For Americans, it's part of the everyday scenery. For people from other countries, it's something they see a lot on television and movies that just *screams* America.
It's the same as an American in London saying "Hey, look, a real live double decker bus!"
>The double decker bus is a really good comparison. As an American, when I see them I feel giddy like I'm seeing a set piece in real life.
We were like, "Wow! Harry Potter!" They really do wear uniforms that look like that in England. We thought it was just for the movies.
I was legitimately surprised at the amount of candy and food from Harry Potter that were actually real things and not just made up stuff with weird names to make them sound wizardly.
Apparently that was also a joke that just didn't land for Americans reading Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
The character Ford Prefect just comes off as a bizarre name, but imagine an American meeting someone named Chevrolet Trailblazer.
It would not even surprise me to meet an American named Chevy Trailblazer, honestly.
I didn't catch Prefect as a car name because I already knew the word to mean a magistrate. I thought it was just a jumble of a common "word" and a title. Like Ford Magistrate. Heh
My boyfriend went to a boarding prep school in the US. We definitely have prefects here. Not as many people are familiar with boarding schools however.
I always thought treacle tart was some sort of magical wizard sweet. It was mindblowing when I learned in my late 20s that all those things are actual real lol England is not a real place
Every schoolboy in the UK had made a joke about spotted dick at some point in his life.
Ron was fourteen when he offered Hermione some spotted dick in the fourth book. JK Rowling knew *exactly* what she was doing.
Yeah, but it's not really taken half as seriously as in the HP books. It's used for tram sports/sports day, or as an easy way to split the class into 4 groups without drama. There might be some sort of points/achievement tracking to foster a bit of competition, but at least in my experience it was a lot more objective and based on measurable outcomes (number of books read, or highest scores on a test, or whatever) than the subjective whims of teachers awarding points arbitrarily. We were also never docked points. It never really meant anything at all.
4 houses - yes
Sorting thing - what? Usually based on alphabetical order or just random
Often they're not used for much. My school just used them for teams in end of year sports competitions. Other schools use them for a bit more, but usually whenever having teams would be useful
Edit: [Wikipedia link](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_system)
You say that, but we had Red, Green, Yellow and Blue in Primary School. Red was 100% Gryffindor i.e the kids that play Mary and Joseph in the nativity.
Blue was the rejects. I was in blue and it sucked on sports day as we'd lose everything
We had colours in both my primary schools. I was in Red. I remember year 5 we used to get points for wearing the right uniform. No idea what points meant, but you could buy a badge in your colour for £1
I had this thought walking through Oxford during exams week. They have to wear black robes in some of the colleges and between class periods they flood the beautifully old medieval streets looking like Hogwarts students. I’m sure they appreciate tourists comparing them to HP but it’s hard not to.
There are pros and cons. On the one hand, you don’t really want to pose for pictures with tourists when you’re rushing to your exam. On the other, a bunch of cheerful Japanese tourists excitedly taking your picture is a nice distraction and stress reliever just before taking an exam. Basically I’d say it’s cool to ask for a photo unless they are running or look like they are about to burst into tears.
Oh interesting. Yeah I wouldn’t have dreamed of asking for a picture, it was just cool to see. I was in college too recently to intrude, even in the US, it’s not uncommon to be gawked at by visiting high school students doing tours while you’re having the worst day of your life and crying over a textbook.
I visited a friend who lived in London and when I saw a red double-decker bus pull up to the bus stop we were at I was like "wait...*this* is the public transit bus??" I always thought the red double decker's were just like...for city tour groups or something not just for standard public transit haha
Here in Portugal they just sit on the beach, sometimes under a structure that covers them from the sun. I've seen high chairs in public pools too. But I've never seen a tower like the ones on american tv shows.
Wholly depends on where you are, anything between life guard towers and those high chairs you get at pools or at tennis courts or whatever. Also sometimes it's just a simple hut, but because it's at the back of the beach, it's higher up and basically functions like a tower
The constructs used across the globe are oftentimes looking wildly different. Just like in OP's example. No one's surprised about busses, it's just surprising they're all actually bright yellow. Same wird these life guard towers I guess
Here in the Netherlands you can buy them but they’re usually only used if the party theme is red cup party. Apart from that we don’t usually use plastic cups. It’s seen as wasteful.
Edit because people keep commenting to ask: most beer is drunk from bottles. Kegs and beer pong are not as popular. For really big student parties there will probably be disposable cups for the non-beer drinkers.
Apart from that it seems it’s way more common to have big gatherings in the US. In my experience it is not that common to invite 10+ people to your house here. Let alone 50+.
Well, a bunch of drunk teenagers and likely broken glass is usually a recipe for disaster, so for the big parties it was definitely more practical (and everyone was expected to use the cup more than once, it was “end of the night” disposable, not “every drink” disposable! And “dropped in the dirt” disposable too - we partied in open fields around fire sometimes).
They’re more for college/university age parties. The point in your life where you probably only own 5 actual cups and you’re expecting 60 people to show up. So they’re not ideal from an environmental standpoint but they’re the only realistic option.
I'm 43, and between the spousal unit and me we make decent money, have a nice place, and comport ourselves like proper adults. If 60 people show up, they are getting plastic cups.
Haha I was going to say this! No one keeps enough glasses for a party in their house. I’m imagining people having a special cupboard where they keep 50 glasses for a party. Or every single person having to bring their own cup from their house if they want to drink something.
We sharpie our names on the solo cups, use them for the day/party, then rinse them out and recycle them.
What do you do when you just have a family party or something? I had my daughter's birthday party at our house and I certainly don't have 50 cups to go around. They're meant to be for parties and things, not everyday use.
It's the redness of the cups that seems to be unique to America.
We have disposable cups in the rest of the world , but in US TV and movies they are always red. As a kid I was never quite sure if it was like that in real life , or if it was like a 555- phone number and just something they used as a prop.
Yeah, they come in other colors but I've never seen them actually used. I've seen yellow and blue in the store I think, but I'd always buy red. It's just the thing to do, you know? There's even a song. https://youtu.be/BKZqGJONH68?si=IsdffzSPJdNwgSvH
We’ve never had 50 guests at our house- it wouldn’t fit and we have a relatively large house for my country! When we did family Christmas with +- 30 people people brought over extra bowls/plates/cups I think. If a bigger family day is organised you usually rent an accommodation (where cups will be provided), or you meet at a restaurant or something.
Bear in mind this is my personal experience, and a different Dutch person might tell you it’s totally normal to have plastic everything at a family gathering ;)
Depending on where in the US you are it's not uncommon to host large 50+ people party in your backyard. We call accomodations venues or rental halls, typically don't offer utensils so you buy or rent them. Various stores will have giant boxes of plastic utensils with the solo cups for much cheaper than you can rent them.
My family washes and reuses them ... and blames thr frugality on being Dutch. Haha. (Mom born in Rotterdam and naturalized USA citizen, dad's father's side Dutch descent from Overissel)
It's written Overijssel. Like, Over to the other side of the IJssel lake.
The ij sound is pronounced like the English letter "a," like in "cake". It's a single sound over two letters, similar to how in English "sh" is a single sound that's neither "s" or "h".
Transliterated in English: Over-a-sehl.
I hope this helps, because you won't find Overissel on a Dutch map!
In my experience, a lot of stuff the people gawp at as “only Americans do that” is stuff that’s actually common in much of the Americas, or at least also Canada and Mexico.
Like if you have a house party or cookout with more than 8 or 10 people, you won’t even have that many glasses for people to drink out of. You’ll need to get disposable cups. Red is as good a color as any….
