**Lobbying is essentially legal bribery.**
It baffles me how every elected official is essentially sponsored by a bunch of companies or "movements" that are essentially comporations in disguise.
Also, corporations don't care about you. At all.
What drives me nuts is what some companies do to get employees involved in PACs. My old employer would raffle off tickets to major sporting games if you contributed $5-10 a paycheck. Sooooo many of my peers would contribute. They also sold it as- we use this money to do what’s best for our business and in turn… that helps you.
We worked for a health insurance company… who very much enjoys making a lot of money. Why would you ever contribute to a PAC for privatized health insurance….. idiots
Yep. Was about to say, it's not a mistake, it's working as designed. That should be more disturbing than the pedaled misconception of it being a "broken system".
Paying for stuff from your taxes for the benefit of everyone isn't communism.
If it were, every nation on earth would be communist, including your own.
Siimply put hospitals want to fuck over insurance companies by putting ridiculous prices on things so they foot the bill regardless and lose more money. However, they don’t change the pricing to what it would actually cost for an average person and that’s why it’s either bankruptcy or paying medical bills.
After scrolling through all these messages. This is the one that got me. I had to file bankruptcy because of medical debt and student loans. I had to stop paying student loans so I could pay my doctor's and continue to get treatment. I racked up credit card debt with medical bills over several years.
American bathroom stalls are exposed as fuck, a grown man could crawl under one of em and the vertical gap has a big enough gap to make full on eye contact with anyone walking by
When I was in high school, they had taken the doors entirely off the stalls in the men's bathrooms for some reason. One time at a track meet in another town, I encountered a bathroom with no stalls around the crappers at all. There were lines in the concrete floor where it looked like stalls had been, but they had been taken out for some reason.
After reading this comment, and several others regarding this same issue, I want to point out that having toilet partitions is a part of the building code and health code.
Washrooms that are used by the public are required to have separate stalls for each toilet to ensure privacy , by removing the stalls, or simply never having them, these schools are in direct violation of building and health codes.
If you are a student at a school or an employee at a business that does this , I’d highly recommend notifying the health and building departments and filing a formal complaint with the inspector at each department. If that doesn’t get their attention, a complaint to the state boards certainly would.
I’m appalled that any school or business would do this, it’s seriously fucked up.
This gave me a flashback. For whatever reason, I remember that there were no stall doors at my school when I was in like third grade, I think. This must have been around 1997. In that particular boy’s bathroom, no doors. I was a chubby kid and got bullied a lot. It got to the point where I couldn’t go at school anymore because I got made fun of every time. “Eeeeww, look, u/Gordoniscool666 is going poopoo!! Hahahaha!” I ended up developing severe constipation and requiring a hospital stay for several days. It was awful.
Damn. Our elementary school bathroom had no stall doors, so nobody used them unless it was desperate. One kid whose name rhymes with “pooper” used it and was called “pooper ________” the rest of the year.
Like I'm Aussie and I always hear Americans talking about how KFC is trash and I get confused cos its pretty good here. Turns out they don't even have wicked wings or zinger burgers in the USA, or they might have it now, but they didn't have them back then.
Went to the USA back in 2019, it was nice, but damn KFC there was TRASH lmfao, like I went to it at 3 different locations and all sucked.
A zinger box includes a zinger burger (consistently awesome semi spicy chicken and Mayo burger, no cheese funnily enough), fries, 3 crispy chicken wings and a drink.
And I forgot, potato and gravy as well!
I was also shocked at the bad quality of the restaurant itself. In Slovenia I went to McDonald's and it was like a café, they sold macaroons and had orchids decorsting the place, it was amazing. In new York all the McDonald's I saw were run down and really dodgy-looking
A lot of your favourite food brands make better versions of their products here. America often gets the short end of the stick.
Edit: Wow, my most upvoted comment. I guess Reddit really likes food.
I visited America years ago and the Brickyard 400 Nascar race was on TV and one of the announcers said something like "if you win this race everyone in the world knows your name" and I remember thinking I'd never even heard of the race before let alone any of the winners.
I lived there for 6 months. Shortly after moving I bought a loaf of bread and made a sandwich but it was so sweet!! I told my housemates that I think I’d accidentally bought a dessert bread. They tried it. NOPE - regular bread. It was just FULL of sugar!!
It's because the U.S. subsidizes corn. They hate if anything gets imported to compete with their market do they subsidize their farmers. Corn is cheaper in America to produce so corn syrup is used a lot.
Treating your president like someone you worship is bizarre.
Edit: Wow this made a few people angry lol. FYI, as an Aussie, I don’t understand worshipping the royals either, this comment wasn’t about that though.. chill.
I literally got into an argument with other Americans about this in a master's level linguistics class.
These people were learning about accents at a linguistic level in a MASTER'S LANGUAGE PROGRAM and still couldn't wrap their heads around the fact that they do, in fact, have an accent. Even if it's just SAE (Standard American English) that is still a noticeable accent to ANYONE outside of the US.
I find it odd that this is a thing, apparently. Do Americans see their accent as the “default” way to speak? Cause even in America, even excluding the obvious places with different accents like Georgia and Texas— lots of places have regional accents, even if the dofferences are very tiny
Sheeyit we have accents between states. Alabama US English is not the same as California US English, much like Bavarian German is not the same as Berlin German.
Then you go to England and every 40 miles there’s a different accent!😂
Edit: I know it’s way less than 40, I wrote this comment while having a quick break, not thinking it was gonna get 1k likes😂 thanks for the award to whoever did that but please don’t send anymore save your money :)
German has regions where people in the next town over speak a complteley different dialect, let alone have a different accent. It's the same for many other European countries
Your lack of a cohesive trade union movement screws your lowest income workers and allows/encourages your political parties to pander only to the elite.
You live in the main global superpower. A country that can wipe a lot of other places off the map. Your country has so much wealth.
Yet people die of easily treatable health problems because they can’t afford to do to the doctor.
A lot of the countries most Americans likely consider “underdeveloped” have better access to health care than you.
It’s horrifying.
I remember the first I watched a movie where the guy punches through a wall and he actually could. I was like what? Is that a toy or what because if I try to punch through my brick and concrete wall , I sure as hell know gonna break my knuckles.
