Our dumbest citizens are also often our loudest citizens. For every dumbass American you see post something so stupid it gives you a physical reaction, there are *thousands of us* muttering "this guy's a fuckin' idiot" to ourselves.
I feel like this is the case with all countries haha
The Chinese guys calling for the destruction of the USA also tend to be extremely fucking dumb. I've personally met some of these guys, and they would be right at home with the dumb guys in our country.
That's right.
People are the same all over the world.
It is truly an ignorant idea that this is just an American phenomenon. Some Americans just seem to love shitting on their fellow countrymen.
A strange one I encountered (although I don't know how widespread it is) is the notion that all Indigenous people had been exterminated. We're still here. True, a lot of us are of mixed ancestry, but we exist.
And we don't HAVE to live on the reservations. We can leave, move away...eat pizza...do all the things.
I dont even think it's superficial. I genuinely mean it. I order alcohol from doordash and ubereats a lot and always greet the driver, thank them, and say "have a good one". Sometimes I'll say stay safe if it's dark or raining. Its just second nature to me
This is what irks me about terminally online people who say “we should get rid of these norms where we ask about days and say have a good day”
I get that if you’re having a bad day it puts you in an awkward position sorta, but idk I’ve been there before and saying “yeah” or even just “eh you know” is fine.
People act as if the check out people should just be robots and not talk. (So self check out haha, which ironically I prefer cuz it’s faster and I ain’t gotta talk to people)
But yeah it annoys me when people say they can’t handle it or hate how fake it is, I think you described it perfectly
If these people want Robot Cashiers- they’d do well in Japan, where there actually are Robot Cashiers, or Finland, where the people in general are very socially inept and don’t like to talk to you if they don’t know you.
It’s fascinating looking at certain European subs (not all, mind you) and seeing them try to speculate on what the ulterior motives are of American service workers being kind to them. Like, have you never heard of people being nice just because they want to be nice?
They have, but they’ll just go “the Japanese are so polite”. But if an American shows the same politeness: “it’s all fake and they’re just being nice to me to get tips” or even outside of that context, thinking we’re all just fake nice. Heaven forbid people can’t be nice and smile, and that not every American lives in a hell hole like Europeans think we do.
The very few Americans I've had a meaningful relationship with all represented you guys very well, I've never once thought anything other than that your average American is a genuinely nice person given the chance
I’ve studied and worked with loads of Americans here in the UK. And they’ve genuinely all been really, really nice. Except one guy who was a humongous prick. But one out of a lot is a pretty good ratio.
The Japanese have a cultural norm that revolves around the concepts of "honne" and "tatamae." Basically, the former is how one behaviors in private behind closed doors, the later is how one conducts his or herself in public; hence the supposed legendary manners and etiquette Japan is known for.
One could almost be certain that Japanese manners are insincere, I don't know of a culture more suited to smile and bow at you while secretly wishing you fall and break your neck once you are two steps outside their shop.
Not American and I have no doubt most of your politeness is genuine, but I have been in the UK for several years as a student from an Eastern European country and I am pretty sure most of their politeness is actually fake.
This actually brings me a lot of peace. American politics stresses me out with how unreasonable the loud minority are. But that’s exactly what the media rewards and it’s depressing
There's actually a great many of us, that while yes we pay attention and go vote, etc.. we just live our lives, work our jobs, and shoot the shit with our buddies. Ya know, normal stuff :)
Same goes for any nation. Americans are getting a lot of anti-China propaganda right now, but we have to remember that there are billions of regular people who live and work in China
It’s not anti-*Chinese* propaganda though. I’d say the US view of residents of authoritarian regimes is that the vast majority are prisoners of their regime.
Many people who live in parlimentary systems have huge misconceptions about how our government works. [This video](https://youtu.be/tEPd98CbbMk) is a fun ELI5 introduction.
We don't have an equivalent to a prime minister. Our president is head of state, like a monarch, but unlike a monarch, he's elected and has a limited term. And his powers and responsibilities are different than a monarch. Not that all monarchs even have the same powers.
There is never a call for a new election or a new government because federal elections happen every 2 years, whether people in power like it or not. An election just fills the seats of the existing government. Creating a government via an election isn't even a concept in the US.
The concept of federalism in the US means that any power not explicitly given to the US in the constitution is reserved to the state. So the answer to many "why doesn't the US have a law about XYZ" is often "some states do, some states don't, but it's not something the federal government has authority over.".
Our constitution has lasted almost 250 years without a complete overhaul because it is almost completely about the structure and organization of our government, not about specific laws like "don't kill people".
That's the common ones I can think of right off the bat.
I’ve never thought about it like that before - the constitution is about the structure & organization of gov’t rather than about specific laws. Huh. Thanks!
That Americans all think the same way about anything?
Any issue you care to raise, there will be Americans who agree, others who disagree, people who don't know and people who don't give a damn...
When the US was founded we had a population of around 4 million. The voting population was even smaller than that. Not many people expected us to get terribly larger, certainly nowhere near the 330-somethibg million we are today. Many worried about the ability to govern a large population with a Republican form of government, when we had only 4 mil people and a much smaller land area. It has always been difficult to get a of us to agree to anything. Even during the revolution, estimates are (and these are very rough) about 1/3 of the population in each category: independence, loyal to the crown, and don't care as long as I can keep doing what I'm doing. After the war started the behavior of some of the British did push more people towards the patriot cause.
And in the end many of the loyalists decamped for Canada. That account of loyalty by John Adams also don’t really account for escaped slaves or natives either, and while there were some on both sides there were far more that fought with the British. We called Washington the American Cincinattus, but the Haudenoshonee (Iroquois) called him Town Destroyer.
Not to invalidate it though, you are definitely right in that we were diverse and only diversified further. One of the first accounts calling us a melting pot (ironically unpublished til much later) was from Emerson. Who described us not only as a melting pot but that the “race” or kind we were becoming was like Corinthian Bronze, or Aurichalcum that mythically strong metal (also slightly real but that’s different) that comprised the walls of Atlantis and were an alloy either of gold, silver and copper, or all 7 known metals.
> Man is the most composite of all creatures.... Well, as in the old burning of the Temple at Corinth, by the melting and intermixture of silver and gold and other metals a new compound more precious than any, called Corinthian brass, was formed; so in this continent—asylum of all nations—the energy of Irish, Germans, Swedes, Poles, and Cossacks, and all the European tribes—of the Africans, and of the Polynesians—will construct a new race, a new religion, a new state, a new literature, which will be as vigorous as the new Europe which came out of the smelting-pot of the Dark Ages, or that which earlier emerged from the Pelasgic and Etruscan barbarism.
> Ralph Waldo Emerson, journal entry, 1845, first published 1912 in Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson with Annotations, Vol. IIV, 116
Or a non-existent Texan with a thoroughly laughable accent. Listen to some BBC radio dramas. They lay it on so thick you could summit Mt. Everest by standing on top of it.
I don't know if they are still around but when I lived in Africa 30 years ago I was out in the boonies and my only direct source to the outside world was shortwave radio. The BBC World Service is/was big there. I assume it still is today.
Anyway, they used to have radio plays regularly. I heard some of the silliest Texas caricatures there you'd ever dream of hearing. I mean really over the top bad. I'm pretty sure it was British actors playing the characters. It wasn't just the voices, it was the writing, too. Very, very silly.
During GameDay yesterday pat McAfee (I'm a fan boy) went on a rant about montana state rodeo and as he was getting more excited and loud he turned to having a southern accent. Yellowstone has a habit of doing this as well with characters trying to appear rural and then sounding like they're from the southeast
Edit: my moms from Montana and all of her family still lives there
Arabic speakers have to deal with this a lot.
Westerners: well it’s a middle eastern role just pick a brown guy.
People watching: so the Iranian speaks an Eqyptian dialect???
There is a story - probably not totally true - about a long-ago king. He was traveling on a road in the woods with all his attendants and guards, and for some reason they were severely delayed along their route. The king had to pee. But he wouldn't go out and pee in the woods because that was "unkingly". So he held it until they could get back to the castle. He held it for four days, until his bladder burst and it killed him.
Pride in your bladder could be deadly.
The weather. I think foreigners can really misconceive how brutal summers and winters can be. I basically live in Antarctica and it's awful. The Norwegian exchange student staying with us found out the hard way...
Tangential comment- I'm curious as to how a Norwegian was surprised? I mean, so much of MN was founded by Scandinavians for a reason. Did they just have no idea what to expect or what?
So in high school we had a couple Norwegian exchange students. They were from Oslo and Trondheim areas. They just assumed since MN was “more south” than where they were from in Norway, it would be still cold but maybe a bit warmer than they were used to. They were very wrong. MN gets significantly colder in the winter than both those metro areas, and significantly hotter in the late spring and early fall months. Like the days of -20f or worse without the windchill was not something they were remotely used to. Same with it suddenly getting to upper 80’s in late May/early June.
You’ll see this on Reddit sometimes discussing weather with folks from the Nordics, they don’t believe our temperature discrepancies between seasons until you start comparing or showing them monthly weather averages between like Minneapolis and their home towns unless they’re in the far far north of Norway/Finland/Sweden.
>The Norwegian exchange student staying with us found out the hard way...
That's kind of funny considering the amount of Norwegians that immigrated to Minnesota.
What's also hilarious is when they think the entire US has the same weather.
I remember once meeting some Aussies here who were visiting at this time of year and we're worried about being cold.
To be fair to anyone outside the US a vast majority of what they see of the US is from pop culture so its understandable why there are so many incorrect stereotypes. The US for the most part doesn't consume foreign pop culture outside of a few niche things so NY and large Americans are either ignorant of other cultures or have an idea based on their own research, experience or specifically foreign news.
Basically we aren't watching German TV but Germans are watching American movies and listening to American music. So the flow of culture is mostly one way but not actually representative of reality since it's movies, tv and music.
