What common American habits do people find quietly annoying?
6d 9h ago by lemmy.world/u/hxxdjay in nostupidquestions
Invading other countries to kidnapp head of states?
They said QUIETLY annoying. Things you wouldn't speak up about. I feel like kidnapping world leaders doesn't qualify as that. I'm American, and it's been about a full day now, and it's just now setting in just how insane it is that we just kidnapped a world leader. Just.....took him. Meanwhile, here in the states, we're also kidnapping random people off the street in unmarked cars for committing the crime of being not white.
These are things that should be screamed about, not silent.
Some people are screaming. Most are not. And the words, from those screaming, are cheap. The silence of actions continues to be, and likely will continue to be, deafening.
Oh yeah that's definitely representative of the majority of us, got us figured out you have
Alright, here's another one. Americans bragging about their democracy until all of a sudden it's more convenient to blame the politicians for bad behaviour rather than the electorate that put them in power.
Take some responsibility for your government, does it represent you or not?
Schrodinger's American Citizenship
"If the country is successful, I'm an American. If it's falling apart, I'm digging through my ancestry¹."
¹To find out if they qualify for other country's Citizenship through Ancestry
Do you understand how voting works? Each person gets one vote. Do you think I, or anyone else, could have somehow forced the 30% who didn't vote to vote, and not only that but to vote the way we wanted them to? How am I responsible for the choices of people 2,000 miles across the country that I've never interacted with? Do I have any control over the propaganda these people are exposed to?
At any given time, only 30-40% of the US is actually represented by the government. At least 30% of us directly voted against all this. Comments like yours make me feel like you're trying to erase our existence... but I'm sure that's helpful for somebody.
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)
It was placed in the US to get the US to stay as a member. None of the big and powerful countries care for UN all that much but them leaving could've just been another League of Nations fiasco. Or that was the thinking behind it, iirc.
And now I expect we'll see another League of Nations fiasco soon, Trump has already denied visas to world leaders that he doesn't like so that they theoretically can't come to the UN. The treaty the US signed regarding the UN means they don't need visas for that, but we all know how Trump loves to follow agreements.
Maybe the UN can survive in some form by relocating, IIRC they do have a secondary office in Geneva already.
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.
their obsession with genome analysis / where one of their great-great-grandfathers came from.
"i am italian, german, polish, chinese and cree!" "no, you are us-citizen and don't speak any language but english."
The whole ethnic identity is mostly to identify where in the world you ethnically originated from to other Americans. Because almost every single person in the US is either an immigrant, or a descendent of one. So we identify to each other where we came from as Americans.
Where people go wrong with this is if they happen to be traveling internationally and take this US centric identity with them. If traveling internationally, you could be ethnically from the place you are traveling. But in that context, you'd be American. This is a part of that whole well traveled awareness thing.
The genealogy thing is their curiosity in tracing that ethnic origin with greater detail. I personally don't find it too interesting myself, but different strokes.
Edit: I'd like to add, this is mostly in case other people reading this thread are wondering why this is even a thing. It's truly an annoying behavior.
Really, I think a far more charitable (and common) instance of this is an american, say, travelling to Ireland and noting that they actually have Irish heritage. And then some nice local appreciates their interest and they have something to talk about. American tourists these days don't seem any more annoying or tone deaf than, say German, Israeli, or UK tourists. If you encounter a tourist off the beaten path, then they are almost always polite, curious, and a very nice person. And if you are hanging out where the big bus tourists congregate... well, what did you expect? They are dumbasses fishing for selfies - the lowest common denominator doesnt differentiate based on nationality.
You're not wrong, this is totally a thing. I'm a euro mutt (I coin for myself) and I can trace some lines.
It's because were all immigrants in a young country. Even the census we take asks where we hail from. I've maked "American" on it the last two times. It is a deal here, and yes it can be annoying especially when you get the tropes going. "Oh my family is Italian we like big families" mean while I'm fourth gen Italian (mixed obvs) and like what, are you inbreeding to stay Italian? Your husbands last name is "smith" like, fuck off. My full first gen Italian great grandmother married a first gen polack and had one kid. One. Fuck off with your stereotypes. This bitch I'm thinking of feed her kids all the american processed foods, give no fucks about the quality of her food ingredients or where they come from, just fuck off "were Italian" bitch shut up.
Yep. And so many white people here claim native ancestry. "I'm 1/16th Cherokee" they'll say. Usually it is Cherokee because that's the group their parents or grandparents had heard of and told them. I think it comes from trying to absolve the guilty feelings of what the settlers did to the natives.
The genealogy conversations are just tiring and predictable.
So many! I think it was possibly, a almost pop culture trend in the 70s to claim native history tbh. So many folks I met who do this would have been teens/young adults in that time. But you're probably right, it's some warped cope for the atrocities committed against native people. Fucking warped.