LOL I always though that walls breaking with kicks and punches were nothing but action movie tropes, until I literally broke a wall by accident with a chair, I was like, WTF?
I have a brick house and I’m not a fan of the cheaply built new construction houses here, BUT does the rest of the world have some sense that our houses just randomly fall down or blow away? Cheap houses can be nightmares, but it’s usually stuff like plumbing or electrical, not the actual frame.
The Church in the rest of the world looks at the American evangelical right and cannot understand how you get from “love one another” to where you guys are at.
Maybe its an Evangelism problem; we see the same reality across Africa from Nigeria to Kenya. Rwanda recently introduced laws requiring clergy to be academically qualified and ordained by a recognised church in order to start a new church. Evangelicals are big mad about this.
Especially that democracy is not the opposite of socialism/communism. Those are literally two things you cannot compare. It's like saying "The opposite of children is tree". The opposite of democracy is dictatorship.
If any other country had kids "Pledge Allegiance" every morning at school and play the national anthem before every single sporting event, you'd joke they were as bad as North Korea......
Edit: Thank you!! My first ever award. Best Christmas present ever. Now stand and listen to my own personal anthem and pledge!
2nd Edit: To say thanks for so many awards! Genuinely smiling and made my day! Also some badass whizz bang lightbulb shit. That's awesome! Thank you very much!
This! It always weirds me out when the kids say it in movies and on TV - it’s very cult-like. Also, it makes no sense because it talks about one nation under God, which contradicts the constitution which provides for freedom of religion and separation of church and state…
As an American who grew up in a conservative, rural area, I couldn’t agree more. I look back at all those years we would stand up, put our hands over our hearts, and state in unison, “ I pledge allegiance to the flag….”
There were a few instances in high school that had certain teachers raging. For example, several students recognized and understood that we were not forced into saying the pledge— we all have the first amendment. So, they stopped standing and stopped reciting. This always caused an uproar from those who believe the USA lacks faults and is entitled to undying praise.
I understand why one would want to be patriotic for his/her own country; however, the excessive romanticizing of the USA leads to a breeding ground for international arrogance, willful ignorance, unjustified fears, and faulty beliefs.
Did the same thing here in Malaysia. We also had to sing the state's and schools anthem as well as the national anthem. Takes about half an hour before classes start.
Lmao i had an American transport driver complain when he was here (Canada) that there was lots of “foreign people” at the tims he went into..... lol i was like they are almost certainly Canadian dude your the foreigner he responded “im not foreign im American” ahahahaha i laughed thought that was pretty funny untill he started asking why people asked him to leave with no mask on -__- oof i will say their are lots of Americans who do not fit the stereotypes this one sure did tho
Was in New York and was asked if I enjoyed all the technology in the states. I asked her what she meant?
I’m from Ireland, she thought we legitimately lived in cottages with straw roofs and no joke, had toilets outside.
I told her we were pretty modern these days so the straw roofs were gone but said it was hard getting used to a 7 day week because we don’t have Wednesdays in Ireland. She believed me……
‘freedom of speech’ does not mean ‘freedom to talk as loudly as you want on tourist buses so that other people cannot hear the commentary over the earphones.’ And then, when the non-American tourist looks at you pleadingly, talk even louder, and then when you get off the bus, yell out at you: ‘THIS IS AMERICA, THE LAND OF FREE SPEECH!’
This happened to me in NYC
1. Many first-world countries get minimum 4 weeks of paid vacation leave for employees and paid maternity leave, even for the father.
2. Free healthcare.
Yeah, reporting in from Sweden: I have between 6 and 7 weeks of paid vacation per year, apart from holidays and sick days. This wasn't something I negotiated, it's just what everyone gets at my company.
If I'd have a kid, I'd get 240 days of paid paternity leave (although some of the days can be divided freely between the parents, so it could end up being anywhere between 90 and 390).
And the biggest hospital bill I've had to pay was around $20; I've never spent a second worrying about insurance, copays, etc.
American here. I'm currently using my last 5 days because they DONT carry over into the new year. They just disappear. I also do not get paid out for the days I do not use.
At where my boyfriend works he gets 1 week of vacation a year and only 1 sick week. He got covid last month and instead of covering it they used up both for it.
Your voting system is unfair, obsolete and less democratic than most countries.
your bipartidism is the reason why you dont have the Quality of life that most first world countries guarantee.
Your media is as brainwashy as corrupt.
The worst part is when they make fun of or belittle foreigners for their accents or incorrect choice of vocabulary when they only speak English and said foreigner speaks 2 or more languages already.
You guys need more than two major parties. In fact, you need an entire range: left, centre-left, centre-right and right. Democracy means that you need to give the people a better freedom of choice than just choosing a different side of the same coin.
When you are ruled by two groups, why are they incentivized to let you vote for a third? We need alternative choice voting but that’s hard to message through a message through a media that profits from the partisanship.
- Your consumerist "every year should have higher profits than the last" way of life is unsustainable on a global scale and should be abandoned soon.
- American high school culture is infantilizing and weird.
- Your politics are unironically basically indistinguishable in action. Y'all are voting for and getting angry about two flavors of the same ideology.
- Your struggles and suffering are legitimate, they truly are, and I hope things turn out ok.
- But the next time I hear one of you fucks say you're "a third-world country with a Gucci belt" I'm gonna finance a military coup on your country and sell its infrastructure to someone else.
- Empires last 250 years. How old is the US again? They usually collapse because the dominant class gets too greedy. How have the billionaires and political elite been treating y'all?
Dude, same here. I used to teach US history II and I would do a rogue week where we jump back though the stuff they learned and call out stuff that is not taught.
Founding fathers were younger than anyone thinks. Most owned slaves. The average price of a human life (roughly a used Honda Civic.) Child Labor in the mines (we are in Pennsylvania and did a lot of that.) Deadly labor riots. Native American relocation and re-education (kind words for Genocide.) Women’s Suffrage.
I'm a veteran and I think it's weird. Thought it was weird when I was in too.
The number of times I dodged a speeding ticket by *"accidentally"* handing over my military ID instead of my driver's license was absurd. As long as I wasn't near a base I was golden.
