What are some misconceptions about Americans?
Posted by Technical-Vanilla-47@reddit | AskAnAmerican | View on Reddit | 60 comments
Posted by Technical-Vanilla-47@reddit | AskAnAmerican | View on Reddit | 60 comments
MundaneHuckleberry58@reddit
I’m sick of seeing “why won’t you guys DO anything about trump?!” People saying that means they definitely don’t understand the structure of our culture, economy & size of the country.
DangerousHour2094@reddit
Let alone electoral process, the history or context behind it
MundaneHuckleberry58@reddit
And decades of gerrymandering.
DangerousHour2094@reddit
Yuuuuup.
And in the south, a slow dismantling of the Voting Rights Act since Shelby v Holder in 2013
purritowraptor@reddit
"wHy dOn'T yOu StRiKe?"
Go on, organise a mass strike across the entire EU. Right now. Everyone on board. Go. So easy!
ATLDeepCreeker@reddit
Its because they equate their tiny countries to our huge one.
purritowraptor@reddit
I'm actually using the EU as a comparison because it's a massive landmass of autonomous states linked together by overarching political and economics framework. It's not a 1-1 comparison, but it's not so completely dissimilar to how the US functions as well.
Eudaimonics@reddit
Yeah, so far the legal system has been EXTREMELY effective at keeping the worst of the things Trump has done in check.
Nobody checks up on the headlines in 6 months or a year to see if Trump was successful or not.
Yes, no doubt there’s many Republicans that want to Cosplay Germany on the eve of WWII, but that doesn’t mean they’re actually successful.
Now if elections are suspended or valid election results aren’t being certified AND the courts are either compromised or actively being ignored, that’s when we rebel.
But as long as the rule of law is still in place, an uprising is pretty silly when we can just vote and have an actual impact.
AtrumAequitas@reddit
That there is a stereotypical American. America is larger than Europe, with tens of thousands of micro cultures.
Fit-Rip-4550@reddit
That Americans are uneducated, uncultured morons.
Eudaimonics@reddit
I used to believe this. But looking who is running the country right now, I’m not so sure.
ScatterTheReeds@reddit
A large portion of Europeans and other non Americans are uneducated, uncultured morons, too. You just don’t know it. It’s something that Americans only learn when they live (not just visit as a tourist) in other countries.
Eudaimonics@reddit
I never said anything about Europeans.
You’re being defensive for no reason.
The same exact thing is happening in Hungary right now.
ATLDeepCreeker@reddit
I think most people on Earth are uneducated and uncultured. Name any country, even the so called most educated, and I'm sure I can show a compelling statistic regarding education.
And "uncultured" is just a buzz word used to define class. Who is in charge of saying what culture or parts of culture are worth knowing?
Eudaimonics@reddit
Yes, but this is /r/askanamerican and that doesn’t change who is in control right now.
There are many cautionary tales throughout history of movements taking advantage of human tribalism to steal from peoples pockets while the populace is distracted by bogus witch hunts and lies.
Cheap_Coffee@reddit
The people who participate in the culture?
AardvarkIll6079@reddit
A significant portion of the country is.
Kit_the_Human@reddit
That's true of most countries, though.
tivnan1989@reddit
Well that entirely depends on what state you’re from….
Weary_Hawk9463@reddit
LOL
ladysweatalot2@reddit
Are you saying we’re educated, cultures morons instead??
aNuggetsUncle@reddit
That Americans are loud
No, we are direct, sometime to a fault
ScatterTheReeds@reddit
We’re not even direct. We state things politely.
HidingInTrees2245@reddit
I’m thinking either they’ve only met Texans or it’s impolite to talk above a whisper in Europe.
Marmatus@reddit
That we don’t travel. Sure, a lot of us haven’t left the country, but that’s because over here you can drive 3,000 miles in one direction and still be in the same country.
HidingInTrees2245@reddit
Not to mention the two gigantic oceans on either side of us.
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JustBarelyGoodEnough@reddit
I met a Korean couple visiting some friends in the US and one of the things the husband would say is "America is so big that everything you've heard is true and so is the opposite".
I don't know if it's true that Americans are uniquely hard to generalize, but that's what I've been told by people who have seen much more of the world than I have.
goteed@reddit
I can't speak for the world, but as an American that has spent 4 years living and traveling the country in an RV, you really can't generalize Americans.
Every part of this country has some form of culture that is different than the other. The food, the look, the way they socialize it's all different. You have some regional generalities, but on the whole, it's just too big.
dontforgettowriteme@reddit
I love this and am going to use it. It's almost exactly what I was thinking in trying to answer the question but I like their response better lol.
titianwasp@reddit
I love this. I travel internationally a few times a year and this is the best description I have found.
Duffy_Do@reddit
Here are some I kinda encounter a lot:
We all live in the South (Texas, Alabama, etc) or in California or New York. To be blunt: There are 50 states in total, not just these.
We all speak in Southern accents. Every country has different regions, and not every region sounds the same. Heck, some parts of the same state can sound different.
That's all I can really think about. 😅 I hope these helped, though. :)
Dr_Watson349@reddit
To be fair 1/3 of all Americans live in either NY, TX, CA, or FL.