Potentially annoying American here with a point of clarification: is it annoying just to be interested in one’s heritage, or is it Americans that make that heritage their entire personality?
the identity thing. as far as i see it's usually white people who do this. to gain ethnic distinction?
sure its fun to find out more abt what your granparents did (unless you are german).
Also never forget that these gene tests are almost fraudulent. Mostly bull.
I think a lot of it stems from living in a relatively young, immigration heavy, multicultural country and the little conversations that arise from that.
At least in the city I grew up and still live in I have met a lot of people who either immigrated or whose parents immigrated from other countries. In high school human geography I learned it takes a couple generations for an immigrant family to fully assimilate into a new culture, so a lot of these first/second generation immigrants still have connections and traditions from their family’s old country. The history of those countries (or at least the regions modern countries occupy) stretch back hundreds to thousands of years. I think many caucasian Americans, often raised to be competitive, want that sense of history when comparing to their own family but American culture has “only” developed over the past 300-400 years. To get an older/deeper sense of heritage they have to ask where their ancestors that immigrated to the US immigrated from, and because a sense of superiority is at least some part of American culture that older heritage has to be better than the other older heritages and therefore something to be loud and proud about. Even if it isn’t actually a big part of one’s life.
All that to say yes I think you’re right about it being a matter of ethnic distinction, which I think is brought about by the circumstances of US history. I definitely get how it’s annoying.
I’m an immigrant in the U.S. When my accent gives me away, I’m often asked where I’m from, which somehow leads to the discovery that the other person is also Irish. Or Scottish. Usually Irish.
I’m not offended so much as confused. “I am Irish” carries an expectation of shared culture and experience. When that’s clearly not what’s being offered, it lands less as connection and more hollow. Offense arises when clichés or affected accents appear. That’s no longer about identity; it’s just being an eejit.
I also find it maddening, not only because it's silly, but because the analysis is largely crap anyhow.
My mother's family touted their "Irish heritage for three generations", then quickly shut up when their genome analysis "proved" they were instead largely English. I've had to point out Ireland and England's relative positions and ask them if they thought anyone in our ancestry might have ever moved from island to island. Maybe consider that they were from somewhere else in Europe even earlier? Now they're "Irish" again.
Point entirely missed, JFC. They were Irish, their ancestors were maybe English, and way back, their ancestors were definitely African, but I don't see them getting into African cultural heritage. Thankfully.
You're United Statesians. I get the draw: they're looking for genuine but effort-free connection, identity, and belonging in a country whose dominant culture is homogenization, commoditization, and exploitation, but their search for culture through tenuous connections to long-dead ancestors instead of family, friends, and neighbors is just as hollow and unfulfilling.
Don't obsess about great³-Grandpa Pádraig's life harvesting peat from the bogs; he's long dead and probably would have hated you. Embrace what and where you are and utilize and improve what you actually have.
"English, Scotch, Welch and Irish" always drives me nuts. You can't even pronounce one of them correctly; how is that honouring your "heritage"?
no, they're literally 25% grape juice
They're Americans so grape jelly.
In America, juice and jelly have the same sugar and fake ingredient contents.
And I also wonder how the machines that create these results even manage to distinguish between, say, English and Welsh "genes". I mean sure, there's some science behind it. 0.1% to be precise.
I can tell you, I'm a real molecular/microbiologist!
Tl;Dr: It's mostly bunk.
Most of these services don't analyze your entire genome*, but instead just regions of genes, looking for something called SNPs: single nucleotide polymorphisms. DNA is composed of four nucleobases, commonly represented by their initials: T and A, C and G. A SNP is a spot on a gene where there's some variability in these, e.g., a C or A or even a T instead of a common G.
Through whole genome sequencing and statistical analysis, these companies were able to identify frequency trends in SNPs according to where the person lives and their self-reported ancestry. Now they use a cheaper, less comprehensive (but still fairly accurate) process to look for the SNPs that data suggests are most strongly correlated with different regions/ancestries and dole out your supposed ancestry.
There are problems.
Conclusions are only as good as your data, and the data are often based strongly on self-reporting, which in science terms is often referred to as "super fucking inaccurate".
SNPs aren't static - every child has some, about 20 to 60, that their parents don't have. Many detrimental SNPs can lead to death, so most that persist have no effect, though some are weakly detrimental or, even more rarely, beneficial. That means there's a limited pool of viable options, so your kid might have spontaneously developed a few strongly associated with a region they're not at all connected to. You have a few too, as does your coparent and all of your parents. Through a couple of generations of new SNPs, a person's ancestry results can shift. Through random chance and no new SNPs, one might inherit a combination of SNPs commonly seen in other regions, simply through the right combination of ancestors not at all from that area.
Some SNPs are better than others. Those on what are called "highly conserved" genes, i.e., fuck this gene up at all and you die, tend to be less common and more stable. If a defined group has an unusual SNP or SNPs on these regions, it's a far better indicator of relatedness than a SNP on a gene for something like vitamin C synthesis, which we have but the process is broken so it doesn't matter if we break it more.