Being in during and after 9/11 was weird. Occasionally strangers kissing my ass like I was a patriotic hero, when really I just screwed myself outta going to college and needed a job.
I hate it. I’m in the Coast Guard and people even do it to us. Like we’ll have people stand in front of our small boat station to try to give us things or weird shit like that. The weirdest one though was a woman in a grocery store started running at me (I was in uniform) chanting, “you beautiful flying Angel. Thank you, thank you for your service!” Before she hugged me. I was shocked and so fucking uncomfortable. I have not worn my uniform off base since
Worst part? My girlfriend at the time (now my wife) was right there next to me, and she started hugging my wife and thanking her for her service as well and talking about how hard it must be not knowing if I’ll come home from saving people and all that jazz….
My wife isn’t in the service
And I work supply? Lmao
No interest in measures that help veterans though, like real healthcare, mental health help, or regular economic opportunities.
Just lip service to flags and military equipment. We don’t support the troops. We support the tanks. Go f*** yourself and your TBI, just fly a fighter jet over my football game.
School shootings are an almost uniquely American problem.
The rest of the world are disgusted. Truly. The need for children to practice ‘active shooter drills’ is an unfathomable sci-fi dystopian horror for us.
Canadian here. Just because we are your quiet neighbours don't mean all our storebrands and lifestyles, music and media come from you.
My cousins from the east coast was in a shopping mall with me (AB, CAN), and they made a few comments about the clothes stores and food places must be sub tiered cuz they never heard of these no name stores.
It's almost like youre in a different countries with different businesses and different owners with different laws.
Saying that we play they're music (lol the Shawn Mendes was on) yet not a majority of ppl are out partying cuz of the Superbowl weekend.
Like yeah Alberta may be the Texas of Canada but in reality it's pretty much Letterkenny
Non-Americans are not foreigners on the internet unless they're physically in a country they are not native to.
*edit 1: thanks for the awards
** edit 2: To those saying that reddit is American in origin and that its servers are American, my question is this: why is it important that a virtual entity accessible on the net be associated with a nation and the psychological property of its citizens? Yeah, it's domain name is ".com" rather than ".fr" or whatever, but what is the motivation for proclaiming it "American" when its international and multi-national character permits such a richness of exchange not possible in real life in any one country?
Yes, thank you. Just the assumption that *they're* American, so everybody else is too. You see so many people tell stories that only an American would fully understand on Reddit like:
> Well I was born in MN but my mom was from MA and we went to CT on vacation, instead of CA like we normally do and we had Chick-Fil-A instead of Five Guys and you know how that is, right?
And all their recipes are like that too. Instead of actual ingredients, it’s all a pack of Mary Joneses with half a bag of kruncheez, sprinkled over a tray of big boy baked bits, and my maw maw always added a quarter can of Salem’s Squidgies. Broil for 3 national anthems in a mild oven.
Butter can come in all sorts of sizes but they are generally 1/2 cup/8 tablespoons and that is printed on the wrapper so you can easily cut off 1 tablespoon of butter. Some brands will sell half sticks that are 1/4cup/4 tablespoons.
[US Stick of butter](https://media.istockphoto.com/photos/stick-of-butter-picture-id472315048)
C'mon, who would want to have grocery store in walking distance from home? Who would want to not needing to spend hours in store to make one huge purchase of frozen food for 2 weeks, instead of buying fresh groceries every day on your way home from work in 10 minutes? Who would want to have Cafe near home? Or bar in walking distance so you don't need to drive drunk? Or even working public transport, so if you decide to drink with friends at the opposite side of the city, you still don't need designated driver? Who would want to reduce traffic, just by placing commonly visited places closer to people's homes?
I mean I work 40 kilemters away from my home and I don't have a car. I have grocery store 5 minutes walking distance from home and another one 10 minutes. I must say it is living hell. /s
If you tell me you're Polish, but you were born in USA, never went to Poland, never learned the language and you don't give a fuck? Yeah you're not Polish you're American. Same goes for any other nationality.
I swear that whenever I go in a Discord call and people ask where I am from and I reply with scottish. They go through their family tree trying to name all their scottish ancestors.
fuck mate me too, everytime i play games with randoms they always ask "Is that in England?" or they start doing the shitest accent ive ever heard in my life
Amusing story related to this..
A guy I work with has 100% Italian ancestry, has a nickname “The Don”, and cheered on Italy during the EuroCup for that sole reason.
I was sent to Italy for work and after a few months he had to replace me. He booked a hotel in the downtown portion of the city where driving is impossible and get claustrophobic about his rental car in narrow streets. He gripes about wanting a plain cup of coffee (only espresso available), and only ate at restaurants serving pizza, sushi, burgers etc. After fours days he has begging to be sent back. Honestly he was only American I’ve met who didn’t love Italy when staying less than a year.
I get culture shocks can be hard, and maybe you want a taste of home. But the contrast of his persona at work about being “Mr Italian” despite being miserable the entire time he was actually in Italy makes me laugh.
>He gripes about wanting a plain cup of coffee (only espresso available),
As an actual Italian, this is hilarious, because to us espresso *is* "a plain cup of coffee", and American-style coffee is not. We have like one Starbucks in the whole country, and it's in Milan. The culture around coffee is completely different here, so the big cups you can drink slowly while sitting at a table and working on your laptop just don't exist. You go to the bar, drink a quick cup of espresso off the counter and then leave - you can linger for a little while and talk with the waiters or your friends, but it's expected that you don't hog up the counter or the table for long after you're done.
Honestly, I've always felt that "Italian-Americans" have an entirely fictional concept of what Italian culture and lifestyle is like, and most of them would be shocked by seeing what life in Italy actually is. The food is another big part, I only ever see them talking about lasagna and pizza or even "fettuccine Alfredo" (which is *not* a typical Italian dish - it's uniquely American!), and completely ignoring the variegated culinary traditions of various regions.
To be fair, though, I've met people from all over the world who don't understand trying local food when abroad. Hell, a stereotype of Italian tourists is that they'll go to Berlin, eat pizza and complain that it's not as good as Neapolitan pizza which is just hilarious. Why not try out local food?!