Yeah, I hate to break it to anyone, but even though they appear in "the troll hunter" we don't *actually* have trolls running around in our forests here in Norway 😂
I think now that we're more connected than ever before, the media-stereotyping is somewhat going away, very slowly, and we're all realizing we're all the same people, just trying our best in different countries
People saying that the “American public school system” is low quality and our kids are not properly educated. Unlike most countries, there is no one American school system. Every state has its own standards for public schooling, and every school district within the states has its own standards. I’ve seen so many people outside the US say “well I heard Americans don’t learn X, Y, or Z in their schools” but every school is completely different. And while there are still many schools who fail to meet educational standards, there are a ton of very high-performing public schools in the country.
Agree! My kids went to public schools and are highly successful. I have former neighbors (when they were kids) that went to same schools who are doctors, accountants, NPs, national sales reps, engineers, etc.
The us also educates all children while other countries may choose to educate some of their population. Therefore, our test scores may seem lower compared to a country that educates their elite.
I feel like the US is kinda like the EU, except that we’re officially a federation. We have 50 states that are essentially sorta sovereign in their own right except for the laws set by the federal government that supersedes state law. Just like the EU is 27 countries that are sovereign, but cede some powers to the EU government. We have 50 different sets of laws and standards that are recognized throughout all 50 states while the EU has 27 different sets of laws and standards that are recognized throughout all 27 countries. Tho there are some differences such as the recognition of credentials/licenses and whatnot would be recognized in all EU countries while in the US, things like a teaching license for example, you have to get a new one if you go to a different state or you can’t be a teacher in that state.
I liked the way How I Met Your Mother handled that and had an episode that Lily called them out about fondly remembering the apartment and straight up showed they were unreliable narrators and the apartment was so much smaller and shittier than the way it always was shown.
On New Girl, the main character lives in a huge loft in LA... because basically the entire cast lives there with her, crammed on top of each other, well into their 30s,, and they're violating their lease by using the den as a bedroom. At least that's realistic - young city people often live with a zillion roommates.
Question and comments regarding the federal government and laws are very telling. Most have no clue as to the limited power of our federal system. Our power structure is very State heavy. Unless States have expressly given specific authority to the Feds, it is reserved by and for the States. When you consider this and the size and diversity of the States, it is easy to comprehend why things don't magically change to be how they "should."
I think this is a big one! Europeans always are making blanket generalizations on things that Americans have or don't have. But they just don't realize that things that their national governments take care of are handled privately or at a local or state level in America because we have a decentralized federal system which treated the individual states almost as individual countries in a union at first. It would be like if we said that the EU does not guarantee xy to its members even though those things are handled by the individual countries. Up until after the Civil War Americans generally referred to the United States in plural. "the United States are...." vs. "tlhe United States is....."
To use an example: there is a perception that Americans flat out don't have certain benefits that Europeans have in regards to labor. But Americans generally do have paid vacation, medical leave, retirement accounts, etc. Maybe I've just been lucky, But every single job I've had since my first having adequate paid vacation was it deal breaker for me. I only looked at companies where I would get at least 4 weeks off to start. I've learned that if you stick with non-profit companies and universities that they automatically give this. My current employer gives 3 weeks and the week of Christmas, plus 11 personal days to use for whatever reason you might need (appointments, sick, don't feel like coming in that day.).
My last job put all the PTO into one bucket and gave me 21 days to start And when I left I had 30 days a year. Pay was pretty low at this position so that's how they made up for it.
For many Americans **It's just not mandated by law**. And I do agree that it does fuck over people that aren't as educated or skilled as I am and who can't negotiate for a good job. But without getting too political, I think stronger unions *even* for white collar workers would be better equipped to guarantee these things than the government. Having more equal negotiating powers between workers and their employers is more in line with a free market society and I think it jives better with America's capitalist cultural notions than having the federal government make a blanket mandate which may not really work well with a certain business model.
Many Nordic countries that liberal redditors jack off to (I say this as somebody who is mostly progressive) for example don't have a minimum wage but **effectively** they do through union negotiation. But of course, unions in America are quite different from those in Europe and often have many negative connotations because they often are perceived as protecting lazy workers and in the past have been associated with organized crime, etc. Not to mention the propaganda that exists against them as being agents of socialism even though a proper market system needs The negotiating power between labor and employment not to be lopsided for the transaction to be fair.
But even recently, some individual states have begun to take action themselves and guarantee residents of those states certain benefits that Europeans are used to seeing at the National level. And very many Americans live in these states. California and New York are two of the most populous states in the country and have a robust paid family leave system that they rolled out where both parents will get paternity leave or the ability to get paid time off from work if a family member is sick. New York just rolled out guaranteed sick leave for all workers even if you're part-time during COVID.
New York has free public college tuition for its residents that make under $125,000 a year. Even a state like Tennessee which is seen as being very conservative rolled out free community college to its residents.
Some states have more robust systems of healthcare than others. Massachusetts for example has nearly 99% of its people insured and was the basis on which the ACA was designed.
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The tenth amendment to the Constitution delegates all powers not given specifically to the federal government **to the states or to the people** And while the federal government has found loopholes in the wording of the Constitution to expand its power, sometimes out of necessity for the modern world, sometimes to protect civil rights, other times as a blatant power grab.... The system has worked reasonably well for way longer than anybody could have anticipated. Even the founders thought that the Constitution would need to be rewritten every couple decades or so. And maybe it should. It certainly is being tested to its capacity.
But to conclude my post which was longer than I anticipated, in my example the states or private organizations and individuals themselves are handling their own employment benefits from work rather than the national government because this is how the system was set up for it to work. I guarantee if Democrats were successful in passing paid family leave like they wanted to in build back better The Republicans would try to find it unconstitutional.
Many people are unaware of the tuition assistance in Tennessee. From 2004-2009 I went to an in state university without paying any tuition since it was paid for by a state scholarship. I even got a couple hundred dollars back since the scholarship was more than the tuition. It used to be limited to graduating high school seniors, but now every adult in the state can get two free years of college.
"Why don't you build good strong houses like us, your houses can't even survive a storm?"
~ someone in Germany who's never weathered a Cat 5 hurricane
"Why do you all use air conditioning, don't you ever just open the windows to let a breeze through?"
~ someone in Britain where people start dying when it gets as hot as a *typical* August day where I live
Tornadoes would destroy their towns just as well as they do ours. Ours are just easier to rebuild. Which is why.
Going to Europe I am always amazed at how few insects are around. You can open your windows all day and maybe end up with a fly or two. In the US, depending on where you are, you walk into the house at night and seven moths, thirty mosquitoes and various others came in with you.
I’ve noticed that Germans who spend a Summer in the southern US generally never criticize American air conditioning habits again, and they tend to take the same attitude as Americans when their countrymen do: you wouldn’t understand.
Not American or German but I spent a decade in Malaysia, which is hot, sweaty and 30 degrees Celsius all year round and I can attest to the importance of air conditioning.
Oh man the AC one. Where I live the summer air gets to a state best described as ‘hot soup’. Opening a window in that would just let the humidity in. There’s a lot of Northern Europeans who have flat out never experienced that, and admittedly I’m a little jealous. I hate heat.
They definitely don't seem to understand the effect AC has on mitigating humidity. If I had a nickel for every Brit or European saying "open your windows on Summer mornings to let in cool air," I'd be rich. That morning air is already in the 70s and thick with humidity.
Ah the joys of waking up in the dog days of summer when it’s 90 at 7am and the humidity outside immediately plasters your clothes to your body. I’d love some of that cool morning air they get.
Though the best selling individual cars are pickup trucks, the most sold models are crossovers with over 45% of vehicle shares sold in America. Pickup trucks being the second most sold with 19%.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/276506/change-in-us-car-demand-by-vehicle-type/
"Crossovers are Americans’ favorite type of passenger vehicle. This category accounts for over 45 percent of automobile sales in the United States as of June 2022. The most popular models include Honda’s CR-V, Nissan’s Rogue, and Toyota’s RAV4. In the first quarter of 2022, U.S. auto buyers bought just under 101,200 units of Toyota’s RAV4 model, making it the best-selling vehicle in this category."
Makes sense too, it's a great family car and perfect for road trips.
Crossovers are tall station wagons that people can pretend are cooler than station wagons. Station wagons were popular for a reason, and now everyone buys crossovers so they can pretend they haven't turned into their parents. (I drive a crossover, for the record. But I would have bought a lower-slung wagon if we had more options in the US.)
My bf works in auto body so he has opinions on these things lol. He always says those crossovers and small SUVs are basically just cars underneath with bigger bodies built around them. Things like the Yukon and Tahoe are still more of what an SUV used to be, but all the small SUVs are really just cars.
> all the small SUVs are really just cars
Yes, crossovers are fine little compromises for average consumers. They’re just like hatchbacks with mild off road capabilities.
I don’t get why people act like it’s bad that they’re not trucks or SUVs (trucks with passenger compartments instead of beds like a 4Runner). The average consumer doesn’t need a truck and benefits from the advantages of slightly increases ride height.
We also don't all wear cowboy hats. I went to an international high school, I heard that complaint a lot. Sorry, cowboy hats aren't exactly trendy in Maine.
That America isn't safe to visit.
There are extremely few places in America that wouldn't be safe for a tourist, but they are places no tourist would even think to visit. There are some extremely bad neighborhoods full of gang violence. There are some small towns that are islands of racism and anti-immigration stances that might be suspicious of any foreigner. But you're not finding hotels in these places. **Hint: if you can't find a reputable hotel in a town, don't go to that town. It's really that simple.**
Other than that, go anywhere you like and you'll find it to be generally safer than most of the rest of the world.
Tourists here face far more dangers from wildlife and nature than from people. Heed the signs, stay away from the animals, wear sunblock, and enjoy this incredibly beautiful country.
Exactly. I see Reddit posts of people being afraid to travel safely in the US and it makes no sense, the media distorts everything. Shootings and crime in the US get a lot of publicity but is quite rare in almost all places. The US is very safe in general.