In summary, these services are built on data of varying quality (shitty data) and moving targets of variable utility (shitty targets).
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
*If you can swing it, genome sequencing and analysis can be really interesting and useful for healthcare decisions. You can learn a lot about how you, specifically, work, and we're learning more all the time.
Just be sure to get sufficient sequencing coverage, at least 30x if you want "good enough", 100x or more if it's medically vital and/or you're looking for rare genes. 1x is fairly worthless, paying for it is a waste of money.
Thanks for your comment! It does sound like they applied barely enough (bad) science that they cannot be accused of defrauding their customers.
Apart from the shitty targets, I'm extremely put off by the self-reporting. While I could get fairly accurate knowledge from my dad, I still would have trouble defining which countries my ancestors were from, and anything beyond my great-great-grandparents is lost in the mists anyhow.
Do these commercial gene analyses treat Central Europe as one big entity?
BTW, have you considered that if you become a professional molecular/microbiologist you might be facing similar (if lesser) problematic situations most of the time?
I've always understood it to be a remnant of a culture that de-emphasized genealogy and family pedigree, and had a lot more cultural and ethnic mixing in marriages at an earlier era. In Europe, it seems like there are a lot more family crests and aristocratic titles, from centuries of families maneuvering for political power through strategic marriages and what not, and stronger cultural taboos against marrying and having children outside of one's ethnic group (and religion), at least up until maybe World War II.
So if there's just less to learn from DNA testing (a person who happens to already have records of all 16 of their great-great-grandparents, who all lived in the same geographical area), I'd expect there not to be much demand for that kind of analysis.
Or maybe I'm wrong to focus on the gentry and aristocratic families, and have a misplaced view of how long that kind of stuff culturally persisted in Europe.
-
"germans", "french", "danes" weren't a thing. up until recently. they are genetically diverse groups.
-
euros aren't all nobles. i don't know my grandmas maiden names.
-
there was a lot of movement (read: fucking around) in europe. what do these tests even mean by "dutch"?
- "germans", "french", "danes" weren't a thing. up until recently. they are genetically diverse groups.
I was under the impression that the DNA kits described actual ethnic groups and showed a map of the distribution of those groups overlaid on modern political borders or region names. Here's the page on 23 and Me's reports, which have a lot more granular detail, mapped onto modern political borders for reference, but where any listed nation or territory may have up to dozens of different sub-groups listed.
maybe clearing this up: germany has a hereditary citizenship. i. e. children of germans can get a german passport.
being "german" means owning german citizenship (or citizenship of the one of the former constructs the federal republic sees as its precursors), not owning a set of genes. you can have no 'distinct european genes' (e.g. be ainu?) at all and get citizenship for your kids, as long as you have it. you can be "genetically german" and still don't have a passport.
jus sanguinis usually isn't genetically defined
Jay parlay Francsays trey beein. Jaytude on laycole quart ans.
if i had the power to do so, i'd give you a french passport right away.
If it means we can get citizenship somewhere else and get out... you're offended by us figuring out our options? Oh how inconsiderate of us
We're not talking to you in this thread, we're talking about you. You don't need to jump in with "but that's not annoying!" After people answer the question OP posed, that's not useful.
This is ironically another annoying behaviour.
This is ironically another annoying behaviour.
Unable to resist a challenge. But it's usually the doubling- and tripling down that makes it really funny.
Oh, pardon me, I forgot you're allowed to find someone seeking a path forward in life as dreadfully inconvenient, because where you were born grants you superiority, m'lord
Yes, we see it, you can stop demonstrating the annoying behaviour now.
It typically doesn't. Most countries don't care about where your ancestors came from. Being fluent in the local language and culture will generally give you a leg up if you already qualify for immigration so I hope your family kept those alive (and not Americanized versions like Irish-Americans wearing green on St. Patrick's Day). But your ancestry is usually completely irrelevant.
Those genetic test results absolutely don't mean anything. If you're culturally American with an American passport, you're American and that's it.
Kind of funny you specifically call out Irish-Americans, because Ireland does actually have some options for citizenship-by-descent. It's not quite as simple as anyone with Irish ancestry can become a citizen, but it is a thing.
If you have a grandparent who was born in Ireland you're eligible
Or if your parent was an Irish citizen at the time of your birth
So hypothetically if you have a great grandparent born in Ireland, your parent could apply for Irish citizenship, even though their parents (your grandparents) weren't citizens and had never set foot in Ireland
And if they did that before you were born you would also be eligible
And so on down the line to your children, and their children, etc. if everyone keeps on top of it.
There's actually a decent handful of countries with some sort of citizenship-by-descent, not a majority by a longshot, and of course every country that does offer it has different requirements and restrictions, but for some people it can potentially be a viable pathway to another citizenship.
i am not going to verify what you said, but regardless of if it is true, if your grandparents have the citizenship, you probably don't need dna test to find that out...