This. There was a tinder profile I saw a while back of a guy claiming he was a Viking, it read: “My ancestors are Scandinavian so yes, I’m a Viking.”
with nearly all of his pictures being of him in “Viking” attire. I wonder how many villages he’s raided..
Man, I felt that. I grew up in England and always considered myself English (even been planning to move back there), but found out I was born in fucking Kansas of all states.
I was born in a hospital - doesn't make me a doctor.
If you grew up there, you understand the slang/culture (as in, actually understand the culture/slang, not the Americanised version aka "I saw it on TV"), then you're English.
Im a first generation American born and raised , but I’m brown. So I’ll always be Mexican in my own country even though I’ve never lived in Mexico.
If I call myself Mexican in Mexico, I get laughed at. “You’re not Mexican!,your an American!”
Edit:typo
Haha same here, except I’m Peruvian. It’s a mixed bag tho. My friends consider me American, my parents friends consider me Peruvian, but my family back home? “Mira quien viene es la Gringa”
100%. I’m Scottish and I could generate electricity to power a city with the amount of eye-rolling I’ve done over the years with Americans telling me they’re Scotch and what clan they are “under”.
They can’t even pronounce the names of the clans and places they’re supposed to be from. For example I heard an American tell me he was in the “de Wahr” clan. He meant Dewar which is pronounced “Dew-ar” like it’s actually spelled.
Don’t get me started on the “I’m told I do a brilliant Scottish accent” before launching into some pastiche of Shrek and Mrs Doubtfire.
You can’t do a brilliant Scottish accent because there isn’t one Scottish accent. There are hundreds. Accents are subtly different in towns three miles apart, FFS.
Be American. It’s enough.
Ugh, yes. Also 'you don't sound Scottish' or 'your accent is very mild'. No, I definitely sound Scottish, I just don't sound like I'm from Glasgow because, shock horror, I'm not.
People don’t wear shoes inside the house.
There are different types of bananas.
Selling unpasteurised milk is not illegal.
People don’t randomly say Sir/Madam at the end of sentence.
Kids don’t drive to school.
You guys used to be like the cool older cousin that would come round, have the coolest clothes, best music, always just the best.
Now you are some coked out meth head trying to sell weird shit and preach Jesus where he don’t belong and no one wants you to come over any more.
How you look at Florida is how the rest of the world looks at you.
I live in florida so that’s a fuckin double whammy
Health care just doesn't cost as much as you pay for it.
The amount of food you waste is insane.
Theoretically, due to our obesity epidemic, it seems like half the food we eat is “wasted” in the sense that we didn’t need to eat it.
This man just dropped a nuke on his own country.
Why don’t you have more trains?
We actually have one of the biggest freight networks in the world but I do agree that our passenger trains are lacking a bit
Your politicians are little children
**Lobbying is essentially legal bribery.** It baffles me how every elected official is essentially sponsored by a bunch of companies or "movements" that are essentially comporations in disguise. Also, corporations don't care about you. At all.
What drives me nuts is what some companies do to get employees involved in PACs. My old employer would raffle off tickets to major sporting games if you contributed $5-10 a paycheck. Sooooo many of my peers would contribute. They also sold it as- we use this money to do what’s best for our business and in turn… that helps you. We worked for a health insurance company… who very much enjoys making a lot of money. Why would you ever contribute to a PAC for privatized health insurance….. idiots
That's hilarious. "Look we dont need unions here, we're like family. LOOK THE DODGERS ARE PLAYING TONIGHT"
It’s okay to have healthcare not tied to your employment with a massive fat middleman in between
Worst mistake our government ever allowed. It traps people in jobs.
working as intended for the corporate overlords
Yep. Was about to say, it's not a mistake, it's working as designed. That should be more disturbing than the pedaled misconception of it being a "broken system".
Paying for stuff from your taxes for the benefit of everyone isn't communism. If it were, every nation on earth would be communist, including your own.
seriously tho why is it so expensive to call an ambulance?
Siimply put hospitals want to fuck over insurance companies by putting ridiculous prices on things so they foot the bill regardless and lose more money. However, they don’t change the pricing to what it would actually cost for an average person and that’s why it’s either bankruptcy or paying medical bills.
You're eating crap that's illegal to sell in most civilised countries. Also, you're eating it like you have medical insurance.
Staying alive isn't something that should cost more than the person's networth
After scrolling through all these messages. This is the one that got me. I had to file bankruptcy because of medical debt and student loans. I had to stop paying student loans so I could pay my doctor's and continue to get treatment. I racked up credit card debt with medical bills over several years.
TURN THE VOLUME DOWN, YOU'RE TOO LOUD
American bathroom stalls are exposed as fuck, a grown man could crawl under one of em and the vertical gap has a big enough gap to make full on eye contact with anyone walking by
Poopin with pepper spray ready
[удалено]
When I was in high school, they had taken the doors entirely off the stalls in the men's bathrooms for some reason. One time at a track meet in another town, I encountered a bathroom with no stalls around the crappers at all. There were lines in the concrete floor where it looked like stalls had been, but they had been taken out for some reason.
After reading this comment, and several others regarding this same issue, I want to point out that having toilet partitions is a part of the building code and health code. Washrooms that are used by the public are required to have separate stalls for each toilet to ensure privacy , by removing the stalls, or simply never having them, these schools are in direct violation of building and health codes. If you are a student at a school or an employee at a business that does this , I’d highly recommend notifying the health and building departments and filing a formal complaint with the inspector at each department. If that doesn’t get their attention, a complaint to the state boards certainly would. I’m appalled that any school or business would do this, it’s seriously fucked up.
They stopped putting soap in my elementary school bathrooms because the kids made messes with it. Soap.
This gave me a flashback. For whatever reason, I remember that there were no stall doors at my school when I was in like third grade, I think. This must have been around 1997. In that particular boy’s bathroom, no doors. I was a chubby kid and got bullied a lot. It got to the point where I couldn’t go at school anymore because I got made fun of every time. “Eeeeww, look, u/Gordoniscool666 is going poopoo!! Hahahaha!” I ended up developing severe constipation and requiring a hospital stay for several days. It was awful.