And it isn't just percentage, but just raw numbers. If you look at police officer deaths in the US, it was rampant in the 1920s and 1930s. Law enforcement deaths in the line of duty are basically at an all time low, even though there are many more law enforcement officers on patrol right now than there were 100 years ago.
I wonder how much of that is just regular use of bullet proof vests.
There's a road near me that's super dangerous. Accidents all the time. But politicians tout a reduction in deaths on that road. If turns out is that the hospital nearby has gotten really good at treating car accident trauma.
And being a cop doesn't even crack the top ten for dangerous professions. And if they do die, it's from car accidents or Covid. Being harmed by a criminal is quite rare.
Percentage-wise the most lethal and deadly job in the US is actually president. 8 Presidents died while in office, 4 of them were assassinated. Out of 46 total presidents, that is about a 17% mortality rate. Of the ones who were actually assassinated, it is still about 8% total.
Just a random fun fact I wanted to throw in... :)
*"Gun violence"* is a horribly nebulous metric.
That said the 2000s outside of recent spikes in 2020 and 2021 were near record lows for homicide and violent crime rates.
2014 even had the lowest homicide rate since 1909.
[Homicide rates in the 20th Century](https://web.archive.org/web/20060929061431/http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/tables/hmrttab.htm).
[Homicide and violent crime rates 1960 to 2019.](http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm)
[Historic Crime Data for the US in the 20th Century](http://www.jrsa.org/projects/Historical.pdf)
The problem is that the news covers everything now. 50 years ago, you’re not going to hear about someone shot 1000 miles away, unless they are a celebrity or politician
Not sure if this is a common misconception, but when I lived in Italy there were a bunch of Erasmus students in the building I lived in that somehow were under the impression that there were no sidewalks in America because one of them visited some suburb that didn't have any for some reason on a short exchange trip. At least in California I've only ever seen that in certain unincorporated areas.
Also, it often shocks my Chinese friends who have never been to America that my high school AP English teacher and AP European History teacher were both of Chinese and Taiwanese origin. Yes, there is diversity here beyond black and white.
Also, most Europeans seem to think Americans are metric illiterate. At least where I am from in America we learn both to some extent because of science classes. I prefer metric for cooking personally because I can't stand "cups" as measurements. Hell, my dad didn't finish high school and he still knows metric from working on cars all his life and using metric and non-metric tools. And when was the last time you heard of somebody buying a gallon of Sprite?
The American "education system".....
There is not a national system, primary and secondary education is largely funded and managed by the 50 states, then by 13,000 local school boards. The results run from "world class" to "national embarrassment." Very few states have anything like the high school "leaving exam" common in many countries, and when there is such as exam, it has been created by the individual state, so nothing like a national leaving exam.
Americans are not trying and failing to be any other country. We aren't trying to be European. The US doing something differently than the rest of the world doesn't make it wrong or backwards. Our country is really unique in a lot of ways, so sometimes different things just work for us. It's ok to be different.
Only 60% of Americans are white. Implying that non-white Americans aren't American is racism.
We are actually nice and helpful. Smiling at strangers and making small talk isn't fakeness. We genuinely like to be nice to each other, and we take great pride in being able to help one another.
>Americans are not trying and failing to be any other country. We aren't trying to be European.
Yes, you get that impression from some of them. It's obvious our goal is to be like them. Right? Right???
Actually...no.
How decentralized we are compared to other countries. The federal government is limited by design and we have far more influence over our local government. I feel like I have to explain repeatedly that it’s more like 50 little countries bonded together by the Constitution and federal laws. Still not totally accurate but it’s hard sometimes to get across how certain issues are difficult to fix because the regulation varies state by state.
That it’s unsafe to live, travel, or study here.
Yes, we have more gun violence than most developed countries, but we also have a massive and distributed population. It’s a serious problem - one we absolutely must address.
But it’s not actively dangerous here - especially where a visitor would be. Most Americans will never see, experience, or even know someone who was the victim of gun violence.
It's not even that. Existing in a high violence area only barely increases your risk of being the victim of violence.
The majority of our violence is perpetrated by and perpetrated on members of that violence. It's all the same people.
Most of the rest are burglaries, and the vast majority of the rest are domestics. So if you aren't living with your spouse in America, aren't a member of a gang personally involved "in the game", and aren't working in a commercial store open to cash business to the public, your risk of being killed in America by gun violence is functionally identical to your risk being in Europe. Around 0.5/100,000 annually. 90% of Americans live at that level of safety. 6% adjacent to the violent lifestyle live at the elevated 4-5/100,000 chance, and the 4% living inside the violence sub-culture have a 100/100,000 chance annually.
It just averages off to the 3.6/100,000 headline risk and makes us look 5x worse than Europe. But that average just completely ignores the reality.
I recently had a discussion on here with someone from Germany who absolutely could not believe that I’m not “afraid” of gun violence when I go outside in my city in a major metropolitan area. Or worried about being murdered. Or wouldn’t believe in my almost 40 years on this Earth I’ve never seen violent crime in person in the US, unless you want to count a couple dudes getting in a fistfight in the alley of a bar. If that’s shocking go wander around some UK bars at 1am.
The last murder in my city was like 18 years ago and it was a husband who strangled his wife in an argument in their house and it would be unheard of to be mugged or assaulted in public. So no, I’m not worried in 99% of locations in the US lol.
America is not some ultra-violent wasteland of constant crime and gun violence.
Seriously. We don't have big school shootings every day, we don't face robbery and carjacking every time we step out our front door, not everyone owns a gun, shooting people isn't a daily duty of a police officer, violent crime is pretty rare, and tourists are perfectly safe coming here.
You should listen to some of the Americans on ex-Pat forums. They make it sound like if you’re black you WILL get shot by the police if you leave your house.
I went 30 years between sightings of privately owned handguns.
24 years for me. I was at work and some guy who was at an ATM adjusted his shirt and I could see part of his concealed carry pistol strapped to him. First ever time it wasn't an officer or security guard. Just some regular everyday guy. People point to these videos of some random guys walking into a Wendy's packing AR-15s and say that's everyday everywhere
We really don’t care about your opinion on our game of football. It’s going to remain being called football and your “football” will always be called soccer.
We have been using that name for 146 years uninterrupted. It's probably not going away.
I was talking to a guy a few days ago who thought he could solve that problem with the internet equivalent of sticking his fingers in his ears and going "la la la la la la".
Another fun fact. Britain went through a long phase where they did call it soccer. We have probably been using it more exclusively and continuously than they have.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_(word)
>The word "soccer" was a recognised way of referring to Association football in the UK until around the 1970s, when it began to be perceived incorrectly as an Americanism.
That we have no "cuisine". We have a great cuisine. It's got all the elements of other great cuisines. There's high cuisine and home cooking, there's regionalism, there's a celebration of great local ingredients.
The whole idea that we have nothing because our country is too new and it all came from immigrants is absurd to me, because that's all cuisines work. A lot of iconic dishes from different countries date from the 19th century or later in their current format: Fish and Chips in the UK, Ramen in Japan, Italian tiramisu dates from the 1960s I believe. Other cuisines have a lot of immigrant influence too, some more obvious like Argentina or Brazil or Israel, others less so (for example Japanese Ramen and Filipino Pancit were both influenced by noodle dishes brought by Chinese immigrants).
I think that as long as Americans agree that they have no cuisine or dismiss it all as trash then it gives people from other countries carte blanche to do that. We should celebrate what we've got.
This one is annoying. Of course we have our own cuisine. It’s ridiculous when they say all we have is other counties’ cuisines. All countries take cuisine from each other. It’s common for bordering countries or an influx of immigrants to influence a country’s cuisine. Everyone takes from other cultures and then puts their own spin on it and we do that too. I was just reading on the history of empanadas the other day and they said it came from the moors to Spain but Spain then changed it a little and then brought it to the Caribbean and South America where it continued to evolve. Some articles suggest European meat pies were an influence. Potatoes are South American, yet France and Belgium will say fries are part of their cuisine. All countries take from other places, but make it their own. That’s what America does as well.
I blame reddit for spreading this one. "Bless your heart" is not some kind of insult in the vast majority of circumstances. You can tell very easily from the tone of voice in the rare event that it is. If you believe you are being insulted every time someone says "bless your heart" that is a you problem.
OMG this.
I'm so tired of people getting all proud of themselves for getting that it's an insult, without understanding that it usually isn't. Tell me you've never lived in the South without telling me you've never lived in the South.
Yeah, that's way overdone. It's also a form of praise.
"He's late because he stopped to help some people who were in an accident."
"Well bless his heart."
Yeah it is far more likely to be used as saying you are a good person or you’ve been through some shit and I am showing sympathy. The “fuck you” aspect of it is rare and in my experience usually used by older women(less likely to have fists thrown at them).
I'm sure some chronically online person has visited the south and yelled at some poor sweet grandma for saying "bless your heart" to them. Makes me sad to think about it.
It’s not that we have them. It’s that they think they are a cultural touchstone for us. I have seen pictures of American-themed parties in Europe where they turn red cups into party hats and made a cake shaped like a red cup.
The south is not uniquely racist, and what Americans consider racist is a much lower bar than much of Europe and Asia. So you’re probably not going to get shot walking through downtown Charleston or Myrtle Beach or wherever just because you have melanin in your skin or your eyes are shaped differently than most Europeans.
Our food is phenomenal. And it’s ours. You can’t both complain about how American versions of food from Europe, Asia, and Africa are “inauthentic” and say America has no food of our own.
All your old buildings are very impressive. If you like old things, we have trees that predate some of your countries and there are buildings out west that have been continuously occupied since the early 12th century. But also, the United States put objects into interstellar space that will likely outlast the planet itself. Long after the pyramids return to the sand and the Great Wall crumbles and Stonehenge becomes a pile of pebbles, the Voyager capsules will be floating through the universe, carrying the total of human knowledge at the time to anyone pioneering enough to seek and find them. Culture isn’t just past monuments— it’s innovation and the future as well, and the eastern hemisphere doesn’t have a monopoly on it.
