Under the slogan “you research us”, a Turkish sociologist and a Romanian art philosopher were invited by the Austrian Academy of Sciences to get to the bottom of the success of the musical television event “Der Musikantenstadl”. The article discusses the experiences with the concept of the “outsider’s gaze” from the point of view of the (native) project coordinator. The first section discusses the classic principle of social anthropological field research: “We research you”. The author reflects on his own field research practice in the Middle East where being an outsider played an important role with regard to the reliability and quality of the investigation results. The second section summarizes the “conscious exotisation” through an outsider’s perspective as applied in the research project on the Musikantenstadl.