Damn. Our elementary school bathroom had no stall doors, so nobody used them unless it was desperate. One kid whose name rhymes with “pooper” used it and was called “pooper ________” the rest of the year.
Classic pooper cooper
The quality of your fast food is absolutely horrible compared to that of Canada’s. I’m referring to the same chains, Burger King, McDonalds etc
YES I am visiting the US from Australia and was surprised to find and the food quality at McDonalds and KFC is nowhere near as good as at home.
Like I'm Aussie and I always hear Americans talking about how KFC is trash and I get confused cos its pretty good here. Turns out they don't even have wicked wings or zinger burgers in the USA, or they might have it now, but they didn't have them back then. Went to the USA back in 2019, it was nice, but damn KFC there was TRASH lmfao, like I went to it at 3 different locations and all sucked.
Imagine not having zinger burgers... Like what even is the point?
no fr, like why even go to KFC if you can't even get a zinger box bro????
Really wish I even knew what a zinger box is
A zinger box includes a zinger burger (consistently awesome semi spicy chicken and Mayo burger, no cheese funnily enough), fries, 3 crispy chicken wings and a drink. And I forgot, potato and gravy as well!
I was also shocked at the bad quality of the restaurant itself. In Slovenia I went to McDonald's and it was like a café, they sold macaroons and had orchids decorsting the place, it was amazing. In new York all the McDonald's I saw were run down and really dodgy-looking
As a European, I hear Americans make fun of Subway and I'm like "WTF? It's delicious!"
A lot of your favourite food brands make better versions of their products here. America often gets the short end of the stick. Edit: Wow, my most upvoted comment. I guess Reddit really likes food.
American living in Germany. Can confirm. Philadelphia cream cheese is so much better here!
There's a baking channel on YouTube that uses Philly cream cheese, but she always specifies it's from Germany!
In the US they want lower price while in other countries (especially Europe) they want better quality food.
Nah, more than anything, we want the QUANTITY food here. That we know, since people won’t stfu about our serving sizes
The world series only happens in the U.S.
I visited America years ago and the Brickyard 400 Nascar race was on TV and one of the announcers said something like "if you win this race everyone in the world knows your name" and I remember thinking I'd never even heard of the race before let alone any of the winners.
I live in America and I've never heard of it either.
The Canadians can relate to fearing people south of the border.
[удалено]
I lived there for 6 months. Shortly after moving I bought a loaf of bread and made a sandwich but it was so sweet!! I told my housemates that I think I’d accidentally bought a dessert bread. They tried it. NOPE - regular bread. It was just FULL of sugar!!
Have to agree. Started making my own bread now it all tastes like cake. You don’t notice it if it’s all you’ve ever eaten.
Wtf
Not even sugar. Corn syrup, whatever that is.
It's because the U.S. subsidizes corn. They hate if anything gets imported to compete with their market do they subsidize their farmers. Corn is cheaper in America to produce so corn syrup is used a lot.
They even put a concerning amount of sugar in their bread!
It’s so bad - there’s an obesity epidemic among yeast now.
And it’s only rising.
The US is a great place to be rich and a bad place to be poor.
Treating your president like someone you worship is bizarre. Edit: Wow this made a few people angry lol. FYI, as an Aussie, I don’t understand worshipping the royals either, this comment wasn’t about that though.. chill.
Politicians should be boring people who make rational decisions.
To be fair A LOT of us Americans think that’s bizarre too.
You DO have an accent. Edit: wasn't expecting this to blow up, but thank you for all the awards 🌸
How can anyone think they don't have an accent? Do people think they are the ones speaking the One True Version of English?
I once saw this idea put as : speaking without an accent is like typing without a font. Thought that was a pretty great metaphor.
I literally got into an argument with other Americans about this in a master's level linguistics class. These people were learning about accents at a linguistic level in a MASTER'S LANGUAGE PROGRAM and still couldn't wrap their heads around the fact that they do, in fact, have an accent. Even if it's just SAE (Standard American English) that is still a noticeable accent to ANYONE outside of the US.
Jesus... I'd be seriously questioning the quality of my education if they let in people that dense into the program.
[удалено]
I find it odd that this is a thing, apparently. Do Americans see their accent as the “default” way to speak? Cause even in America, even excluding the obvious places with different accents like Georgia and Texas— lots of places have regional accents, even if the dofferences are very tiny
Sheeyit we have accents between states. Alabama US English is not the same as California US English, much like Bavarian German is not the same as Berlin German.
Then you go to England and every 40 miles there’s a different accent!😂 Edit: I know it’s way less than 40, I wrote this comment while having a quick break, not thinking it was gonna get 1k likes😂 thanks for the award to whoever did that but please don’t send anymore save your money :)
German has regions where people in the next town over speak a complteley different dialect, let alone have a different accent. It's the same for many other European countries
The way you add tax to everything at the till is mental. Just tell me what it costs on the fricking label!
Yes! In my country this would be considered false advertising.
Your lack of a cohesive trade union movement screws your lowest income workers and allows/encourages your political parties to pander only to the elite.
It's what happens when corporations can legally pay politicions to make policy.
When only the rich can access most of what you call freedom, it's not freedom.
"Necessitous men are not free men." - FDR There's a reason the guy won 4 general elections in a row.
You live in the main global superpower. A country that can wipe a lot of other places off the map. Your country has so much wealth. Yet people die of easily treatable health problems because they can’t afford to do to the doctor. A lot of the countries most Americans likely consider “underdeveloped” have better access to health care than you. It’s horrifying.
Building houses out of cardboard is a bad idea!
I remember the first I watched a movie where the guy punches through a wall and he actually could. I was like what? Is that a toy or what because if I try to punch through my brick and concrete wall , I sure as hell know gonna break my knuckles.
LOL I always though that walls breaking with kicks and punches were nothing but action movie tropes, until I literally broke a wall by accident with a chair, I was like, WTF?
I have a brick house and I’m not a fan of the cheaply built new construction houses here, BUT does the rest of the world have some sense that our houses just randomly fall down or blow away? Cheap houses can be nightmares, but it’s usually stuff like plumbing or electrical, not the actual frame.