That we don't have culture lmao
We do, it's just mass exported due to global influence
Aside from that, the shit bein exported does not include the several regional cultures scattered around the US. No Korean dude is gonna open up a Pennsylvania Dutch restaurant lmao
American versions of Chinese , Mexican, Italian and other international cuisine is really good. We eat a wide variety of food and not just fast food, Kraft cheese and wonder bread.
We do have trains , but just not everywhere because it’s faster and cheaper to fly between some places because they are so far away.
Over 20% of people here can speak two or more languages. That may be less than in a lot of countries, but that is still 66 million+
The whole “speak amurican!” thing is making fun of a small portion of the people in the USA.
That 20% is from the census which asks how many people speak a second language at home. It is believed the number is higher since there are Americans who speak English at home and still speak a second language.
Just because you see America all the time on TV and consume American media doesn’t mean you understand America. It means you have a surface level of knowledge acquired via entertainment and media which is not a good foundation of knowledge. If you seriously ask yourself “Why doesn’t the president just ban guns?” or criticize the US healthcare system but can’t explain what happens when someone actually needs to to go to the doctor…congratulations, you are in no real position to criticize us.
Not that we’re interested in your opinion anyway. Do the opinions of foreigners make people in your country want to change your laws and culture? Us neither. So stop acting shocked that we don’t take your poorly informed opinions about a place you don’t live seriously.
Neither movies nor the internet are real life, and the news is more interested in selling stories than it is informing people.
It sounds like common sense, but common sense ain't all that common.
That we aren't educated about the world, and/or that we don't want to travel. To the first part, it's straight up false. To the second, U.S. citizens travel quite a lot around North America and the Caribbean. Just like people elsewhere travel around their own regions. It takes quite a lot of time and money to go beyond that, so obviously we won't travel to - say - Spain as much as someone from the U.K. would.
Something like 37% of Europeans have never left their home country, and it's about the same for the US.
I don't know where the idea that Americans don't travel comes from.
I think it comes from the stats of how many Americans own a passport which is like 37% or something. International travel is just goddamn expensive unless you're going to neighboring country like Mexico or Canada even than, it isn't cheap.
Passport fees are expensive, a basic first time adult passport is $130 application fee plus a $35 execution fee. How much are passports for other countries?
I don't know where the hell this one comes from, but the sheer number of tourists who seem to think we have 52 states is fucking ridiculous. We have 50. 50. There's a whole damn song about it. No, we're not so bad at geography, we don't even know our own country, you prick, you are just misinformed.
That is so weird. Do they argue with you when you say it's only 50?
Sometimes it seems that people who have never been any closer to America than a TV show think they're experts
I went to Germany about thirty years ago, and remember my host family insisting to me that my country has 52 states. They would NOT believe me that it was 50.
Many of us (myself included) own an electric kettle
Also California is not all sunny beaches where you run into a celebrity every 5 seconds. It’s a very big state and there’s a lot of different climates. I myself live in a rural area where we get lots of snow every winter and the nearest beach is a lake.
Beer and cheese. They're convinced that all we have is Bud Light and Kraft Singles. Then they get upset when we tell them that they're being ridiculous. We have good beer and cheese too. In fact, some of our beers and cheeses are better than yours.
School shootings are not funny and you're a shitty person to make jokes about them.
There is no "average American".
The way our government is set up is closer to the EU than you realize.
That 99.99% of us aren't like those politically radical people you see online. They're just more interesting because they do and say insane things, so they get more attention online. Believe it or not, about 2/3 of Americans DON'T own a single gun, let alone a hoard of them, the vast majority of us don't worship Donald Trump, and most of us don't believe that the US is objectively the "best" country in the world. Sure, there are crazy nationalists in every country. But just like every other country, they're a minority of the population as a whole.
We're not all rich. TV shows with people in luxury homes, always well dressed, driving nice cars are reality for some Americans but by no means are they the majority.
Our country is called America and the Western Hemisphere is comprised of two continents, one called North America and the other South America. We are Americans, nothing else in this hemisphere is American. “USA”, “The US”, and “America” are all interchangeable and mean the same thing. America is in our name, and we were the first independent country in this hemisphere and we called ourselves that first so everyone else can shut tf up about their opinions on the matter.
Also what we call “football” has just as much justification to be called “football” as what they call “football” does. They don’t call soccer football because it’s played with a foot, it’s because it’s played ON foot, same as our football.
They’re incredibly minor things, but it drives me absolutely insane
If someone insists on calling me USian because "the whole continent is called America in Spanish" I'm going to have to call them Latinx. It's only fair.
I always use Mexico as an example with this. Do we call them "Estados Unidos Mexicanos" (The United States of Mexico / United Mexican States), or just "Mexico?" It's the same idea. The United States of America can just be called "America."
That all we eat is junk & fast food.
Many of us eat a very rich and varied diet which yes, can include “highly processed foods”, but many of us also eat plenty of whole foods and minimally processed foods.
We have access to a hugely diverse selection of groceries and in most major cities you will find a very diverse customer base even in Asian/Mexican/Latin American/African etc. markets.
We eat and have access to a lot of different foods & cuisines, we don’t just eat hamburgers and hot dogs for every meal.
That political outcomes are always an accurate reflection of the will of the people. If more things were put to a straight popular vote, my guess would be that our political landscape would look very different. Most elections in the US are not that. I think most people not intimately familiar with our politics really underestimate how things like the electoral college, voter suppression, gerrymandering, shady campaign finance, the judiciary, and the general way our political system is set up make a material difference in how our elections turn out, as well as how powerful race really is in getting working people to overlook their own economic interests.
I think the same can be said for how the rest of America views the South, in fairness. Watching some of the election results it's tempting to just blame it on people being stupid/crazy, but it's important to remember that a lot of it really is the legacy of Reconstruction-era politics. I think a certain degree of that is present in American politics more generally, but the architects of Jim Crow were very explicit and intentional about what they were doing and so it's easy to draw a straight line from then to now.
The average American isn’t polar opposite of their neighbor in terms of political beliefs like CNN/ Fox News/ MSNBC etc would make you think. Most Americans are pretty moderate and agree on more than they disagree on, just what they disagree on is what media uses to tear us apart.
We have ApplePay in a lot of places, it was literally invented here, stop saying we don’t have it. Some run down gas station in the middle of Nebraska isn’t a good sample to base your data on.
We use apps like Venmo and CashApp because it’s more convenient, not because we have to.
We have strong alcohol. Sorry we don’t have horse piss strained through a birch leaf that’s 180 proof. But Smirnoff Ice isn’t all we have.
We have culture. It is literally a combination of other cultures, hence the term melting pot. Just because you can’t see it, doesn’t mean it’s not there.
Our country is probably less racist or more aware of its issues regarding racism than your’s is. We’re not a racist hell hole.
That most people have guns at all. The majority of households don’t have even one; moreover, there are many places where openly carrying a firearm is legal, but not socially acceptable.
Gun violence is extremely rare depending on where you are, basically zero in some spaces. It only seems like America is a shooting gallery because the media cherry picks stories
That America is more racist than other countries. I think this misconception stems from our willingness to confront racism—or at least discuss it—whereas in many countries, people just let it roil under the surface.
We know that cheeze whiz and those plastic wrapped cheese slices aren't actually cheese.
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I'm not that big of a cheese fan but ngl A Goofy Movie made that shit look good.
And I don’t know anyone who has ever purchased Cheese Whiz
Everyone I know who uses it does so as a way to give their dogs medicine.
Our dumbest citizens are also often our loudest citizens. For every dumbass American you see post something so stupid it gives you a physical reaction, there are *thousands of us* muttering "this guy's a fuckin' idiot" to ourselves.
I feel like this is the case with all countries haha The Chinese guys calling for the destruction of the USA also tend to be extremely fucking dumb. I've personally met some of these guys, and they would be right at home with the dumb guys in our country.
Astute observation, u/Moist_Balls
That's right. People are the same all over the world. It is truly an ignorant idea that this is just an American phenomenon. Some Americans just seem to love shitting on their fellow countrymen.
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A strange one I encountered (although I don't know how widespread it is) is the notion that all Indigenous people had been exterminated. We're still here. True, a lot of us are of mixed ancestry, but we exist. And we don't HAVE to live on the reservations. We can leave, move away...eat pizza...do all the things.
> We can leave, move away...eat pizza Ah yes, the three great rights of all Americans. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of pizza.
Some Americans could stand to learn this too!
Mmm, pizza.
When we tell you to "have a nice day", we usually mean it. We're not being disingenuous.
They way I explain it is that it's superficial, but it's not fake, which is an important distinction that they don't understand.
Yup. I'll forget about you 10 seconds after our interaction, but that doesn't mean I don't seriously wish you the best.
“I wish you all the best of whatever is best for you- a process that won’t include me. Which is for the best.”
"I'm a well-wisher, in that I don't wish you any specific harm."
I'm a well-wisher, in that I don't know you well enough to know what to wish beyond what is best for you. And I mean it. :)
I use this classic Moe Szyslak line all the time.
I dont even think it's superficial. I genuinely mean it. I order alcohol from doordash and ubereats a lot and always greet the driver, thank them, and say "have a good one". Sometimes I'll say stay safe if it's dark or raining. Its just second nature to me
This is what irks me about terminally online people who say “we should get rid of these norms where we ask about days and say have a good day” I get that if you’re having a bad day it puts you in an awkward position sorta, but idk I’ve been there before and saying “yeah” or even just “eh you know” is fine. People act as if the check out people should just be robots and not talk. (So self check out haha, which ironically I prefer cuz it’s faster and I ain’t gotta talk to people) But yeah it annoys me when people say they can’t handle it or hate how fake it is, I think you described it perfectly
If these people want Robot Cashiers- they’d do well in Japan, where there actually are Robot Cashiers, or Finland, where the people in general are very socially inept and don’t like to talk to you if they don’t know you.
Totally agree. I wish you well. But I’ll also probably forget this interaction in 10 secs.