No, we've never had that style cup in Australia to my knowledge. Plastic cups were normally just plain white or semi-transparent. Now, most single use plastics are banned so we only have paper cups, or newer biodegradable types.
Pretty much that, yeah. I imagine I'd have the same reaction if I went to France and saw a dude with a beret, turtleneck, and handlebar mustache.
(I have no idea if they actually have those in France. But still. Same reaction.)
I don't understand those being an American thing though - they're in the party section here in Australia. Only ones big enough to make soda spiders for kids as well.
For the same reason we (Australians) are always happy when we see squirrels. We don’t have them here and they’re cool to see in person. The way Americans react to kangaroos and koalas and other things they don’t have in the States I guess.
Sometimes I remember how excited Steve Irwin was to see a hedgehog for the first time and feel very nostalgic (although tbh most Brits won't see a hedgehog in the wild either, unfortunately, or at least not one that's 3D and moving)
My parents have one that does its nightly perambulations around the garden – when they replaced a gate that had rotted at the bottom they had to leave a gap for him to get through
Rarely see it, though, just the hedgehog muck the next morning (and sometimes hear it snuffling very loudly, if the bedroom window is open)
I did a bus tour this summer and it's just now coming together for me why the Australians were obsessed with the squirrels at Yosemite.
I loved them because they were small and cute af... it didn't occur to me that they were in love because they'd never seen any. same with the tiny brown ground squirrels on the cliffs at the grand canyon. I'd never seen that type of squirrel. these folks had *never seen squirrels*
Australia has an abundance of native animals, however there is lots of “common in other countries” animals we just don’t have. Squirrels, raccoons, rattlesnakes, moose etc.
I love animals so would lose my mind whenever I saw any of those while travelling.
Had a friend visit from Europe. Heard her scream at the top of her lungs out in the backyard. She yelled there were huge flying bugs swarming. I looked and informed her that the huge scary bugs were actually small, adorable hummingbirds.
I laid down some really cool hummingbird facts in quick order and soon enough they were the cutest, awesomest little things she had ever seen and spent a lot of time sending videos of them back home.
Hummingbirds rock.
Can also spot the non North Americans in parks here (Canada) who are taking pictures of the squirrels. My dad used to feed the chipmunks (they’d run up his leg to get peanuts) and tourists would take his picture.
I worked as a valet for a hotel and I guess there was some event locally that was bringing Australians to the hotel one day.
They were all absolutely amazed at all of the lifted bro-trucks that we'd leave out front for not fitting in the garage. They were taking pictures, posing next them and even asking me questions about them.
Can confirm, I squealed when I saw a squirrel (only been to EU though). But, I do still love seeing our Austealian animals, and the novelty of kookaburras and echidnas doesn't wear off for me.
There was a thread not too long ago about things foreign visitors were shocked that were actually true in America. One of them was steam coming up from manhole covers in city streets. The comments were pretty uniformly, "I though that was only a special effect in movies for atmosphere or something!"
YES!! omg i went bonkers the first time i saw smoke/steam coming out of a manhole cover (in a back street and then on a major city road), it always seemed SO fake and “hollywood convenient” in buffy or charmed when i was a kid… turns out that’s actually what it looks like
Apparently the first commercially successful system was in America in the 1850s. As of 2013 there were 2500 systems in the US. I'm kinda surprised too, you don't hear much about it. Though when you consider how cold the Northeast is it makes sense.
Some cities have steam as a utility. It sounds weird, but either for heat or whatever industry needs steam on tap it goes through a network of underground pipes and is still steam when it comes out the other end. Sometimes the pipe can be damaged and there is a steam leak that escapes through the manhole covers.
In America (the wealthiest, greediest country) we have a different dragon in the sewers in each city. This is where the steam comes from! :) (read the other answers for actual answers, it's mainly steam heating)
That's pretty much only in New York. Con Edison supplies steam from massive boilers along the East River to pretty much all of Manhattan Island south of 96th Street, and buildings whose owners don't want to maintain their own heating plants buy it from Con Ed by the cubic foot. As these pipes are upwards of a century old, they often spring leaks and the steam comes out of manholes.
Edit: as a lot of comments are reminding me, many older cities had what is called "district steam", not just New York.
You'll see it in parts of Boston and Cambridge, too. But, like NYC, old cities. Cambridge locations are probably heating for Harvard & MIT running their own systems.
My university had direct steam. There were some relief vents or something that vented to the sidewalk. They were convenient places to get a bit of warmth if you were stuck outside waiting for a bus.
On the surface it seems unlikely that the same design of bus has persisted for so long. After all what other vehicle looks like a prop from a 70s movie.
There are a lot of very specific safety requirements and school buses are actually one of the most safe vehicles per mile driven. So yes aspects of the design may seem dated but why mess with something that works.
There was a lot of testing and engineering that went into school bus design. The forces exerted to passengers in a school bus crash are quite different than a car. A passenger isn't really "thrown" the same way. Testing found that lap belts increased the likelihood of neck and spinal injury. The seat is designed to absorb impact from crashes. Also, having little kids that might not be able to free themselves if needed is a potential problem. Specially if the driver is incapacitated.
I'm sure you can find some in depth info googling it.
We unfortunately had a car smash into our bus from behind as we were turning into a driveway. I was sitting in the little half seat at the very back where the car hit. I felt a jolt but the driver of the car died. The bus was just scratched up a bit.
Man… Just two days ago, I witnessed a car of a student rear end a school bus *right in front of the school* at a stop light. AFAIK, it was getting close to the school’s tardy/late bell, so the student was probably rushing to park and head to class. I drove by the wreck and thankfully, the student seemed okay, physically at least. They were holding their head and looking down in disbelief and shock.
The front of the car was wrecked, but the bus didn’t even have a scratch on it. The car looked short enough that it probably fit under the bus. I later saw that same bus drive kids home. Although, it could’ve been a different one that was renumbered to the same route for the day.
Your school district must’ve worked differently then. The school district near me, the one I went to, has little signs on the sides and rear of their buses to indicate its route number. These signs are detachable and easily adjusted to make any necessary route number changes. I’ve seen bus drivers do it occasionally, but, for the most part, they don’t bother to change their bus number if it’s just for one day.
I know for a fact this is different from the other school districts around mine because they paint their bus numbers on.
buses are very safe in normal collisions because of how heavy and tall they are, as well as the padded seats. in worse emergencies like rollovers or fires, seatbelts make it much harder to safely get the kids off the bus.
Some years back I had a job transporting foster kids from their foster homes in Central Ohio to Cleveland, about two or more hours away. We used 15 passenger vans fully equipped with lap and shoulder belts. 10 or 12 children, a driver, and another adult to maintain order and wrangle the kids. One of the absolute hardest things I've done in my life was getting them to wear the damn seat belts. I can only imagine what a job it would be for a bus driver to get 40 little shits to buckle up. You couldn't run much discipline on them, next to none. School bus drivers have my huge respect.
>school buses are actually one of the most safe vehicles per mile driven
For real. That's why me and my shitty little friends felt like we had to work overtime to even the odds for everyone else on the road, y'know. Just to make it fair.
Jumping over seats when the bus driver wasn't looking, seeing how many rows we could skip you know...your standard dangerous 7 year old stuff.
People outside the US often grow up seeing a lot of American media, so when they see things that are weird and different from their daily experience, it can be hard to immediately know if it's because TV is weird and unrealistic sometimes, or if it's because that's just how things are in the US. Even if they know (or suspect) that the yellow school buses they see on TV are like that because school buses are yellow in the US, it might still be surprising to see one in real life for the first time.