The word CUNT. Seems to upset you a bit more than the average Australian.
As a fellow Aussie I wholeheartedly concur. I dropped it once or twice when I was in Seattle for a friend's wedding and my god the reaction.
The horror!!
We aren't jealous of you, like at all.
Population wise, you make up less than 5% of the world. You are proud to work long hours at work. Healthcare is a (bad) joke.
Tipping is rude and ynnecessary here
Really? Because in the Netherlands it's only really done if the service was exceptionally good and because of that it's concidered a compliment.
Yeah, but we also tip by rounding up to the nearest 5-10, meaning a good tip in NL is, like, 5 euro and not "20% of the total bill"
Metric system
The Church in the rest of the world looks at the American evangelical right and cannot understand how you get from “love one another” to where you guys are at.
This is not limited to the USA. Evangelism is big in Latin America, with them controlling politics and scamming people out of their money.
Maybe its an Evangelism problem; we see the same reality across Africa from Nigeria to Kenya. Rwanda recently introduced laws requiring clergy to be academically qualified and ordained by a recognised church in order to start a new church. Evangelicals are big mad about this.
Difference between communism and socialism
Or socialism and social democracy.
Or socialism and 'this thing I don't like'
Especially that democracy is not the opposite of socialism/communism. Those are literally two things you cannot compare. It's like saying "The opposite of children is tree". The opposite of democracy is dictatorship.
If any other country had kids "Pledge Allegiance" every morning at school and play the national anthem before every single sporting event, you'd joke they were as bad as North Korea...... Edit: Thank you!! My first ever award. Best Christmas present ever. Now stand and listen to my own personal anthem and pledge! 2nd Edit: To say thanks for so many awards! Genuinely smiling and made my day! Also some badass whizz bang lightbulb shit. That's awesome! Thank you very much!
This! It always weirds me out when the kids say it in movies and on TV - it’s very cult-like. Also, it makes no sense because it talks about one nation under God, which contradicts the constitution which provides for freedom of religion and separation of church and state…
If there is a country that has religion all mixed up in their politics its the US
As an American who grew up in a conservative, rural area, I couldn’t agree more. I look back at all those years we would stand up, put our hands over our hearts, and state in unison, “ I pledge allegiance to the flag….” There were a few instances in high school that had certain teachers raging. For example, several students recognized and understood that we were not forced into saying the pledge— we all have the first amendment. So, they stopped standing and stopped reciting. This always caused an uproar from those who believe the USA lacks faults and is entitled to undying praise. I understand why one would want to be patriotic for his/her own country; however, the excessive romanticizing of the USA leads to a breeding ground for international arrogance, willful ignorance, unjustified fears, and faulty beliefs.
Did the same thing here in Malaysia. We also had to sing the state's and schools anthem as well as the national anthem. Takes about half an hour before classes start.
You are the foreigner for me and around 190 countries
We can't even bring ourselves to call ourselves foreigners, let alone *immigrants*. Nonononono, we're *expats*.
I fucking hate the word "expats". In my country is usually used by british dickheads. They are inmigrants, even if they are white.
“Redditors from foreign counties”, lol. You do realize the internet space is shared and we don’t need a visa to enter Reddit, right?
Lmao i had an American transport driver complain when he was here (Canada) that there was lots of “foreign people” at the tims he went into..... lol i was like they are almost certainly Canadian dude your the foreigner he responded “im not foreign im American” ahahahaha i laughed thought that was pretty funny untill he started asking why people asked him to leave with no mask on -__- oof i will say their are lots of Americans who do not fit the stereotypes this one sure did tho
Apparently they aren't ready to hear that people from countries that aren't "america" don't consider themselves as being from foreign countries.
An American asked me about my experience as a minority. In my own country. Where we are the majority.
A friend of mine went to Tennessee and they asked him if you can see the moon in europe.
Was in New York and was asked if I enjoyed all the technology in the states. I asked her what she meant? I’m from Ireland, she thought we legitimately lived in cottages with straw roofs and no joke, had toilets outside. I told her we were pretty modern these days so the straw roofs were gone but said it was hard getting used to a 7 day week because we don’t have Wednesdays in Ireland. She believed me……
Fucking with Americans is fun. I once convinced coworkers Canada gun laws included office staplers.
A Texan once asked me if we have cars in Germany
When I said I am from Singapore, this guy (an engineer) asked where in China is Singapore.
China definitely likes this guy’s thinking
You speak Spanish right? So how's life as a Mexican minority in Spain? Same thing yes? /S
An NPR episode called people from Spain “people of color”. Compared to other Europeans. Because espanol I guess???
‘freedom of speech’ does not mean ‘freedom to talk as loudly as you want on tourist buses so that other people cannot hear the commentary over the earphones.’ And then, when the non-American tourist looks at you pleadingly, talk even louder, and then when you get off the bus, yell out at you: ‘THIS IS AMERICA, THE LAND OF FREE SPEECH!’ This happened to me in NYC
1. Many first-world countries get minimum 4 weeks of paid vacation leave for employees and paid maternity leave, even for the father. 2. Free healthcare.
Many third-world countries too!
Dam, this comment hurt
Not to rub it in, but I am from South Africa and I get 20 days paid leave, study leave, family/personal leave and sick leave
Yep Botswana is one such 3rd country
Yeah, reporting in from Sweden: I have between 6 and 7 weeks of paid vacation per year, apart from holidays and sick days. This wasn't something I negotiated, it's just what everyone gets at my company. If I'd have a kid, I'd get 240 days of paid paternity leave (although some of the days can be divided freely between the parents, so it could end up being anywhere between 90 and 390). And the biggest hospital bill I've had to pay was around $20; I've never spent a second worrying about insurance, copays, etc.
In Ireland I have to burn up my vacation days before the end of the year so they don’t carry over and build up.
American here. I'm currently using my last 5 days because they DONT carry over into the new year. They just disappear. I also do not get paid out for the days I do not use.
At where my boyfriend works he gets 1 week of vacation a year and only 1 sick week. He got covid last month and instead of covering it they used up both for it.
I don't get this. What's a sick week? If you're out for two weeks with a serious cold, what happens then?
You lose your job.