It's absolutely an edge case, but there are still a lot of wonky family situations out there, people who are estranged from their family for any number of reasons, adoption, people raised by their grandparents under the impression that they were their parents to hide the fact that their sister is really their mom and they were hiding a teen pregnancy, your mom cheated and your dad isn't actually your father, etc.
And sometimes that all stays under wraps until someone in the family takes a DNA test.
I have a friend with a big family who just recently discovered that most of her aunts and uncles aren't actually her grandfather's biological children. She and her siblings haven't done a test themselves and her father's dead so the jury is still out on whether she's blood related to him or not.
But if she's not, and she finds out who her actual biological grandfather is, it's not impossible that that may open up a new pathway to citizenship through him.
And laws change, as a hypothetical, let's say Poland starts getting antsy (well, antsyer) about Russia doing Russia stuff and really wants more people to feed the war machine in case of WWII breaking out, they already have a citizenship by descent option but the proper documentation to qualify can be tricky, but if they decide they really want to increase immigration I don't think it would be out of the question for them to open up a pathway for someone who can show a DNA test with X% polish ancestry. In that hypothetical it might be kind of an out-of-the-frying-pan-into-the-fire situation, but maybe it would still be preferable to the situation in someone's home country.
It's just one more tool in the box that can open up new avenues for people to explore. It may not pan out for everyone or even most people who look into it, but in some small handful of cases it may save their lives.
Sorry if I'm missing something, but aren't everyone's aunts and uncles (other than those by marriage) the biological children of their grandparents?
If your grandmom cheated on your grandad, your aunts and uncles may not be his kids.
but in some small handful of cases it may save their lives.
in some small number of cases you may get hit by a meteorite during that search, so be careful.
In some small number of cases you may die in a house fire, and I'll bet you have smoke detectors and fire extinguishers around just in case
and I’ll bet you have smoke detectors and fire extinguishers around just in case
"smoke detectors everywhere" is not a norm everywhere in the world in a same way it is in usa.
"americans are not aware there is a world behind their borders" is already on a list in this thread, but thank you for practical presentation 😂
Is this like a sex thing for you? Do you get off from being a contrary jackass?
by all means do. but don't put that on facebook?
Why wouldn't we give our family members a tip on how they can also get out, on a platform where they would see it?
did anyone ever get a passport because some lab result said they were 10% "genetically slovakian"?
I don't know about Slovakian, but such places exist, yes.
great, another american immigrant. we need to build a wall and make america pay for it.
Great attitude you got there
Aww Cheesus that's funny. I hope you weren't serious. As if "having Italian genes" makes you eligible for a residence permit.
Italian ancestry can qualify you for citizenship, that's not the best example.
Source: me, American of Italian ancestry working to get dual citizenship
Not Italy perhaps, but there are such places.
You don't get citizenship just because you had ancestors there once.
Otherwise everyone is an African citizen.
Germany will give you citizenship for having had a single Great Great Grandfather from Bavaria. Ask me how I know.....
There are such places.
There is only one country that gives a flying shit about where your great-grandma allegedly came from, and that's Israel. For every other country you're not figuring out any options, you're cosplaying.
It's not quite the same, but I know someone who acquired Italian citizenship because their grandparents were Italian/had Italian citizenship. They don't even speak Italian.
Italy has recently changed their requirements and now language proficiency and residency are required. But yes, up until very recently heritage was mostly enough.
They did not get citizenship because of their grandparents.
They got a foot in the door because they knew someone living in Italy (if that even is the case), and then went through everything a normal migrant needs to go through.
You don't need to have ancestors there in order to live somewhere.
What are you even talking about? They both acquired it over Jure Sanguinis, both of them barely understand any Italian. They have dual Italian citizenship.
Nobody said anything about needing ancestors to live somewhere else.
This is not true. I personally acquired citizenship of Lithuania for example, solely because my grandmother was born there and left during Soviet occupation (as many did). I speak no Lithuanian, have no other connection to the country, and have never even been there.
ITT: confidently incorrect people who can't take 5 seconds to do an internet search, lol.
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).
The only thing that's changed is the $200 stamp tax was removed from the process. Everything else including registration and the background check remains the same. Wait times had only really come down from ~a year to a month or less for most cases because the ATF finally got their systems in a decent state for form 4 eFile.
The last one I bought early last year took about a week for the form to be approved. The first one I ever bought a decade ago took nearly a year.
I wanted to avoid overexplaining the joke, but it's also worth pointing out that the slight shifts in federal law this year is only a part of a broader push around state laws and American gun culture more broadly (and I'd expect them to keep lobbying for more federal deregulation after this year too), to where it's now more economically viable to manufacture, distribute, and sell suppressors. According to this source's analysis of ATF stats, we went from less than a million lawfully registered suppressors in 2016 to 1.5 million in 2018 to 2.6 million on 2021 to 4.9 million in 2024.