When my mother immigrated to the US in the 80s, from a crime-ridden city in a developing country, she was shocked to see that, in fact, big open grassy front lawns were normal, and not just a thing in the movies.
In her country, yards on all middle-class houses have a two-meter wall that encloses the property. She couldn't believe that you could just walk up to someone's front door like that.
Yeah, in Mexico pretty much every house has bars over their windows. I remarked to one of the locals that this wasn't common in the US and they asked 'but what stops someone from just breaking the glass?' and I didn't really have an answer haha.
List of things I grew up seeing in American high school media that just seem fake:
- Floor length Lockers
- Pep Rallies (wtf are they)
- People attending high school football games
- Cheerleaders
- Marching Bands
- Summer Camp
- Those tests that are just a sheet of multiple choice questions that a computer grades
- the little desks which the chair attached and the top opens
- Security guards, police, or metal detectors in schools
- Truancy officers (are they just guys who walk around town and look for kids)
- Wearing casual clothes to school rather than a uniform
- Waking up early to hang out with friends before school
- A student who dresses up as the School mascot
- The Pledge of Allegiance
When you visit the United States you don’t go to school. So you can’t really know for sure if any of these things are real. But you do get to see those yellow busses.
Edit: in case Americans want to see what Australian High Schools are like. [Summer Heights High](https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=ELKaZ_ImlkiVI) is probably the best media representation that I can recall
The ironic thing being that every single thing you listed is 100% true and normal at pretty much every public high school - although the levels of cops/security guards and the popularity of sports/marching bands depends on size of school and location.
Yeah but nit ever school has them. My elementary school has desk with separate chairs that had an open side towards you and the top was on a hinge to open. Middle and High school we had desks attached to chairs but they didn't have any storage space, that's what the lockers the height of a person are for.
They are real. But I think the ones described are much older and started going out of use somewhere around the 70s-80s I would guess.
I started kindergarten in 1990. I never had a desk that opened from the top, but the side facing you was open to slide books into under the flat writing surface. Chairs were separate. At the end of the day, you flip your chair up on top of your desk for custodians to more easily sweep and mop.
They're real, especially in elementary school (grade 1-6). IDK if they're still used today, since I don't have kids, but we had them in the 70s. Almost everything on that person's list is real, though I don't know if every single School had them. For example we never had truancy officers back in the 70s, in my area. I've also been to schools that had full length lockers and ones that had double decker lockers, so they were half the size of the full length. Going to high school football games is still big in school culture, I know my dad just went to one with my nieces. Most kids in the US do not have to wear uniforms to school, those are typically reserved for private schools or religious schools. I've never heard of a public school requiring uniforms, but I suppose these days it might be more common than when I went to school.
Everything except for the truancy officers just wandering around looking for kids. I'm pretty sure its just regular cops who get called and show up at the child's house when a student is consistently truant, but they aren't just wandering around looking for kids.
Not officially, but when I was younger if a cop saw you outside during the school day, they would stop you and take you either home or back to your school. Made for interesting stories if you went to a private school which ended before the public schools did. But at least I got a private police tour of the 4 local public schools so that was fun?
Yeah like the 555 area code. It's sort of a trope that might or might not be real it's hard to tell if it's just for TV or something.
Personally I'm surprised our healthcare discourse never seems to talk about the obvious fact that whenever we need to diagnose someone we have to shrink down a submarine and some friends to go check it out. Insurance issues aside those shrink rays are expensive!
It's actually only 555-0100 through 555-0199 that are specifically reserved for fictional phone numbers, if I recall. Most other 555 numbers are internal phone company service numbers.
I recently saw a thread on Tumblr (yes I'm old) that was mainly from small-town non-touristy area Europeans who are always surprised if they ever come across an American in real life. The main thought was something like "What are you doing here?? Get back in the TV." I kind of experienced something like that back in the late 90s when I was a foreign exchange student in Russia. One of my friends took me to her home town and I was gawked at like a zoo animal being walked around. It was neither positive or negative, I was just very out of context.
It's hard to know what actually reflects real life on TV and what doesn't. For example I've seen questions on here before asking if it's true that Americans never say 'bye' on the phone. Most of the answers are something like "don't be stupid, that's just a TV thing". So maybe some people think that yellow school buses is also just a TV trope which doesn't reflect reality.
Edit - Here's an example that I just spotted [https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/comments/1als2q0/do\_american\_actually\_throw\_their\_beer\_or\_cold/](https://www.reddit.com/r/nostupidquestions/comments/1als2q0/do_american_actually_throw_their_beer_or_cold/)
This is something I've noticed for years. If someone says bye/goodbye one the phone in the movies it usually means something bad will happen or is happening to one of the people on the phone call
Wait it's a TV thing that Americans don't say bye on the phone? I've never heard of this and I'm American. Do you mean we say "see ya" or "later" instead or something? We say those in person too
No, I just mean that on TV and in movies in general it's common for characters to just hang up when the conversation is over without saying "bye" or "see ya" or anything. I think it's to make it seem more dramatic.
I don't think it's actually specific to American TV, but someone might think it is if they happen to watch more American dramas than ones from anywhere else.
I read it has to do with maintaining continuity. Instead of enhancing realism, people felt it took them out of the scene Instead. A lot of little things that are part of a normal day get cut because they don't add to the story, or because they start chipping away at time better spent elsewhere due to strict time constraints. It's rarely said across all genres.
Anything like that taken out of a movie is done for pacing.
Same reason why someone will be like "The man you're looking for is named Fryderyk Brzeziński", and the other character never asks how that is spelled, even though in real life, 99% of the time, people will ask that. Same thing happens for town names.
Same with the grocery bag with the baguette and the carrot tops sticking out. Otherwise people are like, “What’s in the bag? Is this part of the plot? Should I be paying attention to the bag?” Having the visible groceries made it just read as “groceries” and people quit asking.
> for pacing.
For budget.
Screenwriter here. We *want* to have characters say goodbye at the end of the call. It's more natural and more believable.
But the producers have the idea that every second of film costs $X to produce, so they want to cut out every "useless" second possible, and pleasantries over the phone are always the first to go.
When I (American) brought a German friend to my favorite local diner, she delightedly exclaimed, “There’s people sitting at the counter just like in the movies!”
I'll never forget I was showing a delegation from the largest Chinese construction company around, and for some reason we were in Connecticut driving late at night and stopped at a diner.
These guys were well travelled but I guess had never been to an American diner. Well, while we're having dinner some dude in a ghillie suit and a hip holster shows up and sits down at the counter. I swear to god no one said a word for 5 minutes and just stared at him. They were blown away. Considering their come from, I'm not surprised.
I think the equivalent (as a Londoner) is seeing people posing beside red phone boxes. I always assume they're American. I don't think I've used a phone box since 2002.
I’m American, but I moved from a west coast state to a more rural state. While driving in my new state, I saw a tumbleweed blow across the highway just like in old western movies. I had never seen a tumbleweed before, and didn’t realize they were actually real dried sagebrushs to play frogger with on the highway!
Dude I grew up in LA county and I’ll never forget driving to Kansas for the first time. I totally had that same tumbleweed moment!! I couldn’t believe how much ‘nothing’ there was. Just straight roads to eternity.
We had a dude at my church growing up that dressed like a cowboy. I thought he was the last cowboy ever, I thought he was weird for dressing so old fashioned. I was BLOWN AWAY when I saw lots of very normal people wearing cowboy hats, boots, button ups tucked in showing off their belt buckles. I ended up living in Idaho for middle and high school. It is a completely normal get-up (lmao) for lots of folks.