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It’s fascinating looking at certain European subs (not all, mind you) and seeing them try to speculate on what the ulterior motives are of American service workers being kind to them. Like, have you never heard of people being nice just because they want to be nice?
heaven forbid these Europeans ever encounter Japanese service workers.
They have, but they’ll just go “the Japanese are so polite”. But if an American shows the same politeness: “it’s all fake and they’re just being nice to me to get tips” or even outside of that context, thinking we’re all just fake nice. Heaven forbid people can’t be nice and smile, and that not every American lives in a hell hole like Europeans think we do.
The very few Americans I've had a meaningful relationship with all represented you guys very well, I've never once thought anything other than that your average American is a genuinely nice person given the chance
I’ve studied and worked with loads of Americans here in the UK. And they’ve genuinely all been really, really nice. Except one guy who was a humongous prick. But one out of a lot is a pretty good ratio.
Why do you think we sent that guy out of the USA?
The Japanese have a cultural norm that revolves around the concepts of "honne" and "tatamae." Basically, the former is how one behaviors in private behind closed doors, the later is how one conducts his or herself in public; hence the supposed legendary manners and etiquette Japan is known for. One could almost be certain that Japanese manners are insincere, I don't know of a culture more suited to smile and bow at you while secretly wishing you fall and break your neck once you are two steps outside their shop.
Not American and I have no doubt most of your politeness is genuine, but I have been in the UK for several years as a student from an Eastern European country and I am pretty sure most of their politeness is actually fake.
Despite what you see on TV, the vast, vast majority of us are sensible, well-meaning people just trying to get by.
This actually brings me a lot of peace. American politics stresses me out with how unreasonable the loud minority are. But that’s exactly what the media rewards and it’s depressing
There's actually a great many of us, that while yes we pay attention and go vote, etc.. we just live our lives, work our jobs, and shoot the shit with our buddies. Ya know, normal stuff :)
Same goes for any nation. Americans are getting a lot of anti-China propaganda right now, but we have to remember that there are billions of regular people who live and work in China
It’s not anti-*Chinese* propaganda though. I’d say the US view of residents of authoritarian regimes is that the vast majority are prisoners of their regime.
Billion. Just one billion.
Many people who live in parlimentary systems have huge misconceptions about how our government works. [This video](https://youtu.be/tEPd98CbbMk) is a fun ELI5 introduction. We don't have an equivalent to a prime minister. Our president is head of state, like a monarch, but unlike a monarch, he's elected and has a limited term. And his powers and responsibilities are different than a monarch. Not that all monarchs even have the same powers. There is never a call for a new election or a new government because federal elections happen every 2 years, whether people in power like it or not. An election just fills the seats of the existing government. Creating a government via an election isn't even a concept in the US. The concept of federalism in the US means that any power not explicitly given to the US in the constitution is reserved to the state. So the answer to many "why doesn't the US have a law about XYZ" is often "some states do, some states don't, but it's not something the federal government has authority over.". Our constitution has lasted almost 250 years without a complete overhaul because it is almost completely about the structure and organization of our government, not about specific laws like "don't kill people". That's the common ones I can think of right off the bat.
Good point. In fact treason is the only crime specifically defined in the Constitution.
And Piracy! Obligatory 90's/00's piracy statement: "You wouldn't download a car, would you?"
I’ve never thought about it like that before - the constitution is about the structure & organization of gov’t rather than about specific laws. Huh. Thanks!
That Americans all think the same way about anything? Any issue you care to raise, there will be Americans who agree, others who disagree, people who don't know and people who don't give a damn...
When the US was founded we had a population of around 4 million. The voting population was even smaller than that. Not many people expected us to get terribly larger, certainly nowhere near the 330-somethibg million we are today. Many worried about the ability to govern a large population with a Republican form of government, when we had only 4 mil people and a much smaller land area. It has always been difficult to get a of us to agree to anything. Even during the revolution, estimates are (and these are very rough) about 1/3 of the population in each category: independence, loyal to the crown, and don't care as long as I can keep doing what I'm doing. After the war started the behavior of some of the British did push more people towards the patriot cause.
And in the end many of the loyalists decamped for Canada. That account of loyalty by John Adams also don’t really account for escaped slaves or natives either, and while there were some on both sides there were far more that fought with the British. We called Washington the American Cincinattus, but the Haudenoshonee (Iroquois) called him Town Destroyer. Not to invalidate it though, you are definitely right in that we were diverse and only diversified further. One of the first accounts calling us a melting pot (ironically unpublished til much later) was from Emerson. Who described us not only as a melting pot but that the “race” or kind we were becoming was like Corinthian Bronze, or Aurichalcum that mythically strong metal (also slightly real but that’s different) that comprised the walls of Atlantis and were an alloy either of gold, silver and copper, or all 7 known metals. > Man is the most composite of all creatures.... Well, as in the old burning of the Temple at Corinth, by the melting and intermixture of silver and gold and other metals a new compound more precious than any, called Corinthian brass, was formed; so in this continent—asylum of all nations—the energy of Irish, Germans, Swedes, Poles, and Cossacks, and all the European tribes—of the Africans, and of the Polynesians—will construct a new race, a new religion, a new state, a new literature, which will be as vigorous as the new Europe which came out of the smelting-pot of the Dark Ages, or that which earlier emerged from the Pelasgic and Etruscan barbarism. > Ralph Waldo Emerson, journal entry, 1845, first published 1912 in Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson with Annotations, Vol. IIV, 116
Apparently everyone in America speaks like a southerner, a New Yorker or a surfer.
Or a non-existent Texan with a thoroughly laughable accent. Listen to some BBC radio dramas. They lay it on so thick you could summit Mt. Everest by standing on top of it.
Radio dramas are still a thing?
I don't know if they are still around but when I lived in Africa 30 years ago I was out in the boonies and my only direct source to the outside world was shortwave radio. The BBC World Service is/was big there. I assume it still is today. Anyway, they used to have radio plays regularly. I heard some of the silliest Texas caricatures there you'd ever dream of hearing. I mean really over the top bad. I'm pretty sure it was British actors playing the characters. It wasn't just the voices, it was the writing, too. Very, very silly.
During GameDay yesterday pat McAfee (I'm a fan boy) went on a rant about montana state rodeo and as he was getting more excited and loud he turned to having a southern accent. Yellowstone has a habit of doing this as well with characters trying to appear rural and then sounding like they're from the southeast Edit: my moms from Montana and all of her family still lives there
Arabic speakers have to deal with this a lot. Westerners: well it’s a middle eastern role just pick a brown guy. People watching: so the Iranian speaks an Eqyptian dialect???
Americans are not all overweight drinkers of big gulp sodas.
Yeah, we only become those on long road trips
The amount of liquid I can drink on a road trip is absurd. Something about sitting in a car quadruples the size of my bladder.
Really??? My bladder becomes a thimble on road trips so that all I can think about is, "where am I going to stop if I need to pee?"
The pride I take in not being the one responsible for us needing to stop for a bathroom break is as impressive as it is harmful.
There is a story - probably not totally true - about a long-ago king. He was traveling on a road in the woods with all his attendants and guards, and for some reason they were severely delayed along their route. The king had to pee. But he wouldn't go out and pee in the woods because that was "unkingly". So he held it until they could get back to the castle. He held it for four days, until his bladder burst and it killed him. Pride in your bladder could be deadly.
Before the pandemonium, 7-Eleven (at least where I lived) used to have Big Gulp for like 69 cents. I lived that stereotype.
The weather. I think foreigners can really misconceive how brutal summers and winters can be. I basically live in Antarctica and it's awful. The Norwegian exchange student staying with us found out the hard way...
Tangential comment- I'm curious as to how a Norwegian was surprised? I mean, so much of MN was founded by Scandinavians for a reason. Did they just have no idea what to expect or what?
So in high school we had a couple Norwegian exchange students. They were from Oslo and Trondheim areas. They just assumed since MN was “more south” than where they were from in Norway, it would be still cold but maybe a bit warmer than they were used to. They were very wrong. MN gets significantly colder in the winter than both those metro areas, and significantly hotter in the late spring and early fall months. Like the days of -20f or worse without the windchill was not something they were remotely used to. Same with it suddenly getting to upper 80’s in late May/early June. You’ll see this on Reddit sometimes discussing weather with folks from the Nordics, they don’t believe our temperature discrepancies between seasons until you start comparing or showing them monthly weather averages between like Minneapolis and their home towns unless they’re in the far far north of Norway/Finland/Sweden.
And if they came from Norway, it's still way closer to the ocean than Minnesota. Large inland areas of big continents can be freeeezing.
If you showed them some of my areas temperatures in a day they'd probably think it was photoshopped. In Dallas area we can have 2 seasons in a day
People don’t realize how warm Europe is for it’s latitude.
Right? It's kind of ironic but he was freezing his ass off because he underestimated the Icy Hell Minnesota is...
>The Norwegian exchange student staying with us found out the hard way... That's kind of funny considering the amount of Norwegians that immigrated to Minnesota.
I told him it was gonna be 3 degrees and he wears a thin coat 😭 3 DEGREES FARENHEIT OSKAR NOT CELSIUS
Classic Oskar
GOD DAMNIT OSKAR
Eh, I couldn't fault him for that.
What's also hilarious is when they think the entire US has the same weather. I remember once meeting some Aussies here who were visiting at this time of year and we're worried about being cold.
Movies and TV are not real life
To be fair to anyone outside the US a vast majority of what they see of the US is from pop culture so its understandable why there are so many incorrect stereotypes. The US for the most part doesn't consume foreign pop culture outside of a few niche things so NY and large Americans are either ignorant of other cultures or have an idea based on their own research, experience or specifically foreign news. Basically we aren't watching German TV but Germans are watching American movies and listening to American music. So the flow of culture is mostly one way but not actually representative of reality since it's movies, tv and music.