There's a broader shift underway, and I was just making a joke about it.
Gotcha, yeah, I could see the change bringing forward more suppressors on the market that are built with cheaper materials and meant to be more like wear items than something meant to last for years as the market had been for the US because of the regulations.
I've only heard from hunters/target sport shooters in other countries where suppressors are less regulated because gun ownership was more restrictive; that they have a lot more access to cheap suppressors then we do.
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.
I feel it’s a bit tacky as a first question, but if I’m not asking it at some point I personally feel like I’m not making a real effort to know someone.
For a lot of people I think it’s just their go-to ice breaker since most people have a job or some kind of education they are involved in.
I personally really enjoy hearing about many people jobs since they really open my eyes to a different lifestyles and working environments out there, or I might get the scoop on workplace drama stories.
I usually wait for the other person to bring up work. There's no reason to assume, because idk, maybe they're a stay at home parent, maybe they're in between jobs or just got laid off, maybe they do work but it's shitty. There are all sorts of reasons someone wouldn't want to talk about it.
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.
Born and raised in the US to Asian immigrant parents. The "are you Chinese or Japanese" question was rampant even before the episode of King of the Hill came out. So many others too:
Do you ever go back? (Sure, but it's my parents that "go back", the US is my home and I've never lived overseas long enough to feel attached to another place)
What's it like in Taiwan/Taipei? (Not sure, I've only ever been to the airport on my way to ThaiLAND)
So do you know karate/kung fu? (Yeah, because all Asian people are born with an innate knowledge of martial arts without any kind of training or instruction)
The ocean? What ocean?
So do you know karate/kung fu?
That when you respond with: "If you don't shut your god-damn mouth, I'mma have to use those moves on you"
I said something along these lines and had to wrestle with a large Trailer-Trash-American kid in 3rd grade. 2/5, would not recommend.
“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.
Also, "where do you go to church?"
I just try not to be around people that would ask that
Depends on where in America, too. It literally is question #1 in D.C., but has been less so elsewhere, in my experience.
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
My default answer to that is 'As little as possible.'
you're not giving much back in the conversation here. if probably respond to your response with something out of pocket like "oh is that like just sitting around and waiting to die or what"
Well aren't you just a barrel of laughs :)
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
Also "holding down the fort" instead of "holding the fort" ... maybe it's because they only have bouncy castles over there.
Your assumption that bouncy castles are more likely than aircraft is amusing
Huh? What do aircraft have to do with this?
... just as much as bouncy castles?
The saying is about holding a military position, like a fort, a line or a castle. Hence a bouncy castle can jokingly be thought of a military position that needs holding down (when it's windy). An aircraft isn't a military position (an airfield might be, they don't need holding down).
Holding down a b-17 flying fortress?
Ha, very good!
The phrase is typically used to refer to babysitting, i.e., I'll make sure the kids don't leave or kill themselves. So the "down" serves a purpose in the present use, regardless of its applicability to historic situations.
"Holding the fort" just meant not letting enemies in
"Holding down the fort" also includes preventing things from getting out of hand
But I like the bouncy castle imagery as it's less mundane
New idea: flying airstrip! We already have floating airstrips. Or maybe we should take that idea and flip it. Airborne boatyards. Yeah!
Not that novel of an idea. Especially during the cold war there were several concept of launching smaller aircraft from airships or larger aircraft.
Carrier has arrived.
You Must Construct Additional Pylons
Not new. Aircraft carriers exist.
Hmm, that's the first quietly annoying one so far.
I mean, I could care less, but calculating exactly how little I care would take more effort than I care to give.
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.
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.
Even if it does stir up controversy, OP has a fair question that can lead to some interesting discussion.
Heck, I'm American and super interested in the discussion!
I try pretty hard to avoid doing things people hate XD
Not using indoor voice.
And pretending to be anything but american.
Their support of pedos.
The fake friendliness, especially in customer service.
That's required by the employer.
Alright then, the fake friendliness that their employers require. Especially in customer service.
As is standing
Yup.
Having to answer constant questions about Americans.
"Quietly" annoying? That's a tough one.
Yeah, nothing about Americans is quiet.
And we should inform them!
Invading other countries, ignoring international law, supporting palestinian genocide, toppling foreign governments... i find them kinda annoying you know?
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"?
If you made it out of the airport, I'd say that counts. I've connected in South Korea and Taiwan several times since i was a kid, but never long enough of a layover to make it out of the airport.
No we just waited in the building for like idk 10 hours it felt like.
It must've been so boring since I don't remember much if it.
But I do remember being at a store in the airport and saw something cost like 10,000 and kid-me was like: "omg why is it so expensive? is every foreign country this rich?" (keep in mind, I think I was literally the only one in my entire school and out of everyone I know, that was emigrating, at least to my knowledge, so it felt like a sort of "privilage" to kid-me)
Then my dad was like: "That Korean money, its like [$5-$10 USD]" that's the moment I learned of the existence of other currencies, mind... blown... not everyone uses the same money.