Accomplished-Fun215@reddit
I have a pretty neutral American accent (DC suburbs with a touch of the upper Midwest and a touch of the South from a couple moves) according to nearly everybody I've ever met, but I recently met a Belgian who told me I didn't sound very American because I don't sound like a TV Texan or a TV New Yorker.
Duffy_Do@reddit
We need more representation in the media, honestly.
My accent is just bland Midwestern. I might have a slight touch of Minnesotan, but not much.
Quirky_Commission_56@reddit
I was born and reared in Texas but I don’t speak with a twang in my voice but I can speak a little Spanish and German.
Duffy_Do@reddit
I feel like people get kind of weirded out when they expect someone to have an accent based on where they're from.
I'm not bilingual myself, but I have German and Norwegian ancestry.
ATLDeepCreeker@reddit
That we dont know about the world outside the U.S.
We know substantially more about Canada, Latin America and the Caribbean than they do.
I would also say that the average American knows more about Europe than the average Brit knows about the U.S.
For instance, if you gave a "capitals" quiz to both. Americans would know more Eurpean capitals than Europeans would know state capitals.
I used to work with a British subsidiary if my company, and none of them knew anything about any African ir Asian country. There was even one British university grad who didnt understand that Wales is a different country than England.
108ePanda@reddit
I think it is the idea that they are a bit dumb but ultimately well-meaning. In reality they are dumb and also loads of them are total cunts.
Remarkable_Pie_1353@reddit
British often complain we are arrogant. But I believe it's because they are not used to seeing confidence in anyone except their upper class.
They also don't understand that we have loose social structures based on wealth, not a social class that is inherited.
ChoppedUnc-SF@reddit
That we junk food all the time or can't find food without additives. The US has tons of healthy options nowadays and in many areas, it's harder to find fast food not vice versa.
LifeApprehensive2818@reddit
Read an interesting article a bit ago. Have you noticed how new fast food restaurants are being built with a very generic look, as opposed to big brand features like the red roof for pizza hut or golden arches for McD's?
That's intentional, because the developers want the building to have resell value. In the past, if you built a fast food joint, it would have enough demand to stay in business essentially forever, so the building could be built specifically for the franchise. That's not true anymore; people are not as attracted to fast food as they used to be, so it's no longer a totally stable investment.
Weary_Hawk9463@reddit
That we are smart.
Opus-the-Penguin@reddit
Who thinks this, exactly?
Remarkable_Pie_1353@reddit
So many misconceptions asked about in this subreddit are drawn from American movies or news stories. They fail to understand things that make the news are rare events in every day life. That's why it's called "news" dumdums.
Interior walls are made of cardboard.
Everyone is deeply Christian who attends church every Sunday.
Getting shot is a constant risk. Statistically it's rare that a person is shot in the US.
The distances between cities or tourist attractions are incredibly underestimated.
bingbong6977@reddit
Guns are everywhere
dontforgettowriteme@reddit
Well, around here, guns are everywhere.
Ladonnacinica@reddit
That every kid gets kicked out of the house as soon as they turned 18. Actual surveys have shown a substantial amount of young adults live at home well into their early to mid twenties.
I don’t know anyone who left home when they were 18. Even if they lived at college, they went back home after graduation.
Maybe this was true in the past but in recent decades, it hasn’t been the case.
Outlaw_Josie_Snails@reddit
Yep. In the past, it was almost a given, or perhaps a rite of passage, for young adults to move out at 18. Nowadays, especially with the economy, they are moving out later.
Seems to be worldwide
Ladonnacinica@reddit
It’s actually more common worldwide to live at home even as an adult. In Spain and Italy, adults stay at home even until their late twenties or thirty. That’s always been the case.
You’ll see similar trends in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
It seems the USA has started be like the rest of the world in this matter.
AtheneSchmidt@reddit
My best friend is the only person I know who left at 18 and never lived with her parents again. And she joined the army.
Odd-Specific-8579@reddit
That school shootings happen all the time here
HalcyonHelvetica@reddit
We’re all uneducated Bible-thumping evangelical Trump supporters who get shot at every day
CompletelyPaperless@reddit
That living in one of the leading economies in the world makes life automatically easy and full of opportunities. This country is a dog eat dog world. Most opportunities go to the people in extreme poverty, or the very wealthy. The lower middle class is the biggest group, and therefore often missing out on everything, all while being taxed to hell. Quality of life in this country also sucks, and the people are mostly all mean to each other constantly. I've lived in Europe as well so I know this isn't normal societal behavior. It's a US problem.
RedIsAwesome@reddit
That being nice, polite, or chatty to strangers means we're being fake.
LikelyNotSober@reddit
That the majority of us support our government’s policies.
Raddatatta@reddit
Honestly I'd check out many of the questions we get on this subreddit. There are quite a few of them! I think a lot are that things from media are real. Though it goes both ways with people thinking some things that aren't real are and that some things that are real aren't.
Intelligent_Pop1173@reddit
That all we eat is fast food
HotSteak@reddit
Some people think that not all Americans are awesome but that's wrong.
Ok-Energy-9785@reddit
That we think about getting shot all of the time