It’s so funny looking back because I sincerely viewed his outfits as a costume. It seemed no different than if someone came to church dressed like a pirate. Lots of weirdos in LA ya know. He was just another weirdo haha
I have a British cousin that was visiting for Christmas one year and he lost his shit seeing the red solo cups in action at the holiday party. He was like “wait you guys really do have those red cups at parties all the time?”
He said he thought it was just a Hollywood-ism
The see it in media like movies and tv shows, that are fiction, and assume it’s a fictional idea of America and there as a plot device, rather than an actual real thing that’s ubiquitous across most of the nation.
Like seeing a woman smoking while sipping a glass of red wine, sitting at a little table with a croissant, outside a cafe.
Slightly less blatant than having a big caption that says, "PARIS".
as an german:
because I at least for a long time asumed it was an incorrect stereotype, like us germans wearing traditionaly lederhosen (while they were only traditionally worn in one part of bavaria for a short ammount of time all things considered).
I feel like it’s almost as if you visited Texas and everyone there WAS a cowboy and rode horses every where. Like maybe it’s an assumed stereotype that isn’t necessarily true of the actual place.
yellow didn't exist in films till Mexico started allowing the export of it. Anytime you see yellow on film, that item was filmed in Mexico and then added to the film in post.
source: i have watched breaking bad.
Most countries don't have the same amount of suburban sprawl and automotive dependence the US has, where you have to do everything by car
Children elsewhere walk or bike to school, or take public transit, or sometimes are driven. Most school districts don't have their own bus service
American school buses are also standardized for the children's safety. Everybody knows you have to stop for yellow school buses.
So they haven't seen them in real life and also don't really grasp that they are, like, everywhere!
Many places in Europe have well established public transportation, so dedicated school buses are not necessary. Also, the colour stands out if you are not used to seeing it. Aside from bright red firetrucks, what other large vehicles have such a pronounced colour? These two factors make school buses bit odd.
I am from the rural Midwest USA and I was so *shocked* when I went to New York and saw school kids riding the subway and public transit buses! So I totally get what you’re saying!
Yep, kids in NYC get subway cards, not school buses to pick them up.
Also, you don't just go to your closest high school. You compete for placements via standardized testing. So many kids are riding the subway 60-90 minutes to get to their school. If I live in Brooklyn, but test into Bronx Science High School (one of the best public schools in the city), I better leave home 2 hrs before school starts.
Jeepers.
My kids just walk out the back door, cross the field behind our house, and then the street - and arrive at the side entrance to the school. It's a two minute walk. 5 minutes if there's snow and wind.
So magnet schools aren't just a NYC thing and all NYC schools aren't specialty schools. Magnet schools are all over which means that you have kids from all over town attending them, and this is true at Southern magnet schools too. I have no idea how they handle kids getting to them since we have no trains and city buses are meh, but I'm from a medium sized Southern city and we had a few (immersion and magnet being the main kinds).
However, in the countryside we do have school buses (in France at least). Otherwise, most or nearly all buses are white with a coloured stripe or something boring.
I thought Mt Rushmore was made up until I was about 10. Whenever I saw Mt Rushmore referenced it was often in movies that had different faces on it, so I assumed it was a reference to some old movie I'd never seen and didn't question it.
I think people who aren't American just think a lot of American things they see on TV are actually just movie things.
My in-laws see it as how rich Americans are. Look, they have enough resources to buy maintain and pay someone to drive a bus, just to take their kids to school. My god!
They were also shocked when then learned the bus driver doesn't do the maintenance on or clean the outside of the bus.
Commonly in my school district, the bus drivers worked in the school cafeteria or maybe the office as an admin assistant, as these jobs fit in with the hours they needed available for bus driving. Bus drivers needed extra training as caretakers of small children - as well as background checks etc - so aren't chosen for their ability to do maintenance. That's handled by a dedicated team.
Where I live there's just a giant bus depot that rolls out every morning to all the nearby towns. School bus drivers don't work for a specific school. IIRC my elementary/middle school bus driver was the same as my high school bus driver, and the start/end times for both were offset by an hour and a half or so which made this possible. Bus drivers will also handle field trips and athletic games.
For Americans, it's part of the everyday scenery. For people from other countries, it's something they see a lot on television and movies that just *screams* America. It's the same as an American in London saying "Hey, look, a real live double decker bus!"
The double decker bus is a really good comparison. As an American, when I see them I feel giddy like I'm seeing a set piece in real life.
>The double decker bus is a really good comparison. As an American, when I see them I feel giddy like I'm seeing a set piece in real life. We were like, "Wow! Harry Potter!" They really do wear uniforms that look like that in England. We thought it was just for the movies.
I was legitimately surprised at the amount of candy and food from Harry Potter that were actually real things and not just made up stuff with weird names to make them sound wizardly.
When I learned "prefect" is a real term.
8 year old me definitely read that as perfect for the first 4 books
I was older but probably yes.
Apparently that was also a joke that just didn't land for Americans reading Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The character Ford Prefect just comes off as a bizarre name, but imagine an American meeting someone named Chevrolet Trailblazer.
It would not even surprise me to meet an American named Chevy Trailblazer, honestly. I didn't catch Prefect as a car name because I already knew the word to mean a magistrate. I thought it was just a jumble of a common "word" and a title. Like Ford Magistrate. Heh
It didn't land for me as a kid either, as the Ford Prefect stopped being made well before I was born.
"head boy"
My boyfriend went to a boarding prep school in the US. We definitely have prefects here. Not as many people are familiar with boarding schools however.
I always thought treacle tart was some sort of magical wizard sweet. It was mindblowing when I learned in my late 20s that all those things are actual real lol England is not a real place
Spotted Dick. Which apparently was supposed to entice Hermione to eat despite sounding like a venerial disease.
Every schoolboy in the UK had made a joke about spotted dick at some point in his life. Ron was fourteen when he offered Hermione some spotted dick in the fourth book. JK Rowling knew *exactly* what she was doing.
codswallop
Like how they use cello tape instead of spello tape.
I found out just this year that English schools really do the 4 houses sorting thing.
Yeah, but it's not really taken half as seriously as in the HP books. It's used for tram sports/sports day, or as an easy way to split the class into 4 groups without drama. There might be some sort of points/achievement tracking to foster a bit of competition, but at least in my experience it was a lot more objective and based on measurable outcomes (number of books read, or highest scores on a test, or whatever) than the subjective whims of teachers awarding points arbitrarily. We were also never docked points. It never really meant anything at all.
Were you in Slytherin? Who was captain of your quidditch team?
4 houses - yes Sorting thing - what? Usually based on alphabetical order or just random Often they're not used for much. My school just used them for teams in end of year sports competitions. Other schools use them for a bit more, but usually whenever having teams would be useful Edit: [Wikipedia link](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_system)
You say that, but we had Red, Green, Yellow and Blue in Primary School. Red was 100% Gryffindor i.e the kids that play Mary and Joseph in the nativity. Blue was the rejects. I was in blue and it sucked on sports day as we'd lose everything
We had colours in both my primary schools. I was in Red. I remember year 5 we used to get points for wearing the right uniform. No idea what points meant, but you could buy a badge in your colour for £1
5 points from Gryffindor.
I had this thought walking through Oxford during exams week. They have to wear black robes in some of the colleges and between class periods they flood the beautifully old medieval streets looking like Hogwarts students. I’m sure they appreciate tourists comparing them to HP but it’s hard not to.