Lol, naïve young me was so funny.
Idk why but I think I felt a bit anxious.
My mom told me to not share the fact that I was about to immigrating to the US to any of my peers, to keep it a secret because "people might get jealous".
So in my mind I immediately thought like some "bad guy" is gonna assassinate my family if it got leaked. (I was like 7, my thoughts went wild okay lol)
I'm not sure how long I keep it in me, I think I might've told classmates like the last month or so... right before we left... don't remember
So yea...
I always dwell on the past and think of alt-timelines... like what if that never happened and I was still in China... would I have found out about the internet outside of the wall?
Would I have made more friends? (since I would've never got the language barrier issue that damaged my self-esteem)
Would there be no bullying? I mean no racial differences... so might've been less conflicts...
But then again, this current timeline... this unique experience allowed me to understand multiculturalism and be more accepting of people of different national origins and different skin colors, and I understand LGBT stuff more.
So yea... this is an interesting timeline, my story has been kinda interesting... hopefully the future and ending is just as interesting if not more interesting.
Then my dad was like: “That Korean money, its like [$5-$10 USD]” that’s the moment I learned of the existence of other currencies, mind… blown… not everyone uses the same money.
I remember my experience with that. Doing the math in my head and realizing how much more expensive things were at the airport in Tokyo-Narita than the electronics shops around Bangkok.
Would I have made more friends? (since I would’ve never got the language barrier issue that damaged my self-esteem)
Do you mean learning English later than your peers? If so, I had a similar experience. I didn't learn English until kindergarten and it made it harder to make friends. Though there were other factors (big one being my dad was paranoid about me being kidnapped by the parents of other students, so I never got to hang out with any of them outside of school), I think they outcome is largely the same. Especially if the other kids were the type to let that be a dealbreaker for engaging with you. I found it easier to get to know other students to whom English was a second language.
Would there be no bullying? I mean no racial differences… so might’ve been less conflicts…
Somehow in my case, I saw more white kids getting bullied by other white kids than I ever experienced of myself or other people of color I went to school with. Though I suppose I was one of the few in my graduating class. Also somehow I managed to gain a reputation for being one of "the least Asian" kids at the school. Of which there were maybe 10 during any given school year.
didn’t learn English until kindergarten
I went through all the way to 2nd grade in China.
My mom convince the school in NYC to put me in 2nd grade again, this time in the US in English. She told me she want to give me a better chance at improving my English...
It's much different, when you're 2nd grade, you're expected to already speak the language.
I mean, I don't think I even knew Mandarin till Kindergarden (I think the media at home was mostly HK-based, dubbed in Cantonese), yet I still managed K - Grade 2 fine
As opposed to 2nd grade with English... that was so foreign to me.
I found it easier to get to know other students to whom English was a second language.
Yea I got along with other Cantonese speakers very well. Don't really think I had much bullying from other Cantonese speakers. Mandarin speakers were rare and I kinda felt slightly more distant from them, but still feel kinda have a connection.
paranoid about me being kidnapped
Lol my mom went all in on the "stranger danger" teaching.
Every stranger want to kidnap you. Reject candy, they want to drug you and steal organs of little boys and sell little girls into prostitution. Becareful of cars, bad guys are gonna hop out and pull you in.
Jesus chist that shit scared me.
I think Mainland China had a lot of kidnappings for some reason. Authorities didn't do shit about it.
I kinda developed a habit of looking behind me every so often, make sure no "bad guy" is following.
I think I developed separation anxiety because of this.
I kinda get scared of teachers that would hand out candy because I think it could be poison.
But then again my mom was fine with halloween trick-or-treating? Lol?
I think Mainland China had a lot of kidnappings for some reason. Authorities didn’t do shit about it.
My parents gave me the impression that it was somewhat common in Bangkok too, but I didn't need to worry as much because I'm not an attractive woman and/or rich looking white tourist.
But then again my mom was fine with halloween trick-or-treating? Lol?
Asian parents are so inconsistent like that. It's weird how common it is. My parents were worried about me getting poisoned because of that whole Tylenol poisoning thing from the 80's but didn't bat an eye whenever the school called about my allergic reactions to peanut exposure. Even before they found out my case wasn't life threatening. Same thing with peanuts in Halloween candy before I cared enough to read the labels to make sure I had regular M&Ms and not the peanut variety.
that is not exclusively american thing
The size bragging.
No, Texas isn't that big. Texas is about the same size as France.
USA also isn't that big. Europe is larger than USA.
Sure it's big and all, but the main difference is really just that there are fewer people in USA than in Europe. It has a lower population density, making everything seem further apart.
The reason I find it annoying is that the most obnoxious types have a tendency to use it to validate their own opinions on every fucking topic. Obviously we tiny Europeans just can't comprehend the scale of their American way of doing things in the most backwards and old fashioned manner.
