1. When they say Americans are stupid. If you knew anything about engineering or natural sciences you would know the US has by far the most spectacular advances in STEM.
In fact, the smartest people from all around the world come to the US to study, research, and work. The US won 2/3 of all Nobel prizes. If you generalize 330 million people based on a heavily edited pedestrian interview on Hollywood Boulevard, you are the dumb one.
2. When they say Americans are ignorant about the rest of the world. People know what they need to know. Americans might be more centric, because their country dominates global affairs, but to act like it’s something unique to Americans is just so stupid. Whenever a European mocks you for not knowing where Latvia is, ask them where Malaysia or Togo is.
3. Vast generalizations in general. It’s bad to generalize 10 people in a room but there are millions of americans and 50 states that are pretty independent of each other. Also factor in that big cities in all those states are very different than the country life that even in the same state.
4. That we’re all loud. Plenty of quiet folk, you probably just can’t hear us over the loud ones.
5. Basing their entire opinion of the USA off of one trip to Orlando six years ago.
6. Stuff about “fake friendliness”. Just because it is not a thing in your culture to smile at or talk to random strangers, doesn’t mean that always smiling and talking is something non-genuine.
7. Mostly criticisms based on dozens of youtube videos or dozens of posts on freakout subs. Even if you saw 1,000 people/videos – 1% of 1% of the population is 30,000. Or things like package deliveries on porches, like millions and millions and millions are delivered every day like that, the dozen youtube videos this week isn’t indicative of a national epidemic.
8. People saying we have bad food and basing their experience with American food on McDonalds or Dominoes.If you’ve never had gumbo, barbecue ribs, blackened fish, or a bowl of great chili, that’s on you.
9. Implying Americans are stupid based off of some sidewalk interview shows one’s own inability to think well. Those videos are edited. You could have 57 right answers and 14 wrong answers. Chop the right answers out, use the 14 wrong answers, add laugh tracks, special effects, maybe even take the clip of a woman who said “uhhhhhhhhhhhhh” before giving the correct answer and chop it just to the “uhhh…”, and you have yourself a nicely fabricated video of “Stupid Americans.”
10. When they say the US does not have culture. How ignorant do you have to be to believe that. Like seriously wtf? Rock and roll? Hollywood? Jazz? Blues? Pop? Hip Hop? The only reason why you might ignorantly believe that is because American culture is so dominant it has become the norm.
11. When they say the US is the most racist country in the world, Like bruh. Yes, due to it’s history, the US deals with institutional racism that needs to be resolved, but unlike a lot of countries they don’t hide it under a rug. Also, culturally, Americans are one of the most open-minded people I’ve met. As a Swede studying in the US, I am genuinely impressed at how well integrated and successful immigrants are in this country. Americans should strive to solve its racial issues, but take a good look in the mirror before lecturing others. Look at somewhere like Japan or Korea, straight up not allowing non natives into restaurants or social venues. Or ask the Romani living in Europe how bad it is to get a better idea of what its like.
12. The notion that the entire U.S. is a dystopian hellhole where no minority is safe, everyone is dodging bullets when we’re in public, kids are being lured into sex dungeons when asking for Halloween candy, everyone fights at Walmart and on Black Friday, and our packages are always getting stolen from our porches, to name just a few takes. Non-Americans ask us how we can live like this, when these things aren’t even a reality for most of us (and I’d like to think trick-or-treating leading to sex dungeons isn’t a reality at all).
Theodore Lee is the editor of Caveman Circus. He strives for self-improvement in all areas of his life, except his candy consumption, where he remains a champion gummy worm enthusiast. When not writing about mindfulness or living in integrity, you can find him hiding giant bags of sour patch kids under the bed.