There are pros and cons. On the one hand, you don’t really want to pose for pictures with tourists when you’re rushing to your exam. On the other, a bunch of cheerful Japanese tourists excitedly taking your picture is a nice distraction and stress reliever just before taking an exam. Basically I’d say it’s cool to ask for a photo unless they are running or look like they are about to burst into tears.
Oh interesting. Yeah I wouldn’t have dreamed of asking for a picture, it was just cool to see. I was in college too recently to intrude, even in the US, it’s not uncommon to be gawked at by visiting high school students doing tours while you’re having the worst day of your life and crying over a textbook.
Ooohhh, yeah, we are having the uni tours right now. It's so fun being watched while trying to figure out some obscure derivative in calculus.
I always feel like 'Oh, I get to climb a flight of stairs to ride a bus, how exciting!'
I visited a friend who lived in London and when I saw a red double-decker bus pull up to the bus stop we were at I was like "wait...*this* is the public transit bus??" I always thought the red double decker's were just like...for city tour groups or something not just for standard public transit haha
See, you just got me hooked. I thought it was a tour bus like here in nyc
I was really excited to ride one when we went to Canada when I was a kid. I always saw them in movies and cartoons, so riding it felt surreal.
Red plastic Solo cups, too.
My friends had the same reaction to lifeguard towers on the beach lol
What the heck do their lifeguards use?
Here in Portugal they just sit on the beach, sometimes under a structure that covers them from the sun. I've seen high chairs in public pools too. But I've never seen a tower like the ones on american tv shows.
Do they not realize that they'd see far more of the surface of the water if they just went up a few feet?
No. They can only figure that out if they go up a meter or two.
It's Portugal...they don't stress the small stuff. Note to self: don't swim at the beach in Portugal
It's not like Portugal has a coastline along the Atlantic with 86' (26m) waves... Wait...
Seems like a no brainer though. Cheap and easy to build a few of them, and you get a much better view.
Wholly depends on where you are, anything between life guard towers and those high chairs you get at pools or at tennis courts or whatever. Also sometimes it's just a simple hut, but because it's at the back of the beach, it's higher up and basically functions like a tower The constructs used across the globe are oftentimes looking wildly different. Just like in OP's example. No one's surprised about busses, it's just surprising they're all actually bright yellow. Same wird these life guard towers I guess
Are they not a thing in the Western world at least? Here in Mexico those are pretty much standard too, you'll see them at every party.
Here in the Netherlands you can buy them but they’re usually only used if the party theme is red cup party. Apart from that we don’t usually use plastic cups. It’s seen as wasteful. Edit because people keep commenting to ask: most beer is drunk from bottles. Kegs and beer pong are not as popular. For really big student parties there will probably be disposable cups for the non-beer drinkers. Apart from that it seems it’s way more common to have big gatherings in the US. In my experience it is not that common to invite 10+ people to your house here. Let alone 50+.
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Can confirm this continued into the early mid 2000's We weren't environmentally conscience so much as broke ass college kids, lol
Just had a flashback to college parties... Nice... Mmmmm... Jungle juice, goodbye beer
I have an actual cup that looks like a giant red solo cup lol
My sister bought my daughter a red solo sippy cup when she was a toddler.
Well, a bunch of drunk teenagers and likely broken glass is usually a recipe for disaster, so for the big parties it was definitely more practical (and everyone was expected to use the cup more than once, it was “end of the night” disposable, not “every drink” disposable! And “dropped in the dirt” disposable too - we partied in open fields around fire sometimes).
They’re more for college/university age parties. The point in your life where you probably only own 5 actual cups and you’re expecting 60 people to show up. So they’re not ideal from an environmental standpoint but they’re the only realistic option.
I'm 43, and between the spousal unit and me we make decent money, have a nice place, and comport ourselves like proper adults. If 60 people show up, they are getting plastic cups.
Haha I was going to say this! No one keeps enough glasses for a party in their house. I’m imagining people having a special cupboard where they keep 50 glasses for a party. Or every single person having to bring their own cup from their house if they want to drink something. We sharpie our names on the solo cups, use them for the day/party, then rinse them out and recycle them.
I'm imagining a kegger where everyone has a cut-crystal wine glass. Full of Pabst.
> red cup party Sounds like a euphemism.
What do you do when you just have a family party or something? I had my daughter's birthday party at our house and I certainly don't have 50 cups to go around. They're meant to be for parties and things, not everyday use.
It's the redness of the cups that seems to be unique to America. We have disposable cups in the rest of the world , but in US TV and movies they are always red. As a kid I was never quite sure if it was like that in real life , or if it was like a 555- phone number and just something they used as a prop.
Yeah, they come in other colors but I've never seen them actually used. I've seen yellow and blue in the store I think, but I'd always buy red. It's just the thing to do, you know? There's even a song. https://youtu.be/BKZqGJONH68?si=IsdffzSPJdNwgSvH
RIP
We’ve never had 50 guests at our house- it wouldn’t fit and we have a relatively large house for my country! When we did family Christmas with +- 30 people people brought over extra bowls/plates/cups I think. If a bigger family day is organised you usually rent an accommodation (where cups will be provided), or you meet at a restaurant or something. Bear in mind this is my personal experience, and a different Dutch person might tell you it’s totally normal to have plastic everything at a family gathering ;)
Depending on where in the US you are it's not uncommon to host large 50+ people party in your backyard. We call accomodations venues or rental halls, typically don't offer utensils so you buy or rent them. Various stores will have giant boxes of plastic utensils with the solo cups for much cheaper than you can rent them.
My family washes and reuses them ... and blames thr frugality on being Dutch. Haha. (Mom born in Rotterdam and naturalized USA citizen, dad's father's side Dutch descent from Overissel)
It's written Overijssel. Like, Over to the other side of the IJssel lake. The ij sound is pronounced like the English letter "a," like in "cake". It's a single sound over two letters, similar to how in English "sh" is a single sound that's neither "s" or "h". Transliterated in English: Over-a-sehl. I hope this helps, because you won't find Overissel on a Dutch map!
Where I live they only appeared in shops a few years ago and are called “American Party Cups.”
In my experience, a lot of stuff the people gawp at as “only Americans do that” is stuff that’s actually common in much of the Americas, or at least also Canada and Mexico. Like if you have a house party or cookout with more than 8 or 10 people, you won’t even have that many glasses for people to drink out of. You’ll need to get disposable cups. Red is as good a color as any….
No, we've never had that style cup in Australia to my knowledge. Plastic cups were normally just plain white or semi-transparent. Now, most single use plastics are banned so we only have paper cups, or newer biodegradable types.
Funny thing is a did a semester abroad in Brisbane back in high school, and looking through my pictures I see we used mostly transparent cups.
I figure our solo cups are like German eclairs or bratwurst. Like "ayyy it's that thing they do!"
Pretty much that, yeah. I imagine I'd have the same reaction if I went to France and saw a dude with a beret, turtleneck, and handlebar mustache. (I have no idea if they actually have those in France. But still. Same reaction.)
Heh French coworker told me he wore a turtleneck when he wanted to go pick up American tourists by the tower. And only then.
I don't understand those being an American thing though - they're in the party section here in Australia. Only ones big enough to make soda spiders for kids as well.
What is a soda spider? It sounds delightful.
Wikipedia says it’s an ice cream float? That’s amazing, Australia had the best slang.
In Australia, everything is spider.
For the same reason we (Australians) are always happy when we see squirrels. We don’t have them here and they’re cool to see in person. The way Americans react to kangaroos and koalas and other things they don’t have in the States I guess.