I've met plenty of American immigrants. Most of them are really nice and humble and appreciate learning how stuff works here. However some will eventually encounter something that doesn't make sense to them, but rather than learn, they'll cave in on trying to explain in the role of the world conquering strongman why it just won't work in the scale that they're used to in America, as if that would make any sense to do in that situation.
It's delusional.
On the flip side, as a Canadian, I always get a chuckle out of European tourists who think they can drive from Montreal to Vancouver in a day.
I used to work on a local mountain in Vancouver and I once had someone ask about taking a day trip to Niagara Falls. What.
😂 I love it!
I mostly see size pointed out to people who try to draw comparisons between USA and another singlular European country.
Europe is also more concentrated than the US. Sure you are bigger, barely in terms of acreage, but you're also clumped together. We spread the fuck out so travelling from the tip of Washington State to the tip of Florida is a much longer car trip than traveling from Finland to Portugal, for instance. Not sure that the latter trip would actually be possible, but if it were, I suspect it would be at least 1000 miles shorter, and you'll notice that I didn't use Alaska, which would significantly increase the distance. We can actually drive to Alaska currently. That may change if the orange moron decides to invade Canada.
It's certainly possible to drive from Finland to Portugal. It takes a little more than two days of constant driving. About the same as Seattle to Miami.
I'm not sure I follow the importance of this, unless you're into long road trips. I would choose a flight in both cases, or a least spread the drive over several weeks for the adventure.
Most people only ever know their local area. And even that can be more than enough. People who live in New York or London don't have a chance of knowing every street in their cities. They only know the routes that make sense in their lives. They only get to experience wherever they happen to be throughout their lives. Does it then matter which city is bigger, when you can only ever experience a fraction of it in a lifetime?
Neither EU or USA has any city in the top 20 of largest cities world wide anyway. All the really big cities are in Asia.
My point is that I don't think it makes any sense to claim any value in being from some place that has the largest land or population or cities. They're just facts that have nothing to do with the individual person.
It matters a lot more to me how people behave, what they are capable of or what they know. I'm not impressed with anyone who simply bases their self worth or identity on being from some place that has something that is bigger than some other place. Maybe patriotism is the real explanation.
And that's the thing that annoys me about Americans, because quite a few of them seem to have a superiority complex over it. It's perfectly fine to be proud of what your fellow countrymen have achieved, but it doesn't automatically reflect back on the individual.
Or put differently: "Oh wow, the Grand Canyon is really impressively grand. Now, which part of it did you make?"
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....
Voting. You guys are really bad at voting.
Good thing we have the electoral college to make sure we vote correctly :3
Quietly annoying? I feel like the rest of the world has been making most of their grievances with the US habits/culture heard
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.
The obsession with brands. Insisting off brand medication is different when it literally HAS to be the same.
Unfortunately just another global consumerist trait. Though America might have helped make it worse.
I feel like brand obsession, where the brand itself is a status symbol, is more of a European thing, especially the brands owned by LVMH (which they've successfully exported everywhere, including the Americas and Asia).
There's still a time and a place for brand/manufacturer as an indicator of quality or even corporate policy (cars, bicycles, certain electronics, certain functional apparel/shoes/equipment/tools), but those are the types of things where I'd still consider the brand even if it's nowhere to be seen on the finished product.
There’s still a time and a place for brand/manufacturer as an indicator of quality
Nowadays so many brands "known for quality" also have a low tier that is basically just as bad as the cheapo equivalent, but branded. Maybe there was a time when that would disqualify them from being a "quality brand", but not anymore.
Nestlé used to make three "tiers" of chocolate: continental Europe (decent), the UK (meh), the US (bad).
Consume consume consume! The American way!
AMERICANS ARE LOUD DRAMA QUEENS.
Too many of us refuse to wear proper hearing protection. We are all partially deaf from loud work environments.
When you sit in a crowded German café and there are 2 Americans in it, you can be sure they'll be louder than everyone else combined.
I hate how fucking loud a nice little diner gets cause people just keep talking over each other louder and louder until nobody can fucking hear anything
Talking loud
I'm American, but I've heard in a lot of countries they hate how we start talking to someone who is still kind of far away. Like when your friend is approaching from the other direction and you say "Hey, how's it going?" but you have to talk more loudly because he's several paces away.
Thinking cheaper automatically means you're getting more value out of something, (example: I got this whole cake that can feed 10 people for $15 bucks!) ignoring the quality of that thing.
Thinking something expensive automatically means you're getting something of better quality (example: This bottle of wine is over $100. It's definitely better than one that uses much better methods of wine production that only costs $20).
Basically, my beef is with Americans having little sense of discernment and/or lack of good taste.
I reject the assertion that this is an American thing... I've been in enough other countries and they're all mostly consumerist cultures that care more about perceived social value than actual quality.
Perhaps, but America is known to export their "culture", including consumerism. Maybe it's tainting the world at large..