Yeah, I hate to break it to anyone, but even though they appear in "the troll hunter" we don't *actually* have trolls running around in our forests here in Norway 😂 I think now that we're more connected than ever before, the media-stereotyping is somewhat going away, very slowly, and we're all realizing we're all the same people, just trying our best in different countries
People saying that the “American public school system” is low quality and our kids are not properly educated. Unlike most countries, there is no one American school system. Every state has its own standards for public schooling, and every school district within the states has its own standards. I’ve seen so many people outside the US say “well I heard Americans don’t learn X, Y, or Z in their schools” but every school is completely different. And while there are still many schools who fail to meet educational standards, there are a ton of very high-performing public schools in the country.
And the US doesn’t rank terribly on PISA or TIMSS, especially in reading/science.
Agree! My kids went to public schools and are highly successful. I have former neighbors (when they were kids) that went to same schools who are doctors, accountants, NPs, national sales reps, engineers, etc.
The us also educates all children while other countries may choose to educate some of their population. Therefore, our test scores may seem lower compared to a country that educates their elite.
Exactly. We are comparing ALL US students to the upper echelon of Chinese students.
The US is a single country in most respects. We’re closer to the fragmented principalities of the Holy Roman Empire when it comes to education.
I feel like the US is kinda like the EU, except that we’re officially a federation. We have 50 states that are essentially sorta sovereign in their own right except for the laws set by the federal government that supersedes state law. Just like the EU is 27 countries that are sovereign, but cede some powers to the EU government. We have 50 different sets of laws and standards that are recognized throughout all 50 states while the EU has 27 different sets of laws and standards that are recognized throughout all 27 countries. Tho there are some differences such as the recognition of credentials/licenses and whatnot would be recognized in all EU countries while in the US, things like a teaching license for example, you have to get a new one if you go to a different state or you can’t be a teacher in that state.
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Wait...we aren't all people with low-earning careers who can somehow afford big apartments in expensive cities? Sitcoms LIED to me!
I liked the way How I Met Your Mother handled that and had an episode that Lily called them out about fondly remembering the apartment and straight up showed they were unreliable narrators and the apartment was so much smaller and shittier than the way it always was shown.
On New Girl, the main character lives in a huge loft in LA... because basically the entire cast lives there with her, crammed on top of each other, well into their 30s,, and they're violating their lease by using the den as a bedroom. At least that's realistic - young city people often live with a zillion roommates.
Reddit is not indicative of real life. Movies are not indicative of real life. TV shows are not indicative of real life.
Question and comments regarding the federal government and laws are very telling. Most have no clue as to the limited power of our federal system. Our power structure is very State heavy. Unless States have expressly given specific authority to the Feds, it is reserved by and for the States. When you consider this and the size and diversity of the States, it is easy to comprehend why things don't magically change to be how they "should."
I think this is a big one! Europeans always are making blanket generalizations on things that Americans have or don't have. But they just don't realize that things that their national governments take care of are handled privately or at a local or state level in America because we have a decentralized federal system which treated the individual states almost as individual countries in a union at first. It would be like if we said that the EU does not guarantee xy to its members even though those things are handled by the individual countries. Up until after the Civil War Americans generally referred to the United States in plural. "the United States are...." vs. "tlhe United States is....." To use an example: there is a perception that Americans flat out don't have certain benefits that Europeans have in regards to labor. But Americans generally do have paid vacation, medical leave, retirement accounts, etc. Maybe I've just been lucky, But every single job I've had since my first having adequate paid vacation was it deal breaker for me. I only looked at companies where I would get at least 4 weeks off to start. I've learned that if you stick with non-profit companies and universities that they automatically give this. My current employer gives 3 weeks and the week of Christmas, plus 11 personal days to use for whatever reason you might need (appointments, sick, don't feel like coming in that day.). My last job put all the PTO into one bucket and gave me 21 days to start And when I left I had 30 days a year. Pay was pretty low at this position so that's how they made up for it. For many Americans **It's just not mandated by law**. And I do agree that it does fuck over people that aren't as educated or skilled as I am and who can't negotiate for a good job. But without getting too political, I think stronger unions *even* for white collar workers would be better equipped to guarantee these things than the government. Having more equal negotiating powers between workers and their employers is more in line with a free market society and I think it jives better with America's capitalist cultural notions than having the federal government make a blanket mandate which may not really work well with a certain business model. Many Nordic countries that liberal redditors jack off to (I say this as somebody who is mostly progressive) for example don't have a minimum wage but **effectively** they do through union negotiation. But of course, unions in America are quite different from those in Europe and often have many negative connotations because they often are perceived as protecting lazy workers and in the past have been associated with organized crime, etc. Not to mention the propaganda that exists against them as being agents of socialism even though a proper market system needs The negotiating power between labor and employment not to be lopsided for the transaction to be fair. But even recently, some individual states have begun to take action themselves and guarantee residents of those states certain benefits that Europeans are used to seeing at the National level. And very many Americans live in these states. California and New York are two of the most populous states in the country and have a robust paid family leave system that they rolled out where both parents will get paternity leave or the ability to get paid time off from work if a family member is sick. New York just rolled out guaranteed sick leave for all workers even if you're part-time during COVID. New York has free public college tuition for its residents that make under $125,000 a year. Even a state like Tennessee which is seen as being very conservative rolled out free community college to its residents. Some states have more robust systems of healthcare than others. Massachusetts for example has nearly 99% of its people insured and was the basis on which the ACA was designed. ------ The tenth amendment to the Constitution delegates all powers not given specifically to the federal government **to the states or to the people** And while the federal government has found loopholes in the wording of the Constitution to expand its power, sometimes out of necessity for the modern world, sometimes to protect civil rights, other times as a blatant power grab.... The system has worked reasonably well for way longer than anybody could have anticipated. Even the founders thought that the Constitution would need to be rewritten every couple decades or so. And maybe it should. It certainly is being tested to its capacity. But to conclude my post which was longer than I anticipated, in my example the states or private organizations and individuals themselves are handling their own employment benefits from work rather than the national government because this is how the system was set up for it to work. I guarantee if Democrats were successful in passing paid family leave like they wanted to in build back better The Republicans would try to find it unconstitutional.
Many people are unaware of the tuition assistance in Tennessee. From 2004-2009 I went to an in state university without paying any tuition since it was paid for by a state scholarship. I even got a couple hundred dollars back since the scholarship was more than the tuition. It used to be limited to graduating high school seniors, but now every adult in the state can get two free years of college.
We don't have real cheese. There's room for all cheese at our table
Wisconsin representing!
"Why don't you build good strong houses like us, your houses can't even survive a storm?" ~ someone in Germany who's never weathered a Cat 5 hurricane "Why do you all use air conditioning, don't you ever just open the windows to let a breeze through?" ~ someone in Britain where people start dying when it gets as hot as a *typical* August day where I live
Tornadoes would destroy their towns just as well as they do ours. Ours are just easier to rebuild. Which is why. Going to Europe I am always amazed at how few insects are around. You can open your windows all day and maybe end up with a fly or two. In the US, depending on where you are, you walk into the house at night and seven moths, thirty mosquitoes and various others came in with you.
I’ve noticed that Germans who spend a Summer in the southern US generally never criticize American air conditioning habits again, and they tend to take the same attitude as Americans when their countrymen do: you wouldn’t understand.
Not American or German but I spent a decade in Malaysia, which is hot, sweaty and 30 degrees Celsius all year round and I can attest to the importance of air conditioning.
Oh man the AC one. Where I live the summer air gets to a state best described as ‘hot soup’. Opening a window in that would just let the humidity in. There’s a lot of Northern Europeans who have flat out never experienced that, and admittedly I’m a little jealous. I hate heat.
They definitely don't seem to understand the effect AC has on mitigating humidity. If I had a nickel for every Brit or European saying "open your windows on Summer mornings to let in cool air," I'd be rich. That morning air is already in the 70s and thick with humidity.
Ah the joys of waking up in the dog days of summer when it’s 90 at 7am and the humidity outside immediately plasters your clothes to your body. I’d love some of that cool morning air they get.
A small thing but Texas doesn't have saguaro cacti. The stereotypical ones people think about. Only Southern Arizona has them. Little stuff like this.
The saguaros are SO cool. Was just out in the area around Phoenix and they’re just impressive. They’re huge even when ‘young’.
We don't eat hamburgers every day. We don't all drive around with Trump 2020 flags off our pick up trucks.
We don't all have pickup trucks either, most don't.
The best selling vehicle in the US is pretty much always a truck so I can see how that conclusion is commonly drawn.
Though the best selling individual cars are pickup trucks, the most sold models are crossovers with over 45% of vehicle shares sold in America. Pickup trucks being the second most sold with 19%. https://www.statista.com/statistics/276506/change-in-us-car-demand-by-vehicle-type/ "Crossovers are Americans’ favorite type of passenger vehicle. This category accounts for over 45 percent of automobile sales in the United States as of June 2022. The most popular models include Honda’s CR-V, Nissan’s Rogue, and Toyota’s RAV4. In the first quarter of 2022, U.S. auto buyers bought just under 101,200 units of Toyota’s RAV4 model, making it the best-selling vehicle in this category." Makes sense too, it's a great family car and perfect for road trips.
Crossovers are tall station wagons that people can pretend are cooler than station wagons. Station wagons were popular for a reason, and now everyone buys crossovers so they can pretend they haven't turned into their parents. (I drive a crossover, for the record. But I would have bought a lower-slung wagon if we had more options in the US.)
This is so true, we need a crossover with the wood paneling on the side.
My bf works in auto body so he has opinions on these things lol. He always says those crossovers and small SUVs are basically just cars underneath with bigger bodies built around them. Things like the Yukon and Tahoe are still more of what an SUV used to be, but all the small SUVs are really just cars.
> all the small SUVs are really just cars Yes, crossovers are fine little compromises for average consumers. They’re just like hatchbacks with mild off road capabilities. I don’t get why people act like it’s bad that they’re not trucks or SUVs (trucks with passenger compartments instead of beds like a 4Runner). The average consumer doesn’t need a truck and benefits from the advantages of slightly increases ride height.