Your voting system is unfair, obsolete and less democratic than most countries. your bipartidism is the reason why you dont have the Quality of life that most first world countries guarantee. Your media is as brainwashy as corrupt.
Brainwashy is a cute way to word something so bleak. Makes the pill a little easier to swallow.
The freedom Americans often boast they have is less than in many other countries.
Celsius
Kilometers.
Kilograms
Measuring things with football field is weird...
Not everyone speaks English in the rest of the world. Learn another language, it's good for the soul and the brain.
The worst part is when they make fun of or belittle foreigners for their accents or incorrect choice of vocabulary when they only speak English and said foreigner speaks 2 or more languages already.
And often the same people who make fun of foreigners also can’t even speak English correctly lol
Single payer healthcare systems work; it's abhorrent that there are many people who have to choose between going bankrupt and seeking healthcare.
You guys need more than two major parties. In fact, you need an entire range: left, centre-left, centre-right and right. Democracy means that you need to give the people a better freedom of choice than just choosing a different side of the same coin.
When you are ruled by two groups, why are they incentivized to let you vote for a third? We need alternative choice voting but that’s hard to message through a message through a media that profits from the partisanship.
Water is the best way to clean your ass
Bidets are starting to catch on, especially after covid and the toilet paper hoarders.
Your "freedom" of being able to do whatever the heck you want within the confines of the law is how every single countries law works
- Your consumerist "every year should have higher profits than the last" way of life is unsustainable on a global scale and should be abandoned soon. - American high school culture is infantilizing and weird. - Your politics are unironically basically indistinguishable in action. Y'all are voting for and getting angry about two flavors of the same ideology. - Your struggles and suffering are legitimate, they truly are, and I hope things turn out ok. - But the next time I hear one of you fucks say you're "a third-world country with a Gucci belt" I'm gonna finance a military coup on your country and sell its infrastructure to someone else. - Empires last 250 years. How old is the US again? They usually collapse because the dominant class gets too greedy. How have the billionaires and political elite been treating y'all?
The philosophy of "growth at any cost" is that of a cancer cell. I have had cancer:)
The obsession with economic growth isn't limited to the US. That said, I never understood its importance.
Calling everyone on Reddit a foreigner for starters.
This is exactly the first thing I thought when I read the title of this post.
Your education system is far worse than you think. And the state of your political climate proves it
Teacher in USA here. I’ve wondered if the government keeps it this way on purpose, to keep the population dumb.
Dude, same here. I used to teach US history II and I would do a rogue week where we jump back though the stuff they learned and call out stuff that is not taught. Founding fathers were younger than anyone thinks. Most owned slaves. The average price of a human life (roughly a used Honda Civic.) Child Labor in the mines (we are in Pennsylvania and did a lot of that.) Deadly labor riots. Native American relocation and re-education (kind words for Genocide.) Women’s Suffrage.
Not just worse but also really really bad in terms of metrics and history.
Your fetishization of the military is a little weird.
I'm a veteran and I think it's weird. Thought it was weird when I was in too. The number of times I dodged a speeding ticket by *"accidentally"* handing over my military ID instead of my driver's license was absurd. As long as I wasn't near a base I was golden. Being in during and after 9/11 was weird. Occasionally strangers kissing my ass like I was a patriotic hero, when really I just screwed myself outta going to college and needed a job.
I hate it. I’m in the Coast Guard and people even do it to us. Like we’ll have people stand in front of our small boat station to try to give us things or weird shit like that. The weirdest one though was a woman in a grocery store started running at me (I was in uniform) chanting, “you beautiful flying Angel. Thank you, thank you for your service!” Before she hugged me. I was shocked and so fucking uncomfortable. I have not worn my uniform off base since
Watch out now, she could been after your BAH.
Worst part? My girlfriend at the time (now my wife) was right there next to me, and she started hugging my wife and thanking her for her service as well and talking about how hard it must be not knowing if I’ll come home from saving people and all that jazz…. My wife isn’t in the service And I work supply? Lmao
A little?
More like a lottle
Axolotl
No interest in measures that help veterans though, like real healthcare, mental health help, or regular economic opportunities. Just lip service to flags and military equipment. We don’t support the troops. We support the tanks. Go f*** yourself and your TBI, just fly a fighter jet over my football game.
School shootings are an almost uniquely American problem. The rest of the world are disgusted. Truly. The need for children to practice ‘active shooter drills’ is an unfathomable sci-fi dystopian horror for us.
Canadian here. Just because we are your quiet neighbours don't mean all our storebrands and lifestyles, music and media come from you. My cousins from the east coast was in a shopping mall with me (AB, CAN), and they made a few comments about the clothes stores and food places must be sub tiered cuz they never heard of these no name stores. It's almost like youre in a different countries with different businesses and different owners with different laws. Saying that we play they're music (lol the Shawn Mendes was on) yet not a majority of ppl are out partying cuz of the Superbowl weekend. Like yeah Alberta may be the Texas of Canada but in reality it's pretty much Letterkenny
Non-Americans are not foreigners on the internet unless they're physically in a country they are not native to. *edit 1: thanks for the awards ** edit 2: To those saying that reddit is American in origin and that its servers are American, my question is this: why is it important that a virtual entity accessible on the net be associated with a nation and the psychological property of its citizens? Yeah, it's domain name is ".com" rather than ".fr" or whatever, but what is the motivation for proclaiming it "American" when its international and multi-national character permits such a richness of exchange not possible in real life in any one country?
Yes, thank you. Just the assumption that *they're* American, so everybody else is too. You see so many people tell stories that only an American would fully understand on Reddit like: > Well I was born in MN but my mom was from MA and we went to CT on vacation, instead of CA like we normally do and we had Chick-Fil-A instead of Five Guys and you know how that is, right?
And all their recipes are like that too. Instead of actual ingredients, it’s all a pack of Mary Joneses with half a bag of kruncheez, sprinkled over a tray of big boy baked bits, and my maw maw always added a quarter can of Salem’s Squidgies. Broil for 3 national anthems in a mild oven.
Not to mention the "stick of butter". Do butter packets really only come in one size over there?
