How are there so many of them

I still don't know what ich_iel is and at this point I'm too afraid to ask

"So, you said you're auditing the class. Why are you so interested in learning German?"

"Uhh... memes. You can tell they're fire, but I can't read them."

How are there so many of them

That sounds linke you are not one of them, yet your posting history suggests to differ.

𝕯𝖎𝖊𝖘𝖊 𝕶𝖔𝖒𝖒𝖊𝖓𝖙𝖆𝖗𝖘𝖊𝖐𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓 𝖎𝖘𝖙 𝖓𝖚𝖓 𝕰𝖎𝖌𝖊𝖓𝖙𝖚𝖒 𝖉𝖊𝖗 𝕭𝖚𝖓𝖉𝖊𝖘𝖗𝖊𝖕𝖚𝖇𝖑𝖎𝖐 𝕯𝖊𝖚𝖙𝖘𝖈𝖍𝖑𝖆𝖓𝖉

Whenever I see Lemmy without being logged in, it's a wall of German and all I can think of is "ach, du lieber... das ist not eine booby!"

I'm legitimately trying to learn German because of this

I find the lack of "SPRICH" in here disturbing.

Il faut faire quelque chose !

Diese Kommentarsektion ist nun Eigentum der Bundesrepublik Deutschland

To try and answer the question of why so many of them. Please note this is broad generalizations:

german people have large privacy and date security fears. This has kept them off of many other platforms. Most people in my friends circle never had a MySpace / Facebook... Being in an anonymous space like here is nice.
they also are and have been technologically behind in many ways. Bringing them slower to other platforms that they would have started off on, making it so they didn't use any. Ignorance and fear of technology and privacy fear combined with being technologically slower meant they were going on other platforms in a time when the platforms were getting known as "bad, mentally harmful, data mining & selling machines".
English language skills are lower in Germany (outside of Berlin). Many tourists don't see this as they go to touristy things (hotels, attractions) where they speak English. It is easy in platforms like this or reddit to be in a German speaking bubble. People who speak lots of English like their neighbors the Dutch, would more likely just post in English as everyone can then understand it.

Source: my opinions - but I do live in Germany.