7 thoughts on “The American Stereotypes”

1. Andrea on June 9, 2014 at 9:14 am said:

   Intrigued by stereotypes myself, I found myself reading most all of your entries. I particularly found it refreshing, that although you list stereotypes, you did not try to “sell” any, and were upfront about not knowing in some areas.

   I read the American entry last, and as an American , I chose to post here.

   1. Fat- agreed. I find it odd however that there is a societal pressure for “the perfect” body, and general disdain for fat people. And yet comparatively the US has larger percentage of obesity.

   2. Guns- We own a lot of them. True. We can’t agree amongst ourselves about gun legislation.
   Not everyone owns a gun, some people have many. Many who are very vocal about guns (and tend to get more press) are controversial to the “average” American.
   Zombie apocalypse???. Generational thing- the “in” teen topic. Silly.

   3. Stupid- the you-tube video is slanted to promote the “stupid American” agenda. Embarrassing.
   Kofi Annan- Nobel peace prize winner and former sec. General of the U.N.
   Tony Blair- former prime minister of the U.K.- current PM David Cameron
   Castro- is that a motor oil?? (gotcha! Just kidding!) – Cuban leader.

   Utah IS utopia (for Mormons) 😉

   I am not aware of anyone not knowing that a (tri)angle is 3 sided. Sad.
   I was educated in public school with a year of college.

   My point would be that I don’t feel in general that Americans are stupid. However, I would concede that unfortunately there is less general knowledge on world affairs and other cultures. Perhaps the American media monster brings America to much of the world, but does not bring the world to America. Our loss.

   Cowboys- hard for most Americans to relate to either.

   Loud tourists? For myself, I would prefer to try to blend in. It is annoying to be around the personality type that is only self aware. ANYWHERE.

   Creative and confident? America does admire those traits, and generally we believe we all have something individual to offer not just as Americans, but all humans. That ideology does promote “free” thinking and creativity, necessary for new achievements. I too see benefits in other cultures ie. The less individualistic Asian cultures where thinking of “the group” generally leads to a considerate polite community. German laws and efficiency- clean, orderly, productive society.
   OR it could be the American weed smoking thing.

   I haven’t sued anyone, but…… Maybe Mexicans or Canadians.

   Football(US)- don’t follow
   Football(world)- don’t follow

   Miami beach- they forgot to post pictures of fat and old Americans too.

   Spring break (Cancun and elsewhere)- yep. True. Also popular with high school seniors. I imagine they are loud tourists!

   Also for your consideration is the fact that geographically speaking, The US is very large- with vastly different sub types to the listed stereotypes within the country. For example west coast is considered more liberal than east coast. Southerners friendlier than northerners. Northerners smarter than southerners. Christian conservatives in the “bible belt”. Hardworking Midwesterners. Old money east, new money west. Endless…
   So in my experience, the make fun of your neighbors is regional. Border states to Mexico could have more I imagine.

   Lastly we are ALL foreigners (exception being native American Indians). Ethnically we are the world. In major metropolitan areas you will find ethnic groups forming neighboring mini communities Mexican town, pole town, China town. Very diverse. Within a short distance I can get homemade tamales, terrific Thai, and yummy fattoush and shawarma.

   Going back to the grandparents generation on both sides, Finnish, Russian, Polish, Tagalog, Spanish, French, Japanese were all spoken and lost in a generation. Pretty typical American story(and by American I mean United States citizen) with all due respect to the other continent sharing countries!

   Thank you for your interesting posts!

   Reply ↓
   • MantisShrimp on November 26, 2014 at 12:37 pm said:

     Andrea, thank you for your lovely comment and sorry from my extremely late reply.

     I don’t think there is any reasonable excuse that I could give you to justify replying to your comment 6 months late, but I really feel that I awe you an explanation 🙂

     (Warning: my gf says that I don’t know how to give short answers / explanations, do you think she is right?)

     A little about me :), I like to follow my passion and do things that I love and this is how and why I started this blog. I get a lot of ideas (for blogs, sites, even mini video projects… etc…) and as soon as i get an Idea, I get so excited about it and I do my best to work on my ideas as soon as possible… Ideally, that is great ( If i had time for all these mini projects), but the problem is that now I have too many projects to keep up with, did I mention that I have a full time job too?