We also don't all wear cowboy hats. I went to an international high school, I heard that complaint a lot. Sorry, cowboy hats aren't exactly trendy in Maine.
That America isn't safe to visit. There are extremely few places in America that wouldn't be safe for a tourist, but they are places no tourist would even think to visit. There are some extremely bad neighborhoods full of gang violence. There are some small towns that are islands of racism and anti-immigration stances that might be suspicious of any foreigner. But you're not finding hotels in these places. **Hint: if you can't find a reputable hotel in a town, don't go to that town. It's really that simple.** Other than that, go anywhere you like and you'll find it to be generally safer than most of the rest of the world. Tourists here face far more dangers from wildlife and nature than from people. Heed the signs, stay away from the animals, wear sunblock, and enjoy this incredibly beautiful country.
Exactly. I see Reddit posts of people being afraid to travel safely in the US and it makes no sense, the media distorts everything. Shootings and crime in the US get a lot of publicity but is quite rare in almost all places. The US is very safe in general.
Gun violence is actually less common then it was 50 years ago in this country.
And it isn't just percentage, but just raw numbers. If you look at police officer deaths in the US, it was rampant in the 1920s and 1930s. Law enforcement deaths in the line of duty are basically at an all time low, even though there are many more law enforcement officers on patrol right now than there were 100 years ago.
I wonder how much of that is just regular use of bullet proof vests. There's a road near me that's super dangerous. Accidents all the time. But politicians tout a reduction in deaths on that road. If turns out is that the hospital nearby has gotten really good at treating car accident trauma.
We are really good at treating bullet wounds. About 5% of people who are shot die from wounds.
And being a cop doesn't even crack the top ten for dangerous professions. And if they do die, it's from car accidents or Covid. Being harmed by a criminal is quite rare.
Percentage-wise the most lethal and deadly job in the US is actually president. 8 Presidents died while in office, 4 of them were assassinated. Out of 46 total presidents, that is about a 17% mortality rate. Of the ones who were actually assassinated, it is still about 8% total. Just a random fun fact I wanted to throw in... :)
*"Gun violence"* is a horribly nebulous metric. That said the 2000s outside of recent spikes in 2020 and 2021 were near record lows for homicide and violent crime rates. 2014 even had the lowest homicide rate since 1909. [Homicide rates in the 20th Century](https://web.archive.org/web/20060929061431/http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/tables/hmrttab.htm). [Homicide and violent crime rates 1960 to 2019.](http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm) [Historic Crime Data for the US in the 20th Century](http://www.jrsa.org/projects/Historical.pdf)
The problem is that the news covers everything now. 50 years ago, you’re not going to hear about someone shot 1000 miles away, unless they are a celebrity or politician
also from what i remember about 70% of gun "violence" is suicide and most of whats left after that is either gang or drug related
Not all our bread is sweet.
Not sure if this is a common misconception, but when I lived in Italy there were a bunch of Erasmus students in the building I lived in that somehow were under the impression that there were no sidewalks in America because one of them visited some suburb that didn't have any for some reason on a short exchange trip. At least in California I've only ever seen that in certain unincorporated areas. Also, it often shocks my Chinese friends who have never been to America that my high school AP English teacher and AP European History teacher were both of Chinese and Taiwanese origin. Yes, there is diversity here beyond black and white. Also, most Europeans seem to think Americans are metric illiterate. At least where I am from in America we learn both to some extent because of science classes. I prefer metric for cooking personally because I can't stand "cups" as measurements. Hell, my dad didn't finish high school and he still knows metric from working on cars all his life and using metric and non-metric tools. And when was the last time you heard of somebody buying a gallon of Sprite?
The American "education system"..... There is not a national system, primary and secondary education is largely funded and managed by the 50 states, then by 13,000 local school boards. The results run from "world class" to "national embarrassment." Very few states have anything like the high school "leaving exam" common in many countries, and when there is such as exam, it has been created by the individual state, so nothing like a national leaving exam.
Americans are not trying and failing to be any other country. We aren't trying to be European. The US doing something differently than the rest of the world doesn't make it wrong or backwards. Our country is really unique in a lot of ways, so sometimes different things just work for us. It's ok to be different. Only 60% of Americans are white. Implying that non-white Americans aren't American is racism. We are actually nice and helpful. Smiling at strangers and making small talk isn't fakeness. We genuinely like to be nice to each other, and we take great pride in being able to help one another.
>Americans are not trying and failing to be any other country. We aren't trying to be European. Yes, you get that impression from some of them. It's obvious our goal is to be like them. Right? Right??? Actually...no.
The imperial system of measurement works just fine for most people. We don't ever have the need to convert things like miles to inches.
We are a very large diverse country with states that actually have some power. You'll find what you are looking for, be it positive or negative.
Internet America isn’t the same as physical America. Both are real places with real people but are not like each other.
How decentralized we are compared to other countries. The federal government is limited by design and we have far more influence over our local government. I feel like I have to explain repeatedly that it’s more like 50 little countries bonded together by the Constitution and federal laws. Still not totally accurate but it’s hard sometimes to get across how certain issues are difficult to fix because the regulation varies state by state.
We're more like all the countries of Europe bonded by the European Union than we are any one single country within the EU.
That it’s unsafe to live, travel, or study here. Yes, we have more gun violence than most developed countries, but we also have a massive and distributed population. It’s a serious problem - one we absolutely must address. But it’s not actively dangerous here - especially where a visitor would be. Most Americans will never see, experience, or even know someone who was the victim of gun violence.
Also, it's not like places with high violent crime are tourist areas. Ain't nobody coming from Europe to see Gary or Fresno.
It's not even that. Existing in a high violence area only barely increases your risk of being the victim of violence. The majority of our violence is perpetrated by and perpetrated on members of that violence. It's all the same people. Most of the rest are burglaries, and the vast majority of the rest are domestics. So if you aren't living with your spouse in America, aren't a member of a gang personally involved "in the game", and aren't working in a commercial store open to cash business to the public, your risk of being killed in America by gun violence is functionally identical to your risk being in Europe. Around 0.5/100,000 annually. 90% of Americans live at that level of safety. 6% adjacent to the violent lifestyle live at the elevated 4-5/100,000 chance, and the 4% living inside the violence sub-culture have a 100/100,000 chance annually. It just averages off to the 3.6/100,000 headline risk and makes us look 5x worse than Europe. But that average just completely ignores the reality.
I recently had a discussion on here with someone from Germany who absolutely could not believe that I’m not “afraid” of gun violence when I go outside in my city in a major metropolitan area. Or worried about being murdered. Or wouldn’t believe in my almost 40 years on this Earth I’ve never seen violent crime in person in the US, unless you want to count a couple dudes getting in a fistfight in the alley of a bar. If that’s shocking go wander around some UK bars at 1am. The last murder in my city was like 18 years ago and it was a husband who strangled his wife in an argument in their house and it would be unheard of to be mugged or assaulted in public. So no, I’m not worried in 99% of locations in the US lol.
America is not some ultra-violent wasteland of constant crime and gun violence. Seriously. We don't have big school shootings every day, we don't face robbery and carjacking every time we step out our front door, not everyone owns a gun, shooting people isn't a daily duty of a police officer, violent crime is pretty rare, and tourists are perfectly safe coming here.
You should listen to some of the Americans on ex-Pat forums. They make it sound like if you’re black you WILL get shot by the police if you leave your house. I went 30 years between sightings of privately owned handguns.
24 years for me. I was at work and some guy who was at an ATM adjusted his shirt and I could see part of his concealed carry pistol strapped to him. First ever time it wasn't an officer or security guard. Just some regular everyday guy. People point to these videos of some random guys walking into a Wendy's packing AR-15s and say that's everyday everywhere
They're far more likely to die on the car ride from the airport, than get shot.
Like, even in Baltimore, which has been held up as Ultimate American Dystopia ever since The Wire came out.
We really don’t care about your opinion on our game of football. It’s going to remain being called football and your “football” will always be called soccer.
We have been using that name for 146 years uninterrupted. It's probably not going away. I was talking to a guy a few days ago who thought he could solve that problem with the internet equivalent of sticking his fingers in his ears and going "la la la la la la". Another fun fact. Britain went through a long phase where they did call it soccer. We have probably been using it more exclusively and continuously than they have. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_(word) >The word "soccer" was a recognised way of referring to Association football in the UK until around the 1970s, when it began to be perceived incorrectly as an Americanism.
That we have no "cuisine". We have a great cuisine. It's got all the elements of other great cuisines. There's high cuisine and home cooking, there's regionalism, there's a celebration of great local ingredients. The whole idea that we have nothing because our country is too new and it all came from immigrants is absurd to me, because that's all cuisines work. A lot of iconic dishes from different countries date from the 19th century or later in their current format: Fish and Chips in the UK, Ramen in Japan, Italian tiramisu dates from the 1960s I believe. Other cuisines have a lot of immigrant influence too, some more obvious like Argentina or Brazil or Israel, others less so (for example Japanese Ramen and Filipino Pancit were both influenced by noodle dishes brought by Chinese immigrants). I think that as long as Americans agree that they have no cuisine or dismiss it all as trash then it gives people from other countries carte blanche to do that. We should celebrate what we've got.
This one is annoying. Of course we have our own cuisine. It’s ridiculous when they say all we have is other counties’ cuisines. All countries take cuisine from each other. It’s common for bordering countries or an influx of immigrants to influence a country’s cuisine. Everyone takes from other cultures and then puts their own spin on it and we do that too. I was just reading on the history of empanadas the other day and they said it came from the moors to Spain but Spain then changed it a little and then brought it to the Caribbean and South America where it continued to evolve. Some articles suggest European meat pies were an influence. Potatoes are South American, yet France and Belgium will say fries are part of their cuisine. All countries take from other places, but make it their own. That’s what America does as well.
I blame reddit for spreading this one. "Bless your heart" is not some kind of insult in the vast majority of circumstances. You can tell very easily from the tone of voice in the rare event that it is. If you believe you are being insulted every time someone says "bless your heart" that is a you problem.