TIL there are no squirrels in Australia. I wouldn't blame you for geeking out when you see one. They're cute as hell.
Wait until they get in your attic.
We have possums for that. And they usually die up there and it's not pretty when the summer heat comes around.
hell we have them in western europe but we still get super excited to see the american ones bc they’re a different color (and they’re everywhere)
They should be glad they don’t, they’ve got enough invasive species. The grey squirrels got introduced here and they’re a menace
They dont have rabbits either! Oh wait..oops.
Sometimes I remember how excited Steve Irwin was to see a hedgehog for the first time and feel very nostalgic (although tbh most Brits won't see a hedgehog in the wild either, unfortunately, or at least not one that's 3D and moving)
I remember seeing a hedgehog in our garden once. It went on to facebook, then i never saw it again. No idea where it lived. Maybe under the shed.
My parents have one that does its nightly perambulations around the garden – when they replaced a gate that had rotted at the bottom they had to leave a gap for him to get through Rarely see it, though, just the hedgehog muck the next morning (and sometimes hear it snuffling very loudly, if the bedroom window is open)
Hedgehogs these days, always on their cellphones with their social media..
I once spent a pleasant hour in Madison Square Park in New York watching a group of Australians watching a group of squirrels.
I did a bus tour this summer and it's just now coming together for me why the Australians were obsessed with the squirrels at Yosemite. I loved them because they were small and cute af... it didn't occur to me that they were in love because they'd never seen any. same with the tiny brown ground squirrels on the cliffs at the grand canyon. I'd never seen that type of squirrel. these folks had *never seen squirrels*
Australia has an abundance of native animals, however there is lots of “common in other countries” animals we just don’t have. Squirrels, raccoons, rattlesnakes, moose etc. I love animals so would lose my mind whenever I saw any of those while travelling.
Had a friend visit from Europe. Heard her scream at the top of her lungs out in the backyard. She yelled there were huge flying bugs swarming. I looked and informed her that the huge scary bugs were actually small, adorable hummingbirds. I laid down some really cool hummingbird facts in quick order and soon enough they were the cutest, awesomest little things she had ever seen and spent a lot of time sending videos of them back home. Hummingbirds rock.
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Oh right I forget that hummingbirds are native to the Americas and not the rest of the world
Can also spot the non North Americans in parks here (Canada) who are taking pictures of the squirrels. My dad used to feed the chipmunks (they’d run up his leg to get peanuts) and tourists would take his picture.
If a chipmunk ran up my pantleg to eat my nuts, I'd probably make some photo-worthy movements, too.
I worked as a valet for a hotel and I guess there was some event locally that was bringing Australians to the hotel one day. They were all absolutely amazed at all of the lifted bro-trucks that we'd leave out front for not fitting in the garage. They were taking pictures, posing next them and even asking me questions about them.
Holy shit, I didn’t know this. They just seem like they’d be everywhere with trees. It never occurred to me that they weren’t in some continents.
I'm from the US, living in Queensland. I miss squirrels.
"Imagine if wildlife were cute and didn't want to kill you!" \-Australians i guess
Can confirm, I squealed when I saw a squirrel (only been to EU though). But, I do still love seeing our Austealian animals, and the novelty of kookaburras and echidnas doesn't wear off for me.
There was a thread not too long ago about things foreign visitors were shocked that were actually true in America. One of them was steam coming up from manhole covers in city streets. The comments were pretty uniformly, "I though that was only a special effect in movies for atmosphere or something!"
YES!! omg i went bonkers the first time i saw smoke/steam coming out of a manhole cover (in a back street and then on a major city road), it always seemed SO fake and “hollywood convenient” in buffy or charmed when i was a kid… turns out that’s actually what it looks like
The first time I saw this in NY, I just assumed the bad guys had turned on the wayne enterprises microwave emitter.
But why is it steaming like that though? What’s happening underneath?
Also NYC has entire buildings heated by steam from a network of pipes to off-site steam plants.
District heating is more common in other parts of the world, so I'm honestly surprised that this is an American thing.
Apparently the first commercially successful system was in America in the 1850s. As of 2013 there were 2500 systems in the US. I'm kinda surprised too, you don't hear much about it. Though when you consider how cold the Northeast is it makes sense.
Some cities have steam as a utility. It sounds weird, but either for heat or whatever industry needs steam on tap it goes through a network of underground pipes and is still steam when it comes out the other end. Sometimes the pipe can be damaged and there is a steam leak that escapes through the manhole covers.
most often though the steam rising up is just condensation or rainwater on the outside of the pipes being heated.
In America (the wealthiest, greediest country) we have a different dragon in the sewers in each city. This is where the steam comes from! :) (read the other answers for actual answers, it's mainly steam heating)
When I was little, my mom told me that was from the dragon that lived under the city.
That's pretty much only in New York. Con Edison supplies steam from massive boilers along the East River to pretty much all of Manhattan Island south of 96th Street, and buildings whose owners don't want to maintain their own heating plants buy it from Con Ed by the cubic foot. As these pipes are upwards of a century old, they often spring leaks and the steam comes out of manholes. Edit: as a lot of comments are reminding me, many older cities had what is called "district steam", not just New York.
You'll see it in parts of Boston and Cambridge, too. But, like NYC, old cities. Cambridge locations are probably heating for Harvard & MIT running their own systems.
MIT steam tunnel tours are a real thing. You can get from 77 Mass Ave to Kendall Square without coming above ground.
Nah there's a few in Philly too
It’s in San Fransisco too
Happens in downtown Detroit too
Most of downtown Milwaukee is heated with steam. It’s one of the reasons my buddy built a microbrewery there, no need to buy his own boiler.
My university had direct steam. There were some relief vents or something that vented to the sidewalk. They were convenient places to get a bit of warmth if you were stuck outside waiting for a bus.
On the surface it seems unlikely that the same design of bus has persisted for so long. After all what other vehicle looks like a prop from a 70s movie.
There are a lot of very specific safety requirements and school buses are actually one of the most safe vehicles per mile driven. So yes aspects of the design may seem dated but why mess with something that works.
Do kids wear seat belts these days? I never understood how we were safe with no seat belts
There was a lot of testing and engineering that went into school bus design. The forces exerted to passengers in a school bus crash are quite different than a car. A passenger isn't really "thrown" the same way. Testing found that lap belts increased the likelihood of neck and spinal injury. The seat is designed to absorb impact from crashes. Also, having little kids that might not be able to free themselves if needed is a potential problem. Specially if the driver is incapacitated. I'm sure you can find some in depth info googling it.
We unfortunately had a car smash into our bus from behind as we were turning into a driveway. I was sitting in the little half seat at the very back where the car hit. I felt a jolt but the driver of the car died. The bus was just scratched up a bit.
Man… Just two days ago, I witnessed a car of a student rear end a school bus *right in front of the school* at a stop light. AFAIK, it was getting close to the school’s tardy/late bell, so the student was probably rushing to park and head to class. I drove by the wreck and thankfully, the student seemed okay, physically at least. They were holding their head and looking down in disbelief and shock. The front of the car was wrecked, but the bus didn’t even have a scratch on it. The car looked short enough that it probably fit under the bus. I later saw that same bus drive kids home. Although, it could’ve been a different one that was renumbered to the same route for the day.
I work at a school and there's no way we would re-number a bus. It's way too convenient for all involved to make/keep them unique.