     I love your comment, I can see that you read my post word by word (even commented about the Zombie Apocalypse… and about “smoking weed” leading to creativity…), it is almost like having a conversation with you face to face (only 6 months slower :p)

     You are right, USA is the 3rd biggest country by area and is so diverse since each of its 50 states is at least comparable to one or more small or big countries worldwide ( By Area, Population and GDP). I always get a sense of the inner-American stereotypes while watching American movies or American series or in Stand-up comedian shows (usually very funny 😀 ) . It is interesting how stereotypes are formed even in regions within countries. For example, I was speaking to one of my German colleagues a while ago and the topic of “The Italian People” popped up. He said that Northern Italians (where it is close to Germany) are so “German Like”, hardworking, creative, focused on careers, polite, follow rules, have more money and are not so religious, where as the those in the south are “Mediterranean like” (probably resemble Turkey, Greece, Syria, Lebanon…etc) and are very social, friendly, religious, jealous, family oriented and often called by the northerners “Lazy”.

     So you are also Intrigued by stereotypes? :), I can’t get enough of this topic and I really can’t stop analyzing people. My daily life is something like that… I am driving and I find a bad driver… I am so tempted to look and see… Where is this bad driver from. If I see someone doing something crazy in the gym, or someone unexpectedly polite or caring, I try to know the nationality of this person. Few days ago while coming back from vacation, I was sitting next to a sweet Chinese girl and we were talking, in the back of my mind I remember an article I read about China and most of our conversation was about China :). I had 100s of questions about China. Like “Is it true that the education in China is extremely demanding”? “is it true that going to the bank in China is a nightmare?”… etc etc….

     Am I the only one who does that? :p

     P.S. I think my gf is right, I just don’t know how to give short replies

     again, thank you for your comment

     Reply ↓
2. Joe Free on March 31, 2015 at 1:31 am said:

   I have to correct you on a few points. I’m from Toronto, and yeah, Toronto, by no means represents the entire country of Canada, but it is our most well-known city. Toronto is similar to New York City in many ways as in it is the most well known city of the country, is hated by the rest of the country, and is very multi-cultural (actually, Toronto is apparently the most multi-cultural city on the entire planet). Downtown Toronto actually looks and feels identical to downtown Chicago (when I was in downtown Chicago, there was a moment there where I thought I slept through the trip and woke up in downtown Toronto). Now that doesn’t clarify my points as to your article, but they are a few fun facts nonetheless.

   I point out Toronto because you said that the UK, Australia and Canada are typically a month behind America in trends and everything. Well, maybe as to Canada as a whole, you are probably right. But, when it comes to Toronto, you are quite wrong. Toronto is basically like an American city that happens to reside in Canada (in the most Southern area of the entire country, might I add). The only differences between Toronto and any other American cities is we have Canadian laws, and so most of our residents don’t own guns, and we have Canadian style police (police is a topic I will get to in a moment). Our style, technology, media, pop-culture, and many other things is quite on par with mainstream America, no month-gap, literally same day on par. When companies do test markets or beta trials of products or services, obviously it is well known that mostly American cities are used, but what is less commonly known is that a lot of these trial-runs are also done in Toronto and the surrounding area. These companies know if it’s a hit in Toronto, it will be a hit in most of America too. There are plenty of celebrities (of film, music, and even business) that were born or raised (or born and raised) in Toronto. In many ways Toronto has a heavy influence on America, and in some ways, at times, Toronto is actually ahead of the times to America, and in such cases America’s the one playing catch-up to us here. One thing for sure is Toronto is always at least on par literally to the day, not one month behind like you said (generalizing my entire country), and in some cases is ahead on this scale in comparison to some American cities which aren’t on par with New York (and the like). Americans do make fun of Canada, and those who have never been to Toronto (I’m sure there are plenty) will just automatically ignorantly deny that any of what I just said is true, but if those same people came here, they’d see I’m exactly right. Also, from what I know about the UK, it always seemed like they were more like 6 months (at the least) behind us, I’m not so sure about Australia, but would assume the same thing. There are some European countries I would say that are about a whole decade behind.

   Now, onto some other points. By the way, my perspective is not just that of a Torontonian – who lives in American culture like I just explained above, but that of someone who has travelled through I think 13 US States at different points in his life. Yes, you are right, Americans are generally nice and friendly. Well, New York City is definitely not to be included, New York does have an unusually large amount of rude people. But, you are right, Americans are generally nice and friendly. Generally is the key word though. The thing is there are a lot of weird people in America, it might be a part of their modern culture, there are a lot of weird people here in Toronto too. But, what I’m pointing out here is one type of weird in particular. Well, the thing is, currently, guns are 100% legal in America – but they want to take that away – and because they want to take guns away, the media – which nowadays is a mouth-piece for the White House – has been pushing a very anti-gun message down the people’s throats. Making guns look scary and bad, and people that have them bad people. So, because of all this fear mongering of their fellow man – that chooses to own and carry guns – there are many Americans who’re constantly in an unwarranted state of fear and paranoia. These people are the neighbourhood watch nuts, the extra-nosy neighbours/people – that will try to find out everything about you in a totally creepy way, and may just call the cops on you for some random “crime” you are unknowingly committing – because that state you’re in right now apparently has some bazaar law that you never could’ve possibly heard of. Believe me, America has quite a fair share of such people, and they really are extra-strange people – stay out of my business, you don’t need to know anything about me – pal.

