The assumption that the American legal, political, and cultural context is the “default.” They say “X is illegal” without specifying jurisdiction. They assume a “right wing” or “left wing” party must be like their Republicans or Democrats. And so forth.
It’s funny hearing Americans say they hate liberals, and me being able to agree except meaning the exact opposite. Liberal party is right wing for me lol
…cue the argument about what liberal, libertarian, and liberalism really mean. Hell, Americans even (re)define terms to suit their pov, like adding “social liberalism” to make it clear that their definition is correcct. Or my favorite, “Larger Middle East”.
Yes, this is also very noticeable in media. They can have some kind of aliens in a future sci-fi universe that somehow have a legal process and trial that exactly mirrors the American way of doing things. For Americans that’s just normal, not realising this is absolutely not the norm in the rest of the world. Same thing with malls, hospitals, roads and many more things.
And unfortunately due to the prevalence of American media it “leaks” into other cultures as well. I’m Canadian and it’s not uncommon to hear about people being arrested or whatever and claiming that their “first amendment” rights were being violated, or “taking the fifth” (ie, the fifth amendment’s right to remain silent). We actually do have somewhat analogous laws for those things but of course they only know about the American ones and often get the details wrong as a result.
In the Expanse it actually make sense that the UN is in the US… I mean that literally is just irl lol. That UN building location shows just how much the influence the US has. (cuz it really should’ve been in switzerland for neutrality)
Oh how I love these messages about American companies doing illegal stuff and think they can get away with it just because it isn’t illegal in the US, only for the government to come down hard on them.
Even more funny if they have to leave Europe afterwards.
Sorry you can’t bust unions over here.
The big dumb cars that seem to be infecting the world.
Shooting children.
I haven’t heard of a school shooting in a long time. I can’t tell if that’s because they stopped happening, or if it’s because they happen so often that it’s not even considered newsworthy anymore.
… yeah it’s the second one. The US does not go a week without one really, you’ll find reports of them on local channels along with the traffic reports, weather forecast and car accidents. It rarely makes national news.
I want off the ride. To be sure.
There are multiple mass shootings per day in the United States. This page keeps track as they come in.
Hey, 2 January was clean! Give 'em some credit!
They did the shooting in Venezuela that day.
They waited till the third to do the attack, so that it would be the anniversary of us capturing Noreaga.
Ah yes. I was still awake after midnight on the 2nd when I saw the news, so it went down on that date in my mind.
They absolutely aren’t as widely reported; but not because of desensitization, it’s for the same reason suicides aren’t reported. Theres been studies showing it’s “contagious” and that reducing coverage helps suppress further occurences.
Then the action of reporting less should be combined with actively dissuading gun owners from mass shootings. So it has a noticeable impact and doesn’t just feel like people sticking their heads in the sand. It’s a human enough response, but USA has hard coded into their legislation and that can’t ever be challenged, apparently.
Okay? Don’t think I disagree, but that’s also not relevant to explaining the specific reason it’s being reported less.
Thread went from 0 to 100 real quick
Just like the number of fatalities in the school
It’s only quietly annoying because we legalized gun silencers this year!
(Technically suppressors, and they’ve technically been legal for a while, but they were previously heavily regulated and hard to get the right to manufacture, distribute, or sell, and now it’s much easier, and no longer taxed at the federal level).
Asking “so what do you do for a living?” when meeting someone new as if their job defines them. It’s one of the first questions Americans will ask someone when meeting them for the first time. I am American, but as I understand it, this question is far less common elsewhere in the world.
There are worse first questions.
Like the “Where are you from? No, I mean originally” you get asked in Germany if you aren’t white and straight-haired.Omg this fucking question.
I swear, white people never get asked that question.
It’s always like Hispanics/Latinos and Asians getting asked that.
I think I’ve internalized it a bit that I realized when I was in school, I never asked where the white classmates are from.
Feel so weird that “white” is “default” in the US.
Makes me feel like a perpetual foreigner.
“Where are you from? No, I mean originally”
I can have so much fun with that question! Esp. because in German (“Wo kommst du her?”) I can logically answer “from work” first, then my home, then I ask them to specify what they mean by originally. By that point they are usually sufficiently humbled.
Some keep on stumbling not realizing that the words they choose don’t matter, it’s their attitude I resist.
And if someone asks me that question before asking my name I refuse to answer anyhow.
I ask, “So what do you do?”
If they answer with hobbies and interests, they’re more my kind of person. If they answer with their job stuff, well that’s just their main life thing.