The same variety every country finds annoying about tourists from different cultures because foreigners. Loud, demanding, not obeying local social cues or courtesies, not speaking any of the language, walking too slow because tourist, crowding, messing up local living conditions thanks to vacation rentals, drunks, etc.
Tipping when they visit places where it isn't normal or expexted.
Imperialism
Treating their assumptions about others as facts.
Being Northern Irish I see this a lot. Always about The Troubles, Political Identity, and the modern working of Northern Ireland.
When Michelle O'Neill became First Minister all the plastic Paddy's came out the woodwork to say that Ireland would be united in 5 years time.
Despite Unionists still holding the majority of seats, the larger share of votes, and British being the most popular political identity.
Saying the state or city they're from when asked where they are from..like the world should know what a Jackson is.
sayings like "make no mistake"
It is what it is
"the likes of which"
Is this a History Hyenas reference ?
what is history hyenas?
It's a podcast about history (20%) & comedy (80%). One of the co-hosts says 'Make no mistake' often, so I thought that was being referenced.
Eating with only a fork instead of knife and fork. Cutting the food into pieces first, then shifting the fork to the right hand and eating the pieces like a toddler.
That's the whole western hemisphere.
I also loathed when they tried to teach me that custom, especially the whole utensils switching hands deal: it's frustrating for a young child who will fumble and drop utensils to the floor trying pointlessly unnecessary maneuvers.
I loathe the European convention just as much: bring pointy, sharp thing to mouth in less coordinated hand? Fuck no.
I don't follow either convention. Instead
- utensil that approaches mouth (fork or spoon) in dominant hand: least chance of fumbling, dropping food, self-injury
- knife in non-dominant hand: cutting doesn't require fine coordination (practice makes it 2nd nature) & fumbled knife ends up on plate
- utensils never switch hands: minimizes fumbling.
Basically, the European convention with opposite hands.
If we're talking table manners and conventions, at this point I'm on board with combining three principles, two from the West and one from the East, for making dining more convenient and more pleasant:
- (From Western restaurant norms): Every item on the plate or in the bowl should be intended to be eaten. The kitchen should remove bones and inedible seeds, and all garnishes should be edible.
- (From Western fine dining): Food should be properly seasoned when served. There's no need for salt or pepper to be available at the table.
- (From Asian dining culture): Knives at the table are barbaric, and everything on a plate or bowl should already be cut into appropriate sizes for one handed eating.
That would also take care of the American versus English etiquette (and whatever countries fall on either side of that convention) on how to use knives at the table.
Do toddlers where you are keep a hand free to multi-task, be available to lend a hand where needed, or use a napkin?
Or is dedicating both hands to stuffing your face the more toddler-like method? Maybe think before you fling shit.
You can put the knife down when needed, Janice. It's not rocket science.
We do. That's exactly what the "toddler"-insulter is lambasting.
They don't have a hand free when they use fork and knife you numbskull.
Precisely, thus they are the more similar to toddlers. Make sense?
annoyi-
Starting your next sentence even if you know the other person hasn't finished thier last word yet.
When some of them have the audacity, to arrogantly correct non-English speakers' language, when it isn't even their first language; hell it isn't even my second, it's my third. How's your Dutch motherfucker? I guess this isn't exactly restricted to Americans, but still...
Maybe that's exactly why some of them feel the urge to correct multilinguist haha
It fills us with a couple emotions.
Only if you're a bigot.
I'm a product of a shitty American school just like most people. There were zero non-English speakers at my high school.
I have NEVER thought either of those things about Spanish speakers. Or any language, for that matter.
Saying way more about how you were raised than anything.
Bigot.
pancake and honey on it
whaaaaa?
I confess, I mostly expected this post to contain things that also annoy me about my fellow Americans, but here I am now, rocked to my core
Wait, is it actually that rare in the US? I thought honey was a standard alternative!
It is, and the thought that someone would be annoyed by it shocks me
I'm a usaian and this is the first time I've ever heard of pancakes with honey. Could be a regional thing though. The country is a big place.
Interestingly, people who use honey often do it as a ‘healthier’ alternative to high-fructose corn syrup brands, though maple syrup actually has more minerals like calcium and potassium. Is honey the standard where you are from?
No it definitely isn't I've never heard of honey on pancakes only on toast. Maple syrup is the normal pancake topping. We actually can get the real stuff pretty easily where I am too because Minnesota is practically Canada.
Fun fact: in America most common brands of both honey AND maple syrup are just flavored high fructose corn syrup. It's not like we don't have the real stuff on the same shelf, but you have to pay attention to the labels or you might get some bullshit.
A huge amount of the global honey industry is fake. The UK just had a whole big to-do over it.
I know Canada is more famous for it, but we produce an absolute fuckton of maple syrup in the states.
Honey is for peanut butter and a drizzle of honey sammiches, baklava, and biscuits, not pancakes or waffles.
That they still exist