   On a similar topic, whether you encounter such strange people, and as a result, encounter American police, or let’s just say you encounter American police for any random reason, well, you’re in for a very unfriendly surprise. The American police in their modern incarnation are extremely rude and very dangerous. Check out the thousands of youtube videos. Their officers are roid-raged crazies that treat people like absolute scum. I’ve seen footage of cops shooting at a car of a woman that had 4 kids inside it – they knew that there were 4 kids in their, they were talking to her, and she ran away – and they opened fire. I saw footage of cops coming up to a bum tented out, he had no weapons, they talked to him for a moment, and when his back was turned, they opened fire and killed him, they were laughing while doing it, they let their dog chew on his corpse, and they told the dead man to get up – he didn’t get up, he was already dead. I’ve seen more than one piece of footage of different occurrences of this – male cops brutally beating 40+ year old women to the ground. I can go on and on, you think I’m making this up? Look it up on youtube. Bottom line – you get an encounter with an American cop – expect to see guns drawn for no reason – rude tone of voice, and possibly being arrested for a law that you didn’t even know existed – if you don’t get this treatment – consider yourself lucky.

   The truth is, America once was a very amazing place, you could also say the old Roman empire was once a nice place too. But, America has now collapsed into what Rome collapsed into as well – a nightmare, a stark contrast of its former self, a mere shadow of its old days. America today is a police state, with a dictator that completely ignores the Constitution (one example: the 2nd Amendment clearly states that that Amendment is NOT to be infringed in any way – and Obama is now trying to do bullet bans by Executive Order (the 2nd Amendment is NOT to be infringed – so says the founding document, oh, and by the way, if that wasn’t the case, and so infringement of it was allowable, it’s also written that such an action would have to be done through Congress – not an order by the President – so he’s highly infringing the Constitution in two ways on that one!)) The President of America is a new type of dictator – from what we can see now – it seems Obama will leave office and pass the dictator torch to whoever is apparently officially voted in next. So, this new type of dictator is not one single man who will rule the country till his death – but a rotating dictator – whoever is currently the President is currently the dictator for 8 years, for now. But a dictator is a dictator by any sense, if it walks like a duck, if it quacks like a duck, if it looks like a duck, then guess what? It is a duck! The Constitution is now just a decoration, a piece of history, the new US Constitution is commonly known as the “Patriot” Act – which completely infringes the entire Constitution in every single word written inside it.

   All of this has happened because the American people have been dumbed-down by many factors, MSG (salt enhancer) and Aspartame (fake sugar) are in so many different products – it’s very hard to avoid them. Both of them are what are known as excitotoxins – they kill your brain and lower your IQ – don’t believe me, look it up, this is scientific fact – but it’s not well known because industry is trying it’s best to ensure the public doesn’t know. The Nazi’s fluoridated their water – to control their population by dumbing them down, this is official information. Probably the entire United States fluoridates its water. They used to require salt companies to add a decent amount of iodine – which increases intelligence, then a few decades ago – they stopped that requirement. Add all that on top of this – what is happening to America today is eerily similar to what the British did to China over a century ago – in the war they were having with them at the time – they obtained a good constant flow of Opium – and became China’s drug dealers – everyone was high and made stupid as a result in China, and so the Chinese lost the war. Well, check out modern tv and movies in America – much of it glorifies drugs and drug culture. As a result, the American people are doing more drugs than ever before! Finally, add to that media itself – just like Rome, the empire’s society has become that of a spectator society – the coliseum of Rome is the tv today, and studies show that those who watch a lot of it have much higher odds of getting diseases like Alzheimer’s. So, the people have deliberately been dumbed-down by design. That’s why the Government can get away with these things so easily, and is only getting worse as time passes, in ten years time if things continue at their pace as of now (and the people don’t stop it – through Civil War probably) – America will much more resemble North Korea, mark my word. This will bring in the New World Order – you know – that thing people used laughingly call others who talked about it “conspiracy theorists” – but now – they talk about it like no big deal – it’s a good thing, we need this. Look up Gordon Brown (former British PM) New World Order speech – which was recorded right after the 2008 financial collapse – in it he emphasized the need for a New World Order (in a tone of voice that resembles a drewling wolf right before it was going to have a nice meal on something it killed) (his mouth sounded like it was watering, like he was eagerly hungry, like he was talking about something that was very arousing). By the way, in Chicago their is now a CIA black-site prison where they take US Citizens for indefinite detention, and torture them, it’s true, look it up.

