. ViD also owns the rights to local adaptations of Jeopardy, Press Your Luck, Merv Griffin’s Crosswords, Match Game, Card Sharks, Family Feud, Supermarket Sweep, Pyramid, Blockbusters, Supermarket Sweep, Who Wants to be a Millionaire, Password, and Bullseye, and these are just the ones that are still being produced - almost every American or British game show, has had a Russian version on ViD. The second place behind Wheel has been alternating between Jeopardy and PYL for quite a while, and ViD has a whole digital subchannel dedicated to game shows. ViD’s competitors try to make their own game shows (since ViD owns almost all the successful Western formats), but these keep failing as ViD (besides having affiliated stations in rural areas, which is something its competitors don’t bother to invest in, since their parent companies are several orders of magnitude smaller than the Mega Corp that runs ViD) draws all the viewers, and ViD, being owned by a Mega Corp which also owns almost all the surviving Soviet-era film studios, is the only company that can afford such things as million-ruble payouts. (There are only two TV companies in the world that are bigger than ViD; ABC in the US, which is literally owned by Disney, and Globo in Brazil, which is so big that it had a whole documentary made about it in the 80s by the British Channel 4.)

Web Animation

 * Battle for Dream Island, Battle for BFDI, Open Source Objects, Inanimate Insanity and any other object show are popular in Brittany. This has been attributed to the rise of Breton YouTuber FireyBlake, as well as increasing nostalgia and the growing object show fanbase in Brittany.

Western Animation

 * Let's Storm is hugely popular in Yablaria with boatloads of merchandise sold all over the place.
 * The Loud House is popular in Yablaria and Riraland.
 * Dexter's Laboratory, The Amazing World of Gumball, and The Powerpuff Girls are popular in Xutrijan.
 * While Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat has been forgotten in America, it's still popular among Labligarians as the show still airs there.
 * Amphibia and The Owl House may be popular in Tinnesia.
 * The Loud House and its spinoff, The Casagrandes, are both inexplicably popular in Russia. Season 5 of TLH is divisive in its home United States, but in Russia, it’s considered just as good as the other seasons, if not better. ViD (which is the biggest TV network in the country) broadcasts both shows as part of their weekend kids’ blocks, and reportedly, Ronnie-Anne’s status as a Breakout Character in Russia may have encouraged Nickelodeon to give her a spinoff show. Russia gets all sorts of merchandise that other countries don’t. This is due to a very good Russian dub, which tries to avoid Macekre by being as faithful to the original English scripts as possible, and keeping the setting in suburban Michigan/Ohio instead of pretending it’s somewhere in Russia. The movie, which was released on streaming in the States, had a theatrical release in Russia.
 * It's also popular in Macau for similar reasons. Another thing that resulted from the show's popularity was the French dip sandwich trend in Macau that happened in January 2020, long before the COVID-19 pandemic was something to take seriously. Even one Macanese joke said that eating too much French dip sandwiches might turn someone into the show's main character, Lincoln Loud himself! The Lane Parsons fanfic book series, a retelling of the show set in 2001, also proves inexplicably popular in Macau.
 * Big City Greens is also becoming popular in Russia, with merchandise out the wazoo. It helps that ViD uses the same dubbing team that worked on the Russian dubs of TLH and TCG. The Disney+ Thanksgiving shorts were broadcast on terrestrial television there, despite Russia not even having any holidays similar to Thanksgiving!
 * Super Animal Squadron started off in 1989 as Nine Network's attempt to adapt Super Sentai for an Australian audience, but its popularity started fanning out west (with the island country of Avalon being the first country to perceive SAS as a hit in 1990) and then east to New Zealand (where it got so popular that it received its own separate editions of the series in 2013, 2014 and then 2018).
 * Secret Mountain Fort Awesome, despite initially flopping in the US, became a huge hit in Brittany. So popular it was that it got its own dub of the series in Breton, titled An K.M.S.D. (Kastell Menezioù Sekred Dispar). It however did take two years for the series to make it on air, as edits had to be done to make it more suitable for a younger audience. The unedited version of the dub was aired on SWB Toullkuzh instead.

Miscellaneous

 * LOLcats are still one of the most popular memes across Delgatia, to the point where Impact font memes are still considered the "default" meme format, unlike in the rest of the world, where Mematic-styled memes are now considered the "default".
 * Atlantic Disneyland, a theme park located in northwestern Sintopia, is more popular with people from New England and Atlantic Canada, than it is with actual Sintopians, who prefer Millennium World (the local franchise of Six Flags).
 * After the formation of the modern Russian Federal Republic, one of the first things done, was to improve the highway system. Someone high-ranking in the Ministry of Transport had a soft spot for American highways, especially the Interstate System, as well as the Trans-Canada Highway in Canada, so they decided to hire a lot of retired American and Canadian highway engineers, and developed a close collaboration with AASHTO. They also noticed that in Russian-speaking parts of Canada, despite the design of signs being influenced by the American MUTCD, all signs were in Russian. The result: Russia now has a major Roadgeek culture, and one of the best-maintained national highway systems in the world. Seriously, the signs are basically the same as in the MUTCD (but in Russian instead of English, Metric instead of Imperial, and with some language-independent signs based on Canada’s designs), which includes a familiar red octagon saying “СТОП” instead of “STOP”, and a Cyrillic version of the Highway Gothic font (which was later adopted by Russian-speaking Canada).
 * The masking subculture, popular on DeviantArt and FurAffinity, is wildly popular in Vinland. Some people might be forgiven for thinking Vinland would accept such a so-called fetish.
 * There is a subculture revolving around a fanaticism for early YouTube, as well as an early YouTube-inspired aesthetic, known as AbredTubers. The trend originated in the Breton-speaking world around the middle of 2018 and has started to fan out into the US and Canada.
 * Ellen Peck is adored in the Federated States of Micronesia, not just for her TV shows, but for her centrist politics, which fit well with Micronesia’s goal of being the “Switzerland of the Commonwealth Realms”.
 * Sintopia is full of roadgeeks and railfans. It helps that it boasts the best State Highway system in the USA for the former, and one of the best state-owned rail systems in the USA for the latter.