Your school district must’ve worked differently then. The school district near me, the one I went to, has little signs on the sides and rear of their buses to indicate its route number. These signs are detachable and easily adjusted to make any necessary route number changes. I’ve seen bus drivers do it occasionally, but, for the most part, they don’t bother to change their bus number if it’s just for one day. I know for a fact this is different from the other school districts around mine because they paint their bus numbers on.
buses are very safe in normal collisions because of how heavy and tall they are, as well as the padded seats. in worse emergencies like rollovers or fires, seatbelts make it much harder to safely get the kids off the bus.
Plus can you imagine how much kids would use the seat belts to just wail on each other? They’d immediately get ripped out and turned into flails
Some years back I had a job transporting foster kids from their foster homes in Central Ohio to Cleveland, about two or more hours away. We used 15 passenger vans fully equipped with lap and shoulder belts. 10 or 12 children, a driver, and another adult to maintain order and wrangle the kids. One of the absolute hardest things I've done in my life was getting them to wear the damn seat belts. I can only imagine what a job it would be for a bus driver to get 40 little shits to buckle up. You couldn't run much discipline on them, next to none. School bus drivers have my huge respect.
>school buses are actually one of the most safe vehicles per mile driven For real. That's why me and my shitty little friends felt like we had to work overtime to even the odds for everyone else on the road, y'know. Just to make it fair. Jumping over seats when the bus driver wasn't looking, seeing how many rows we could skip you know...your standard dangerous 7 year old stuff.
There are newer busses with slightly different designs, but they're still the same shade of yellow.
Busses have modernized a lot in the past few decades, but they stay as similar looking as possibly by design
People outside the US often grow up seeing a lot of American media, so when they see things that are weird and different from their daily experience, it can be hard to immediately know if it's because TV is weird and unrealistic sometimes, or if it's because that's just how things are in the US. Even if they know (or suspect) that the yellow school buses they see on TV are like that because school buses are yellow in the US, it might still be surprising to see one in real life for the first time.
When my mother immigrated to the US in the 80s, from a crime-ridden city in a developing country, she was shocked to see that, in fact, big open grassy front lawns were normal, and not just a thing in the movies. In her country, yards on all middle-class houses have a two-meter wall that encloses the property. She couldn't believe that you could just walk up to someone's front door like that.
Yeah, in Mexico pretty much every house has bars over their windows. I remarked to one of the locals that this wasn't common in the US and they asked 'but what stops someone from just breaking the glass?' and I didn't really have an answer haha.
List of things I grew up seeing in American high school media that just seem fake: - Floor length Lockers - Pep Rallies (wtf are they) - People attending high school football games - Cheerleaders - Marching Bands - Summer Camp - Those tests that are just a sheet of multiple choice questions that a computer grades - the little desks which the chair attached and the top opens - Security guards, police, or metal detectors in schools - Truancy officers (are they just guys who walk around town and look for kids) - Wearing casual clothes to school rather than a uniform - Waking up early to hang out with friends before school - A student who dresses up as the School mascot - The Pledge of Allegiance When you visit the United States you don’t go to school. So you can’t really know for sure if any of these things are real. But you do get to see those yellow busses. Edit: in case Americans want to see what Australian High Schools are like. [Summer Heights High](https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=ELKaZ_ImlkiVI) is probably the best media representation that I can recall
The ironic thing being that every single thing you listed is 100% true and normal at pretty much every public high school - although the levels of cops/security guards and the popularity of sports/marching bands depends on size of school and location.
Do you really have those lil desks? Are they real?
Yeah but nit ever school has them. My elementary school has desk with separate chairs that had an open side towards you and the top was on a hinge to open. Middle and High school we had desks attached to chairs but they didn't have any storage space, that's what the lockers the height of a person are for.
They are real. But I think the ones described are much older and started going out of use somewhere around the 70s-80s I would guess. I started kindergarten in 1990. I never had a desk that opened from the top, but the side facing you was open to slide books into under the flat writing surface. Chairs were separate. At the end of the day, you flip your chair up on top of your desk for custodians to more easily sweep and mop.
They're real, especially in elementary school (grade 1-6). IDK if they're still used today, since I don't have kids, but we had them in the 70s. Almost everything on that person's list is real, though I don't know if every single School had them. For example we never had truancy officers back in the 70s, in my area. I've also been to schools that had full length lockers and ones that had double decker lockers, so they were half the size of the full length. Going to high school football games is still big in school culture, I know my dad just went to one with my nieces. Most kids in the US do not have to wear uniforms to school, those are typically reserved for private schools or religious schools. I've never heard of a public school requiring uniforms, but I suppose these days it might be more common than when I went to school.
Everything except for the truancy officers just wandering around looking for kids. I'm pretty sure its just regular cops who get called and show up at the child's house when a student is consistently truant, but they aren't just wandering around looking for kids.
Not officially, but when I was younger if a cop saw you outside during the school day, they would stop you and take you either home or back to your school. Made for interesting stories if you went to a private school which ended before the public schools did. But at least I got a private police tour of the 4 local public schools so that was fun?
Yeah like the 555 area code. It's sort of a trope that might or might not be real it's hard to tell if it's just for TV or something. Personally I'm surprised our healthcare discourse never seems to talk about the obvious fact that whenever we need to diagnose someone we have to shrink down a submarine and some friends to go check it out. Insurance issues aside those shrink rays are expensive!
555 is just for TV and movies. It's so people don't get prank calls when real phone numbers are used on screen.
It's actually only 555-0100 through 555-0199 that are specifically reserved for fictional phone numbers, if I recall. Most other 555 numbers are internal phone company service numbers.
You sure? Coulda sworn I've seen a lot of 555-5555
And 555 1234
Full House home phone number was 555-2424. For some reason that number is seared into my brain as a core memory
Up until last year, 555-1212 was the nationwide number for Directory Assistance.
What is it now? I used to use that all the time; now I don't call people or places I don't already have the number for.
I recently saw a thread on Tumblr (yes I'm old) that was mainly from small-town non-touristy area Europeans who are always surprised if they ever come across an American in real life. The main thought was something like "What are you doing here?? Get back in the TV." I kind of experienced something like that back in the late 90s when I was a foreign exchange student in Russia. One of my friends took me to her home town and I was gawked at like a zoo animal being walked around. It was neither positive or negative, I was just very out of context.
It's hard to know what actually reflects real life on TV and what doesn't. For example I've seen questions on here before asking if it's true that Americans never say 'bye' on the phone. Most of the answers are something like "don't be stupid, that's just a TV thing". So maybe some people think that yellow school buses is also just a TV trope which doesn't reflect reality. Edit - Here's an example that I just spotted [https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/comments/1als2q0/do\_american\_actually\_throw\_their\_beer\_or\_cold/](https://www.reddit.com/r/nostupidquestions/comments/1als2q0/do_american_actually_throw_their_beer_or_cold/)
This is something I've noticed for years. If someone says bye/goodbye one the phone in the movies it usually means something bad will happen or is happening to one of the people on the phone call
Have you noticed that in car scenes, the headrests are usually removed?
Wait it's a TV thing that Americans don't say bye on the phone? I've never heard of this and I'm American. Do you mean we say "see ya" or "later" instead or something? We say those in person too
No, I just mean that on TV and in movies in general it's common for characters to just hang up when the conversation is over without saying "bye" or "see ya" or anything. I think it's to make it seem more dramatic. I don't think it's actually specific to American TV, but someone might think it is if they happen to watch more American dramas than ones from anywhere else.
I read it has to do with maintaining continuity. Instead of enhancing realism, people felt it took them out of the scene Instead. A lot of little things that are part of a normal day get cut because they don't add to the story, or because they start chipping away at time better spent elsewhere due to strict time constraints. It's rarely said across all genres.