   The laws and police in Canada are a little confusing, on the books we seem less free than we are in actuality. The truth is, our cops are usually respectful people, and they don’t even enforce most of the laws. You’ll even find judges don’t enforce many of our laws. So, on paper we seem like we aren’t all that free, but in practice, we’re more free here than most of America, in truth. I heard they have plans to merge America, my country, and Mexico, and I assure you, us Canadians will NOT support this, and will fight against it if we must!

   America truly once was the land of the free and home of the brave. But, that has changed drastically especially in the years since 9/11. I was thinking about this the other day, and came to the following conclusion as an explanation. When America was truly extremely free, the ones in full power were the people, and the government feared and served them. But, human nature made things to evolve. Like any other society, there was crime. So, as the years progressed, the politicians slowly, but surely, obtained more power in the name of fighting this crime. The more power the politicians obtained, the more power the people lost. To the point where it is today, now the government has all the power, and the people have been neutered of 99% of theirs and the people fear their government. Now that this is the case, well, if you’re a criminal, you must agree, that you would want to be in a position of some power over your victims. Well, like I said, it used to be that the people had all the power, and the government feared the people, so the criminals of those days wanted to be of the general public, because the general public was where all the power was. But now, all the power is in the government, and this makes government positions to be magnets for corrupt criminal-minded people, the modern day (intelligent) criminal seek power in government.

   Some of the things I wrote here may be controversial, but look them up, they are all fact and can be found from mainstream sources. I live here, a walk away from America, in, as I said, an American city that happens to reside in Canada, I’ve travelled across America, I’ve met and encountered many Americans their as well as here in Toronto. I get their media in many forms. I’m speaking from experience, believe me.

   Reply ↓
   • Sylvester Simons on June 10, 2016 at 5:36 pm said:

     You are incorrect, obesity levels are about 30%. That mark will vary when you conduct a breakdown that is tied to ethnicity /race (higher for Black/Hispanics/Native American, lower for whites and other groups. I can provide statistics that have been validated and are considered empirical versus anecdotal.

     Reply ↓
3. Dana on August 5, 2015 at 5:09 pm said:

   By the way, over 2/3’s of us Americans are overweight. 😦 So about 30 percent of us are fit…. and over 35 percent of us Americans are OBESE. And we are not all happy! I hate to debunk what you said about 2/3’s of us being fit… because that would make us look MUCH better. 😀 lol

   Reply ↓
4. esentell on August 18, 2015 at 4:36 am said:

   Let me chime in here.
   I am an American… I grew up in New York City, later moved to Seattle, and now live in Melbourne (Australia), so I might have a certain perspective.

   First, there are degrees of rudeness in the US. you can go to Charleston SC and find some of the most friendly people you will ever meet. Or New York City (where they are simply toot busy to care about anything but themselves, its not that they are rude, but rather solipsistic (they sincerely believe that only they exist in the universe)

   Are they dumb? well it depends on your definition of ‘dumb’ I suppose. If you consider poor knowledge of geography, world affairs, science, Math, or history, then yes. they are intellectual lightweights. The reasons might be because of Edutainment (that is entertainment disguised as education. Of course this stuff isn’t produced for free, so there is always some marketing , happening, somewhere between 10- 100% of the content, in fact).

   American Football. You missed a whole section on University football. Did you know that many Universities spend more on their sports teams than they do on their academics? might be why they are dumb.

   Obesity: it is indeed 66% of Americans overweight, and 31% obese. and its probably due to cheap plentiful food subsidized by the use of undocumented workers.

   Reply ↓
5. Wolfisdumb on December 14, 2017 at 12:49 am said:

   So, I’m American, and the sad thing is, most of our stereotypes are actually correct. Luckily my state has the best stereotype, probably because we’re the best state in the country. But the only stereotype that isn’t actually correct is the one where we’re all stupid. The majority of us graduate high school (shocker, i know).

   Reply ↓

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