I'm thinking things like flagpoles in the yard.
Like you waste however much money and resources to keep your non-native grass around and they drop in a 60 foot pole into it to be able to fly an American flag and flag for whatever shitty college you went to.
What other things are there?
This list is so fucking long lol. I will put just a few.
- Flying stealth bombers over sporting events
- Single family housing zoning laws
- Two party system
The stealth bombers is a really good one, same with like playing the anthem or whatever before sporting events.
I loved that they sang the anthem and America The Beautiful before the Superbowl. That's not weird at all
I was watching with some lib friends, some of whom I am trying to radicalize slowly, and I turned to them and was like "ok, I know we're used to that, but can we take a step back and acknowledge how bizarre that actually is?" And all I could get from them was "I mean, I guess so, but it's not really THAT weird, this is a big important game".
American Civil Religion is so tough to get people to be critical of
The first time I saw this was when I truly realized satire is dead (if it was ever really alive).
It's indistinguishable from something I would laugh at on The Onion.
Idk actually. I've been to Italy but didn't go to any movies.
Giving your DNA to a shady corporation so that they can read you your tea leaves and tell you 'where you're from'.
Then that data gets shared with intelligence agencies, law enforcement and sold to the highest bidder. :ancap-good:
I am yet to meet an American that has not given away their DNA, it's hilarious.
No worries. I know plenty of people who have paid to have their DNA sold. Sweetest was a chud friend who was convinced of his Scottish heritage. Turns out he is English German, euro-mutt. And his dad had a second family he didn't know about.
You're doing the thing. "He is English German" lmao no he's neither of those things.
Fully. My dad tries to say he's Irish. I tell him there's asian kids in Dublin who are infinitly more Irish than you.
Fuck, I was about to say I don't think I've given my DNA to anyone but yeah
i have a rare genetic disorder so at least it was for a good cause (and now i know im like entirely central european who knew! looks at czech citizenship card) and the fbi almost certainly has that info
I haven't . . . but several of my relatives have! So same difference, really.
The best part is that even if you don’t give yours away, all it takes is one sibling or parent to volunteer and you’re still screwed
I think even more distant family can snitch on you with their dna right?
Yeah I was just giving examples but I’m pretty sure you’re right, I think they can link people who are much more removed than that
Cities skylines but with a mod that only allows expansion of highways and nothing else
I assumed that's how Americans say goodbye. You both thank eachother for your service, then leave eachother a tip, right?
always talking about how you have to remember to drink water to stay hydrated as if it's some secret health tip. also: going on and on about the potassium content of any banana they eat. I've never heard any non-americans mention potassium in relation to bananas, but americans just can't seem to shut up about it.
It's oddly specific but I can't argue against it
Nobody drinks water here, it's nuts. Like you'll actually get people commenting on it in a lot of situations, because everybody drinks soda like it's water instead. So if you're drinking water or just have water at a restaurant, you must be trying to lose weight or be extra healthy or something.
Bananas don't have a crazy amount potassium compared to other foods, I'm not sure how that bit of "common knowledge" came about.
Is there any other country where a significant chunk of the population refuses to drink water because it quote "Tastes bad?"
Excuse me but how exactly am I supposed to tolerate any beverage that is less than 10% sugar by weight?
To be fair, have you had american tap water? If it doesn't taste like a musty cave, it tastes like pool water the majority of the time. I consume most of my water as tea because the taste of the clorine they put in where I live makes me gag. It's been many years and I still haven't gotten over it, and neither has anyone I've lived with.
Oh yeah, I get it. Especially if you live somewhere with bad or lead pipes.
Most fruits have some level of radioactivity. I used to work unloading kiwis at a grocery store and the trucks had radioactive warning placards on them.
I’ve never heard any non-americans mention potassium in relation to bananas, but americans just can’t seem to shut up about it.
I've heard about this from Americans on the internet and now i give bananas to hungover ravers. There's also a serotonin precursor in these things. :banana-duck:
Paying 20 times more for medical care than a public system but thinking that is better because AT LEAST ITS NOT SOCIALISM
I might pay 20x more, but at least it's inconvenient and stressful to pay
It’s also tied to my employer, so I am loyal to them now :lord-bezos-amused:
This reminds me:
Extreme contempt of the poor and homeless: https://www.nbclosangeles.com/investigations/mcmansion-tents-homeless-showers-kitchens-los-angeles-streets-hollywood-venice/2458552/
Claiming you’re a nation of peace while having the vast majority of all nuclear weapons on earth.