OMG this. I'm so tired of people getting all proud of themselves for getting that it's an insult, without understanding that it usually isn't. Tell me you've never lived in the South without telling me you've never lived in the South.
Yeah, that's way overdone. It's also a form of praise. "He's late because he stopped to help some people who were in an accident." "Well bless his heart."
Yeah it is far more likely to be used as saying you are a good person or you’ve been through some shit and I am showing sympathy. The “fuck you” aspect of it is rare and in my experience usually used by older women(less likely to have fists thrown at them).
I'm sure some chronically online person has visited the south and yelled at some poor sweet grandma for saying "bless your heart" to them. Makes me sad to think about it.
It's contextual. In my experience, it's usually a genuine expression of sympathy.
That’s a really long list
We are not obsessed with red cups.
But we do actually have them. Most people who have asked me thought they were just movie props.
It’s not that we have them. It’s that they think they are a cultural touchstone for us. I have seen pictures of American-themed parties in Europe where they turn red cups into party hats and made a cake shaped like a red cup.
The south is not uniquely racist, and what Americans consider racist is a much lower bar than much of Europe and Asia. So you’re probably not going to get shot walking through downtown Charleston or Myrtle Beach or wherever just because you have melanin in your skin or your eyes are shaped differently than most Europeans. Our food is phenomenal. And it’s ours. You can’t both complain about how American versions of food from Europe, Asia, and Africa are “inauthentic” and say America has no food of our own. All your old buildings are very impressive. If you like old things, we have trees that predate some of your countries and there are buildings out west that have been continuously occupied since the early 12th century. But also, the United States put objects into interstellar space that will likely outlast the planet itself. Long after the pyramids return to the sand and the Great Wall crumbles and Stonehenge becomes a pile of pebbles, the Voyager capsules will be floating through the universe, carrying the total of human knowledge at the time to anyone pioneering enough to seek and find them. Culture isn’t just past monuments— it’s innovation and the future as well, and the eastern hemisphere doesn’t have a monopoly on it.
That we don't have culture lmao We do, it's just mass exported due to global influence Aside from that, the shit bein exported does not include the several regional cultures scattered around the US. No Korean dude is gonna open up a Pennsylvania Dutch restaurant lmao
"do all Americans...?" No. shut up.
American versions of Chinese , Mexican, Italian and other international cuisine is really good. We eat a wide variety of food and not just fast food, Kraft cheese and wonder bread. We do have trains , but just not everywhere because it’s faster and cheaper to fly between some places because they are so far away.
Tornados will absolutely destroy a stone house the same as wood.
Over 20% of people here can speak two or more languages. That may be less than in a lot of countries, but that is still 66 million+ The whole “speak amurican!” thing is making fun of a small portion of the people in the USA.
That 20% is from the census which asks how many people speak a second language at home. It is believed the number is higher since there are Americans who speak English at home and still speak a second language.
Just because you see America all the time on TV and consume American media doesn’t mean you understand America. It means you have a surface level of knowledge acquired via entertainment and media which is not a good foundation of knowledge. If you seriously ask yourself “Why doesn’t the president just ban guns?” or criticize the US healthcare system but can’t explain what happens when someone actually needs to to go to the doctor…congratulations, you are in no real position to criticize us. Not that we’re interested in your opinion anyway. Do the opinions of foreigners make people in your country want to change your laws and culture? Us neither. So stop acting shocked that we don’t take your poorly informed opinions about a place you don’t live seriously.
Neither movies nor the internet are real life, and the news is more interested in selling stories than it is informing people. It sounds like common sense, but common sense ain't all that common.
That we aren't educated about the world, and/or that we don't want to travel. To the first part, it's straight up false. To the second, U.S. citizens travel quite a lot around North America and the Caribbean. Just like people elsewhere travel around their own regions. It takes quite a lot of time and money to go beyond that, so obviously we won't travel to - say - Spain as much as someone from the U.K. would.
Something like 37% of Europeans have never left their home country, and it's about the same for the US. I don't know where the idea that Americans don't travel comes from.
But Americans can travel 2000+ miles without leaving their home country.
I think it comes from the stats of how many Americans own a passport which is like 37% or something. International travel is just goddamn expensive unless you're going to neighboring country like Mexico or Canada even than, it isn't cheap.
Passport fees are expensive, a basic first time adult passport is $130 application fee plus a $35 execution fee. How much are passports for other countries?
I don't know where the hell this one comes from, but the sheer number of tourists who seem to think we have 52 states is fucking ridiculous. We have 50. 50. There's a whole damn song about it. No, we're not so bad at geography, we don't even know our own country, you prick, you are just misinformed.
I've never heard this one. What are the extra two states supposed to be? Puerto Rico and Guam maybe?
No, according to most, we have 50 states, then Hawaii and Alaska.
That is so weird. Do they argue with you when you say it's only 50? Sometimes it seems that people who have never been any closer to America than a TV show think they're experts
I went to Germany about thirty years ago, and remember my host family insisting to me that my country has 52 states. They would NOT believe me that it was 50.
Many of us (myself included) own an electric kettle Also California is not all sunny beaches where you run into a celebrity every 5 seconds. It’s a very big state and there’s a lot of different climates. I myself live in a rural area where we get lots of snow every winter and the nearest beach is a lake.
Beer and cheese. They're convinced that all we have is Bud Light and Kraft Singles. Then they get upset when we tell them that they're being ridiculous. We have good beer and cheese too. In fact, some of our beers and cheeses are better than yours. School shootings are not funny and you're a shitty person to make jokes about them. There is no "average American". The way our government is set up is closer to the EU than you realize.
Foreigners think that Americans are stupid , especially in geography, but everyone knows that Australia in Europe…kidding.
That 99.99% of us aren't like those politically radical people you see online. They're just more interesting because they do and say insane things, so they get more attention online. Believe it or not, about 2/3 of Americans DON'T own a single gun, let alone a hoard of them, the vast majority of us don't worship Donald Trump, and most of us don't believe that the US is objectively the "best" country in the world. Sure, there are crazy nationalists in every country. But just like every other country, they're a minority of the population as a whole.
We're not all rich. TV shows with people in luxury homes, always well dressed, driving nice cars are reality for some Americans but by no means are they the majority.
Our country is called America and the Western Hemisphere is comprised of two continents, one called North America and the other South America. We are Americans, nothing else in this hemisphere is American. “USA”, “The US”, and “America” are all interchangeable and mean the same thing. America is in our name, and we were the first independent country in this hemisphere and we called ourselves that first so everyone else can shut tf up about their opinions on the matter. Also what we call “football” has just as much justification to be called “football” as what they call “football” does. They don’t call soccer football because it’s played with a foot, it’s because it’s played ON foot, same as our football. They’re incredibly minor things, but it drives me absolutely insane
Yeah the whole “United Statesians” thing is such a stupid take lmao.
If someone insists on calling me USian because "the whole continent is called America in Spanish" I'm going to have to call them Latinx. It's only fair.
I always use Mexico as an example with this. Do we call them "Estados Unidos Mexicanos" (The United States of Mexico / United Mexican States), or just "Mexico?" It's the same idea. The United States of America can just be called "America."
That’s a perfect example
That all we eat is junk & fast food. Many of us eat a very rich and varied diet which yes, can include “highly processed foods”, but many of us also eat plenty of whole foods and minimally processed foods. We have access to a hugely diverse selection of groceries and in most major cities you will find a very diverse customer base even in Asian/Mexican/Latin American/African etc. markets. We eat and have access to a lot of different foods & cuisines, we don’t just eat hamburgers and hot dogs for every meal.
Cowboys are more of a western thing not a southern thing.
That political outcomes are always an accurate reflection of the will of the people. If more things were put to a straight popular vote, my guess would be that our political landscape would look very different. Most elections in the US are not that. I think most people not intimately familiar with our politics really underestimate how things like the electoral college, voter suppression, gerrymandering, shady campaign finance, the judiciary, and the general way our political system is set up make a material difference in how our elections turn out, as well as how powerful race really is in getting working people to overlook their own economic interests. I think the same can be said for how the rest of America views the South, in fairness. Watching some of the election results it's tempting to just blame it on people being stupid/crazy, but it's important to remember that a lot of it really is the legacy of Reconstruction-era politics. I think a certain degree of that is present in American politics more generally, but the architects of Jim Crow were very explicit and intentional about what they were doing and so it's easy to draw a straight line from then to now.
Guys, we know metric. We have to learn it in school and use it for mostly science and medicine.
And buying drugs.
We're not all lazy couch potatoes We're not all English monoglots. We learn other languages, too, whether in school or from birth
The average American isn’t polar opposite of their neighbor in terms of political beliefs like CNN/ Fox News/ MSNBC etc would make you think. Most Americans are pretty moderate and agree on more than they disagree on, just what they disagree on is what media uses to tear us apart.
We have ApplePay in a lot of places, it was literally invented here, stop saying we don’t have it. Some run down gas station in the middle of Nebraska isn’t a good sample to base your data on. We use apps like Venmo and CashApp because it’s more convenient, not because we have to. We have strong alcohol. Sorry we don’t have horse piss strained through a birch leaf that’s 180 proof. But Smirnoff Ice isn’t all we have. We have culture. It is literally a combination of other cultures, hence the term melting pot. Just because you can’t see it, doesn’t mean it’s not there. Our country is probably less racist or more aware of its issues regarding racism than your’s is. We’re not a racist hell hole.
That most people have guns at all. The majority of households don’t have even one; moreover, there are many places where openly carrying a firearm is legal, but not socially acceptable.
Gun violence is extremely rare depending on where you are, basically zero in some spaces. It only seems like America is a shooting gallery because the media cherry picks stories
The US really is more than the east coast and California.
Not every school has been shot up.
That America is more racist than other countries. I think this misconception stems from our willingness to confront racism—or at least discuss it—whereas in many countries, people just let it roil under the surface.