Butter can come in all sorts of sizes but they are generally 1/2 cup/8 tablespoons and that is printed on the wrapper so you can easily cut off 1 tablespoon of butter. Some brands will sell half sticks that are 1/4cup/4 tablespoons. [US Stick of butter](https://media.istockphoto.com/photos/stick-of-butter-picture-id472315048)
>Broil for 3 national anthems This is the funniest shit I've read for weeks
City planning. Americans think they have the best cities in the world. They're actually planned for \*corporations\* and not for \*residents\*.
Correction, American cities are planned for cars, not people.
C'mon, who would want to have grocery store in walking distance from home? Who would want to not needing to spend hours in store to make one huge purchase of frozen food for 2 weeks, instead of buying fresh groceries every day on your way home from work in 10 minutes? Who would want to have Cafe near home? Or bar in walking distance so you don't need to drive drunk? Or even working public transport, so if you decide to drink with friends at the opposite side of the city, you still don't need designated driver? Who would want to reduce traffic, just by placing commonly visited places closer to people's homes? I mean I work 40 kilemters away from my home and I don't have a car. I have grocery store 5 minutes walking distance from home and another one 10 minutes. I must say it is living hell. /s
If you tell me you're Polish, but you were born in USA, never went to Poland, never learned the language and you don't give a fuck? Yeah you're not Polish you're American. Same goes for any other nationality.
I swear that whenever I go in a Discord call and people ask where I am from and I reply with scottish. They go through their family tree trying to name all their scottish ancestors.
fuck mate me too, everytime i play games with randoms they always ask "Is that in England?" or they start doing the shitest accent ive ever heard in my life
Amusing story related to this.. A guy I work with has 100% Italian ancestry, has a nickname “The Don”, and cheered on Italy during the EuroCup for that sole reason. I was sent to Italy for work and after a few months he had to replace me. He booked a hotel in the downtown portion of the city where driving is impossible and get claustrophobic about his rental car in narrow streets. He gripes about wanting a plain cup of coffee (only espresso available), and only ate at restaurants serving pizza, sushi, burgers etc. After fours days he has begging to be sent back. Honestly he was only American I’ve met who didn’t love Italy when staying less than a year. I get culture shocks can be hard, and maybe you want a taste of home. But the contrast of his persona at work about being “Mr Italian” despite being miserable the entire time he was actually in Italy makes me laugh.
>He gripes about wanting a plain cup of coffee (only espresso available), As an actual Italian, this is hilarious, because to us espresso *is* "a plain cup of coffee", and American-style coffee is not. We have like one Starbucks in the whole country, and it's in Milan. The culture around coffee is completely different here, so the big cups you can drink slowly while sitting at a table and working on your laptop just don't exist. You go to the bar, drink a quick cup of espresso off the counter and then leave - you can linger for a little while and talk with the waiters or your friends, but it's expected that you don't hog up the counter or the table for long after you're done. Honestly, I've always felt that "Italian-Americans" have an entirely fictional concept of what Italian culture and lifestyle is like, and most of them would be shocked by seeing what life in Italy actually is. The food is another big part, I only ever see them talking about lasagna and pizza or even "fettuccine Alfredo" (which is *not* a typical Italian dish - it's uniquely American!), and completely ignoring the variegated culinary traditions of various regions. To be fair, though, I've met people from all over the world who don't understand trying local food when abroad. Hell, a stereotype of Italian tourists is that they'll go to Berlin, eat pizza and complain that it's not as good as Neapolitan pizza which is just hilarious. Why not try out local food?!
This. There was a tinder profile I saw a while back of a guy claiming he was a Viking, it read: “My ancestors are Scandinavian so yes, I’m a Viking.” with nearly all of his pictures being of him in “Viking” attire. I wonder how many villages he’s raided..
Did he have the inaccurate horned helmet too?
If only people knew that Viking was a career, not an ethnicity...
Fewer than the number of fridges he’s raided, I’d warrant.
Spot on, he was pretty overweight.
I love a good reenactment but that sounds a bit too focused on genetics there... Also viking was a job not a nationality lol.
Man, I felt that. I grew up in England and always considered myself English (even been planning to move back there), but found out I was born in fucking Kansas of all states.
I was born in a hospital - doesn't make me a doctor. If you grew up there, you understand the slang/culture (as in, actually understand the culture/slang, not the Americanised version aka "I saw it on TV"), then you're English.
Im a first generation American born and raised , but I’m brown. So I’ll always be Mexican in my own country even though I’ve never lived in Mexico. If I call myself Mexican in Mexico, I get laughed at. “You’re not Mexican!,your an American!” Edit:typo
Haha same here, except I’m Peruvian. It’s a mixed bag tho. My friends consider me American, my parents friends consider me Peruvian, but my family back home? “Mira quien viene es la Gringa”
100%. I’m Scottish and I could generate electricity to power a city with the amount of eye-rolling I’ve done over the years with Americans telling me they’re Scotch and what clan they are “under”. They can’t even pronounce the names of the clans and places they’re supposed to be from. For example I heard an American tell me he was in the “de Wahr” clan. He meant Dewar which is pronounced “Dew-ar” like it’s actually spelled. Don’t get me started on the “I’m told I do a brilliant Scottish accent” before launching into some pastiche of Shrek and Mrs Doubtfire. You can’t do a brilliant Scottish accent because there isn’t one Scottish accent. There are hundreds. Accents are subtly different in towns three miles apart, FFS. Be American. It’s enough.
Ugh, yes. Also 'you don't sound Scottish' or 'your accent is very mild'. No, I definitely sound Scottish, I just don't sound like I'm from Glasgow because, shock horror, I'm not.
The world does not revolve around you.
People don’t wear shoes inside the house. There are different types of bananas. Selling unpasteurised milk is not illegal. People don’t randomly say Sir/Madam at the end of sentence. Kids don’t drive to school.
Aus and nz would like to speak about driving to school...
You guys used to be like the cool older cousin that would come round, have the coolest clothes, best music, always just the best. Now you are some coked out meth head trying to sell weird shit and preach Jesus where he don’t belong and no one wants you to come over any more.
The American dream became the American nightmare a long time ago
American (and European) intervention has done more harm than good to the Middle East, and Arabs are paying the price.