If you ask an American they will assume you MEAN their job, whether it’s their “main life thing” or not, because that’s how people talk here
Depends on where in America, too. It literally is question #1 in D.C., but has been less so elsewhere, in my experience.
I just ask, in a screaming tone, WHO DOES NUMBER TWO WORK FOR???
They usually just look at me, and assume there’s been some kind of language barrier. Nope. I’m just referencing an obscure scene that nobody remembers from Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. A film that came out in 1997. So a lot of people these days weren’t even BORN when that movie came out.
You show that turd who’s boss!
Can we get a courtesy flush?
This has always gotten under my skin as well. I generally downplay it to make my job sound as common as possible, and I do not return the question. What I do for money has very little influence on who I am or what I enjoy.
I like the phrase “make a living” though because it doesn’t necessarily refer to economical stuff.
Saying “I could care less” instead of “I couldn’t care less”. Annoyingly incorrect but not exactly a critical issue.
Oh we non-idiot Americans find the doofuses who do that annoying too
Hmm, that’s the first quietly annoying one so far.
I think the best response, because it amuses me greatly, is to reply simply with “as if”
I wait to see if they figure out that I’m just pointing out 2 words they missed saying at the beginning of that phrase to make it resemble what they intended.
I mean, I could care less, but calculating exactly how little I care would take more effort than I care to give.
new account - check
zero comments - check
inflammatory post - check.
deleted account - TBD…
TBF I myself might create a throwaway for asking a controversial question. And they’re not trolling imo.
Not using indoor voice.
And pretending to be anything but american.
Having to answer constant questions about Americans.
Invading other countries, ignoring international law, supporting palestinian genocide, toppling foreign governments… i find them kinda annoying you know?
“Quietly” annoying? That’s a tough one.
Yeah, nothing about Americans is quiet.
And we should inform them!
Americans are mostly super loud. You can hear them from forever away like they’re competing to be the loudest in any space. ~ someone originally from the US that had this pointed out to me.
My friend, I’ll refer you to map #14, which holds true. There’s also a billion people living south of these maps who I can tell you from experience, make most Americans seem demure.
Whomever made that map has never met someone from Amsterdam.
Sure. The post asked specifically about Americans and, perhaps by virtue of living in East Asia, I haven’t run into that many loud Europeans lately.
My point is that there’s a lot of loud people in the world. Really, most of the world is loud and only has an outdoor voice. I can hear my neighbors talking to her grandkids in her yard, 15 meters away, on the other side of a hedge and trees, with all the doors and windows closed in my house. There’s no change when she’s talking to me 1 meter away. I’m convinced it’s that a lot places like parties with deafening loud music and everyone has undiagnosed hearing damage.
Stereotypes sort of rely on the stereotype being at least somewhat unique. Might as well say Americans eat bland food and ignore all the other places that also eat relatively bland food.
However, congratulations on never having been besieged by Russian tourists.
I met one really drunk Russian guy years ago, but the bar was so loud everyone basically had to yell so I can’t really count it
Fair. If you’ve never had a swarm of pasty-pink round noise and smoke machines basically ruin a day at the beach, count yourself lucky.
I just went to a restaurant yesterday and there was a couple from the US sitting behind us and they were so loud, they were even starting conversations with people on the adjacent tables, one of them were German (I think) and pretended not to speak English, and kept bothering everyone next to them.
I’m not that bothered about loud Americans. Italians are worse.
Pretending they’re well travelled by bragging about how many states they’ve visited.
I certainly wouldn’t call that “well-traveled” and bragging is kinda dumb in general, but it is worth pointing out that the US does have a huge diversity of different cultures, demographics, and environs in different states (so much so that they can often feel like different countries), so it’s perhaps not as quaint as it sounds. It’s not like traveling within a European country. Much closer to traveling within the EU.
Still would never call that being “well-traveled”, though.
Yo, I went to South Korea once¹
¹been at airport waiting for a transfer flight to the US
But okay for real, I’ve been to China.² I’m a legit international traveller! 😏
²Was born there lol. Does immigration to the US technically count as “travelling”?
Comparing everything to their insignificant home town.
“Wow! Ancient aqueducts! We don’t have that back in Springfield, but we have faster table service.”
Okaaaay…
AMERICANS ARE LOUD DRAMA QUEENS.
Too many of us refuse to wear proper hearing protection. We are all partially deaf from loud work environments.
Lmfao at the super salty person.
As an American, I find all of these criticisms largely true and things I also find annoying about us and our culture.