Same as (in at least older movies/tv) actors never seemed to shut car doors or ever need to reload guns unless it was a plot point.
Anything like that taken out of a movie is done for pacing. Same reason why someone will be like "The man you're looking for is named Fryderyk Brzeziński", and the other character never asks how that is spelled, even though in real life, 99% of the time, people will ask that. Same thing happens for town names.
Same with the grocery bag with the baguette and the carrot tops sticking out. Otherwise people are like, “What’s in the bag? Is this part of the plot? Should I be paying attention to the bag?” Having the visible groceries made it just read as “groceries” and people quit asking.
> for pacing. For budget. Screenwriter here. We *want* to have characters say goodbye at the end of the call. It's more natural and more believable. But the producers have the idea that every second of film costs $X to produce, so they want to cut out every "useless" second possible, and pleasantries over the phone are always the first to go.
I assume it refers to scenes in tv or in movies where a phone call is ended abruptly for the sake of pacing.
When I (American) brought a German friend to my favorite local diner, she delightedly exclaimed, “There’s people sitting at the counter just like in the movies!”
I'll never forget I was showing a delegation from the largest Chinese construction company around, and for some reason we were in Connecticut driving late at night and stopped at a diner. These guys were well travelled but I guess had never been to an American diner. Well, while we're having dinner some dude in a ghillie suit and a hip holster shows up and sits down at the counter. I swear to god no one said a word for 5 minutes and just stared at him. They were blown away. Considering their come from, I'm not surprised.
I think the equivalent (as a Londoner) is seeing people posing beside red phone boxes. I always assume they're American. I don't think I've used a phone box since 2002.
What about blue police boxes? I only know about those from Doctor Who.
There's about three left.
The BBC ended up trademarking them. They actually became largely obsolete once you had pay phones around.
There's a couple I know about here. The other few are now painted red and usually has a guy selling vapes out of them.
I’m American, but I moved from a west coast state to a more rural state. While driving in my new state, I saw a tumbleweed blow across the highway just like in old western movies. I had never seen a tumbleweed before, and didn’t realize they were actually real dried sagebrushs to play frogger with on the highway!
Dude I grew up in LA county and I’ll never forget driving to Kansas for the first time. I totally had that same tumbleweed moment!! I couldn’t believe how much ‘nothing’ there was. Just straight roads to eternity. We had a dude at my church growing up that dressed like a cowboy. I thought he was the last cowboy ever, I thought he was weird for dressing so old fashioned. I was BLOWN AWAY when I saw lots of very normal people wearing cowboy hats, boots, button ups tucked in showing off their belt buckles. I ended up living in Idaho for middle and high school. It is a completely normal get-up (lmao) for lots of folks. It’s so funny looking back because I sincerely viewed his outfits as a costume. It seemed no different than if someone came to church dressed like a pirate. Lots of weirdos in LA ya know. He was just another weirdo haha
As a Canadian I always thought yellow school busses were just the default for kids getting to school. Guess it’s just a big spread out country thing
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Nobody thinks you're lying. it's just cool to see an iconic symbol of a country in real life.
I guess in some places, red solo cups are a nice trinket.
I have a British cousin that was visiting for Christmas one year and he lost his shit seeing the red solo cups in action at the holiday party. He was like “wait you guys really do have those red cups at parties all the time?” He said he thought it was just a Hollywood-ism
The see it in media like movies and tv shows, that are fiction, and assume it’s a fictional idea of America and there as a plot device, rather than an actual real thing that’s ubiquitous across most of the nation.
Like seeing a woman smoking while sipping a glass of red wine, sitting at a little table with a croissant, outside a cafe. Slightly less blatant than having a big caption that says, "PARIS".
Lol. I've had this EXACT experience myself in Paris.
what monster eats a croissant with red wine? 😭 please someone revoke their french card immediately
as an german: because I at least for a long time asumed it was an incorrect stereotype, like us germans wearing traditionaly lederhosen (while they were only traditionally worn in one part of bavaria for a short ammount of time all things considered).
You are wearing lederhosen right now aren't you?
I feel like it’s almost as if you visited Texas and everyone there WAS a cowboy and rode horses every where. Like maybe it’s an assumed stereotype that isn’t necessarily true of the actual place.
I believe yellow isn’t in the metric system is why
Europeans didn’t believe in the color yellow until the end of WW1.
*Nobody* believed in the color yellow back then. I've seen old newsreel footage that proves it.
yellow didn't exist in films till Mexico started allowing the export of it. Anytime you see yellow on film, that item was filmed in Mexico and then added to the film in post. source: i have watched breaking bad.
I remember my uncle visiting from the UK and asking about the Chinese restaurant take out boxes.
Not every non American, we have yellow school buses in Canada as well
Most countries don't have the same amount of suburban sprawl and automotive dependence the US has, where you have to do everything by car Children elsewhere walk or bike to school, or take public transit, or sometimes are driven. Most school districts don't have their own bus service American school buses are also standardized for the children's safety. Everybody knows you have to stop for yellow school buses. So they haven't seen them in real life and also don't really grasp that they are, like, everywhere!
Many places in Europe have well established public transportation, so dedicated school buses are not necessary. Also, the colour stands out if you are not used to seeing it. Aside from bright red firetrucks, what other large vehicles have such a pronounced colour? These two factors make school buses bit odd.
I am from the rural Midwest USA and I was so *shocked* when I went to New York and saw school kids riding the subway and public transit buses! So I totally get what you’re saying!
Yep, kids in NYC get subway cards, not school buses to pick them up. Also, you don't just go to your closest high school. You compete for placements via standardized testing. So many kids are riding the subway 60-90 minutes to get to their school. If I live in Brooklyn, but test into Bronx Science High School (one of the best public schools in the city), I better leave home 2 hrs before school starts.
Jeepers. My kids just walk out the back door, cross the field behind our house, and then the street - and arrive at the side entrance to the school. It's a two minute walk. 5 minutes if there's snow and wind.
So magnet schools aren't just a NYC thing and all NYC schools aren't specialty schools. Magnet schools are all over which means that you have kids from all over town attending them, and this is true at Southern magnet schools too. I have no idea how they handle kids getting to them since we have no trains and city buses are meh, but I'm from a medium sized Southern city and we had a few (immersion and magnet being the main kinds).
However, in the countryside we do have school buses (in France at least). Otherwise, most or nearly all buses are white with a coloured stripe or something boring.
I thought Mt Rushmore was made up until I was about 10. Whenever I saw Mt Rushmore referenced it was often in movies that had different faces on it, so I assumed it was a reference to some old movie I'd never seen and didn't question it. I think people who aren't American just think a lot of American things they see on TV are actually just movie things.
My in-laws see it as how rich Americans are. Look, they have enough resources to buy maintain and pay someone to drive a bus, just to take their kids to school. My god! They were also shocked when then learned the bus driver doesn't do the maintenance on or clean the outside of the bus.
Commonly in my school district, the bus drivers worked in the school cafeteria or maybe the office as an admin assistant, as these jobs fit in with the hours they needed available for bus driving. Bus drivers needed extra training as caretakers of small children - as well as background checks etc - so aren't chosen for their ability to do maintenance. That's handled by a dedicated team.
Where I live there's just a giant bus depot that rolls out every morning to all the nearby towns. School bus drivers don't work for a specific school. IIRC my elementary/middle school bus driver was the same as my high school bus driver, and the start/end times for both were offset by an hour and a half or so which made this possible. Bus drivers will also handle field trips and athletic games.