Uniquely American? Some stuff in this thread could apply to at least a few other countries.
I'd have to say it's doing completely normal things and pretending they're special. In a "no other country is like this" kind of way.
Ok pretend I said notably instead of uniquely.
I stand by the flag poles though, where I'm at at least 10% of homes have flag poles and another 15% at least have flags hung by the garage.
I'm in Europe and flag poles are very much a thing here, at least in rural middle class communities.
I think you ought to narrow that "Europe" bit down. In Berlin before 2006 it was really rare to see a flag and was "Ew", nowadays it still is "Ew" but a bit more common, though it still is really rare to see it at single homes (and then not as prominently as in the US).
Though we got a lot of :rainbow-has: flags around the city, that is nice.
I'd prefer not to for safety reasons. I live in a immigrant community in a big city were it's very much not a thing but as I stated in my first post, in rural communities and suburbs were people live in houses with lawns it is a thing.
Also, Berlin has a huge leftist and alternative community compared to many other European capitals and patriotism seems to be quite frowned upon by many Germans for obvious reasons, not really representative of Europe as a whole in my opinion.
Interesting. My rural middle class visitations in europe are limited to England and I saw none so I'll have to take your word for it.
My favourite is when Americans do this and it's a quality that both Mexico and Canada have. Like bruh, literally next door there's a country like this.
There's some excellent ones that already been mentioned. Here's some I haven't seen yet:
Clapping
Tipping
Being incredibly shitty to customer service workers
Being weirdly formal (who the fuck calls their dad sir???) and yet, at the same time
Having the audacity to openly ask someone how much they earn in order to know if you need to care about them as a human being instead of having the human fucking decency of trying to infer it from their clothing, body and speech patterns like a civilised human, and in general
Being weirdly open about their surprising genuine belief that they (Yanks) think the USA and maybe a little bit Canada (which in your minds is an honorary 51st state) are the best places in the world and the only parts of the world that matter.
Tipping
Being incredibly shitty to customer service workers
Honestly have no fucking idea how both of those remain to be true but god damn, they really do
Having the audacity to openly ask someone how much they earn in order to know if you need to care about them as a human being instead of having the human fucking decency of trying to infer it from their clothing, body and speech patterns like a civilised human, and in general
I thought Americans were uniquely prudish about their income and refuse to share it with others, even if it would benefit them say forming a union and getting a raise.
yes. PMC Americans don't ask & the whole 'middle class' is very strange about it. us low-earners are pretty open about it tho lmao
i used to be a low earner and then PMC'd myself about 10 years ago in a Rodney Dangerfield/Back To School type scenario and i still maintain the "talk openly about money" mentality. it freaks a lot of the other PMCers out, but non-douches and younger people in general seem to appreciate it because everybody struggles at least sometimes and other times you're wanting to know if you are getting fucked on some deal... but nobody wants to admit that they may have gotten fleeced so we can maintain this aura of all being fiscally astute.
i tell people anything they want to know. what i paid for my car, housing, insurance, medical costs, loan terms, credit rating, whatever. i hate the conspiracy of silence around this shit. makes us all more likely to be suckered, imo.
Being weirdly formal (who the fuck calls their dad sir???) There's a bit in Debt: The First 5,000 Years where Graeber describes how most of our etiquette is essentially the petit bourgeoisie affecting the social relations of feudal lords, pretending that our baseline, non-exchange obligations to each other, down to our pleasantries, are still somehow an exchange. Definitely something that you still find more entrenched in the US than anywhere else.
Having the audacity to openly ask someone how much they earn in order to know if you need to care about them as a human being instead of having the human fucking decency of trying to infer it from their clothing, body and speech patterns like a civilised human On the other hand, there's the culture of not asking your coworkers what they make, which is a tactic to discourage organizing. Maybe a better rule would be to not ask random people what they make unless it's to build class consciousness or to organize your coworkers. I'm not sure.
(who the fuck calls their dad sir???)
I think this is an artifact representative of American culture prior to the Vietnam War.
