Despite Vienna’s frequent ranking as one of the world’s most liveable cities, expat surveys consistently describe it as among the least friendly — a striking paradox. This project investigates how expats living in Vienna perceive impoliteness and navigate the city’s distinctive communicative style, often associated with the Wiener Grant. The city’s unique form of melancholy, sarcasm, and irony is an important cultural identity for those resident — intertwined with broader themes such as the Wiener Schmäh — yet for those new to the city, it may be perceived as unfriendly, or even impolite. Drawing on linguistic theory and corpus-assisted methods, the project analyses discourse from online discussion fora. It explores exactly which contexts such unfriendliness is found, and how these interactions affect expats’ perceptions of the city as a whole. By uncovering how impoliteness is discussed and understood, the project not only contributes to academic research, but it offers insights that can support expat integration and inform how Vienna presents itself to international residents and visitors.