Growing up in the 90's I think I only ever heard one person call their dad sir, and it was when we got caught drinking passionfruit vodka in a friend's basement.
"The American Military Family" cohort/trope has changed a lot over the past 50 years or so.
my dad beat it into me so I pretty much addressed all adults as "sir/mam" until like a year ago, when I turned 20
Yeah this sir/maam "parenting strategy," I think, was kind of the result of the camo-humping culture and PTSD of the post-WWII era that (according to my analysis) was kinda stifled off by the anti-war sentiments common during the Vietnam War era.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying America doesn't worship the military now (because we most certainly do) just that before it was like a.... participatory worship whereas now it's more like a distanced reverence?
Maybe I'm not expressing my thoughts well, this is a pretty abstract concept in my head I haven't really put to words yet.
Think like people clapping after the movie finishes at the cinema or when the airplane lands, that sort of clapping. The weird clapping, not like applauding a speaker or musician. This weird American clapping (which has spread to Canada because both counties are garbage) is done for someone who isn't there, just to signify that something is finished.
I've never experienced people clapping for a plane land tbh but I'll take your word for it. Clapping at movies I have seen, agree that shit is generally dumb.
Shhhh, poor fellas don't realize the post-credit Marvel clip plays regardless of whether you clapped or not.
I clap at movies regardless of quality so the projectionist knows they did a great job.
What theaters are you going to where they still have someone in the projection booth
sometimes i'll clap at the end of a movie i'm watching alone in my room. its fun
No, the bus driver is a discrete person who you greeted and then thanked. Both parts of that are polite and help them enjoy their day: they are a worker who you saw and recognised. The pilots of an airliner can't hear you, they're still in the cockpit doing post flight stuff. You probably didn't see them before or during the flight unless its a really small plane or you're a time traveler and flying pre911. Sure it would be good to say thanks to the pilot if you see them but clapping isn't really that is it?
Clapping after movies drives me fucking crazy, holy shit
"Leader of the Free World" fuck that phrase pisses me off in every way possible.
Claims to be leader of the free world, yet has the highest incarceration rate. :big-cool:
you can't make a freedomlette without lockin' up a few eggs.
Repeatedly trying to assassinate me and failing like they Wiley Coyote.
There is nothing more uniquely American than celebrating labor day on the wrong day.
In 1886, during the commemoration of Labor Day / May Day / International Workers Day in Chicago, working class unions were protesting for basic labor laws like $1/hr minimum wage, six-day work week and on that particular year, 8 hours workday pls . The police cracked down on the rally, killed one protestor and some anarchists in the crowd retaliated by lobbing a bomb onto police line, killing 7 officers. This is historically called Haymarket affair. Today we have 5-day work week, 8 hours workday, and basic labor laws thank to these protests.
Grover Cleveland - Democratic president at the time was too much of a pussy. He did not want Labor Day to commemorate the socialists and anarchists protest behind Haymarket affair. So he moved Labor Day to fall, and now Labor Day in the USA is about football, BBQ, and Labor Day sales in September while the rest of the world still celebrate Labor Day in May, in part celebrating the brave working class unions in Illinois who fought for basic labor laws today we take for granted.
Not only that, but Labor Day/May Day was renamed to, and this is not a joke, Loyalty Day. In case you doubted that we live in a dystopia.
I thought it was Law Day https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_Day_(United_States)
On May 1 the United States officially recognizes Law Day. It is meant to reflect on the role of law in the foundation of the country and to recognize its importance for society. 🤣 😂
canada celebrates it in september
In fact most of the things in this thread apply to canada too
I've felt for a while Canada should just...have Maine. It makes the most sense.
The shitty culture they export to other countries. In Argentina the TV would play Am*rican movies, like those insanely SHITTY christmas movies with the (super) white family and shit like that, or the ones about talking dogs (Bud?) like GET THAT SHIT OFF THE AIR FFS
Their shitty sense of patriotism is insanely annoying, like yeah you live in the richest country that ever existed but oh that country gives ZERO FUCKS about you, idiot. All the riches in the world and you couldn't tackle a fucking pandemic (and make it harder for the rest of us to combat it as well) because AT LEAST THIS ISN'T SOCIALISM BROTHER, SOCIALISM FAILED AMERICA #1
