Current Events > 31 Things Americans Think Are Normal, But Are Actually Reeealllyyy Weird

(+) Yeah! (+)

BurmesePenguin posted...

As prince, King Charles tried as hard as he could to influence politicians into letting homeopathic treatments into the British health services as a viable treatment method, so I reject this.

But that measure, any lobbyist or pressure group is also a politician.

Or anyone who tries (and fails) to influence policy.

Kaiganeer posted...

this is the most fucked up one, bar none

I have a cubby by the door all my shoes go in.

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What do you mostly see going on in that subreddit?

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Only the US (and to a lesser extent Canada) routinely circumcise for non-religious, non-medical reasons.

I imagine that it would be more widespread if the benefits were so clear.

Collat posted...

I saw someone on here once try to argue that it's weird to drink beer cold.

Only weird brits stuck in the 18th century think this tbh.

Things like ale are sometimes not 'chilled' I guess, but not kept warm unless one of the aforementioned people stuck in the past. Often 'room temp' which is a lot colder here than america I suppose though.

ITT: cultures are different..... shocker.

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History tl;dr it was prescribed by Doctor Kellogg to "prevent" masturbation because God and today people keep doing it to their kids because it was done to them as kids and they think it's normal.

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'Parental choice!' would be the outcry.

(I bet doctors aren't doing it for free either).

HylianFox posted...

"The fact that swearing is such a big deal and you bleep out everything is so weird."

Hardly anything is bleeped out anymore, especially on channels like FX and Comedy Central. Plus nothing is bleeped on streaming.

Doesnt the UK have a new law against talking shit to people?

Lil_Bit83 posted...

I guess you've never heard of buses, trains, subways, and planes? This is gonna shock you but we do have them.

Have you ever been to, say, Europe?

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the medical industry can charge for it for every single birth

ai123 posted...

But that measure, any lobbyist or pressure group is also a politician.

Or anyone who tries (and fails) to influence policy.

lets stay on point here the worship the UK gives the royal family is stupid

AceMos posted...

lets stay on point here the worship the UK gives the royal family is stupid

Believe me a lot us dont like them and IIRC the US might have more coverage of them than we do.

USA just got ROASTED!!

Wow

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Europe has highways too. The difference is that there are also alternate methods that reduce the number of drivers on said highways, so you don't need literally dozens of lanes just for regular use. Trains and buses can move WAY more people in the same amount of space as cars.

3. An abundance of posts not understanding that hauling a load of groceries or bags of mulch on a bus is not possible

You absolutely can do groceries using buses and I feel comfortable in saying the majority of people aren't regularly hauling bags of mulch.

4. Riding a bike everywhere is not conducive to actual daily life for a lot of people

I'll fully agree that it's not an option in the majority of North America, but this is down mostly due poor zoning and use of land. This is reversible, as demonstrated by the Netherlands. The focus on making cycling as easy as possible and supported by robust public transport only dates back a couple of decades

5. Not everyone that has a large vehicle owns one for show, that it's actually used often.
I could go on and on.

The majority of them do, although I will concede that some of the issue is the manufacturers pushing them where smaller vehicles would be more appropriate because the profit margins are higher. SUVs absolutely dominate new vehicle sales despite the majority of them never leaving the cities. Their fuel economy is terrible, they've directly contributed to a rise in deaths from traffic accidents, they end up requiring even more space dedicated to parking lots and at the end of the day, they can't even haul that much stuff or people compared to smaller and better designed classes of vehicles.

If you have half an hour, this video goes into much more detail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jN7mSXMruEo

AceMos posted...

lets stay on point here the worship the UK gives the royal family is stupid

The point is they are not politicians.

Do you ever make a post without having to deflect from a factual error, or apologize for not knowing the full story?

Overall support for the monarchy in the UK is 60-40. Amongst young people it's less than 40%. Hardly worship.

But I bet you reckon you know some things, don't you? Saw some stuff online? Or on US TV? Formed some opinions you want to share? What a treat.

ai123 posted...

The point is they are not politicians.

Do you ever make a post without having to deflect from a factual error, or apologize for not knowing the full story?

Overall support for the monarchy in the UK is 60-40. Amongst young people it's less than 40%. Hardly worship.

But I bet you reckon you know some things, don't you? Saw some stuff online? Or on US TV? Formed some opinions you want to share? What a treat.

you mean like how this topic is about an article trying to paint all americans the same

oh and no president gets near the amount of attention the queen got on her death

america sucks no argument here

and terf island also sucks is my point

AceMos posted...

you mean like how this topic is about an article trying to paint all americans the same

That doesn't have anything to do with anything.

The article is just about things that foreigners find strange about the US.

oh and no president gets near the amount of attention the queen got on her death

The Queen was a one off. She reigned for 70 years. None of the other members of the Royal family have anything like the same level of respect.

america sucks no argument here

I don't think America sucks. There are a lot of things I don't like about it (mainly the gun culture and the lack of healthcare/welfare), but I'm not going to dismiss a whole nation.

and terf island also sucks is my point

I'm not a nationalist, and I despise nationalism. There are many perfectly valid reasons for holding that opinion.

ai123 posted...

The Queen was a one off. She reigned for 70 years. None of the other members of the Royal family have anything like the same level of respect.

princess dianna

As others have said, there's not much we can do about this list. And most folks in the US that are self aware realize the things are stupid.

That said, I have a bone to pick with the list. You can't complain about both city size and tall buildings.
NYC has a massive population in a small area thanks to tall buildings. Contrast this with the Phx Metro area that is massive, basically the size of an average county in other states (almost 15,000 square miles) Very few tall buildings, this is the result.

AceMos posted...

princess dianna

She's been dead for over 25 years.

She rarely gets mentioned unless people want to comment on the paparazzi or float some absurd conspiracy about her death.

I honestly think the US media talks about her more than the UK media.

ai123 posted...

She's been dead for over 25 years.

She rarely gets mentioned unless people want to comment on the paparazzi or float some absurd conspiracy about her death.

I honestly think the US media talks about her more than the UK media.

my point was her death when it happened was a huge deal

oh and it was major news to the UK when a black man married into the royal family

face it the UK is obssed with the royal family

AceMos posted...

my point was her death when it happened was a huge deal

oh and it was major news to the UK when a black man married into the royal family

face it the UK is obssed with the royal family

Black woman*

the US iirc covers them more.

And the US is obsessed with guns to a fetish level so yeah.

spikethedevil posted...

Black woman*

the US iirc covers them more.

And the US is obsessed with guns to a fetish level so yeah.

as i said fuck america in lots of ways

ill gladly take a sledge hammer to my glass house

ai123 is being weirdly defensive. Who gives a shit if a portion of Brits are obsessed with the royals? That's not really a bad thing, it's juts kind of a thing.

spikethedevil posted...

Believe me a lot us dont like them and IIRC the US might have more coverage of them than we do.

It might die out over the next few decades too. Elizabeth II was actually popular, or at least she was in Australia. However we're largely indifferent toward Charles and I've seen many people even say "can we get to William already?"

AceMos posted...

face it the UK is obssed with the royal family

The UK media for sure. Australian media too. Seems like barely 2-3 days can pass before I see another "shocking snub to Harry from Charles!" headline that turns out to be the most nothingburger of all nothingburgers.

Dark_Arbron posted...

It might die out over the next few decades too. Elizabeth II was actually popular, or at least she was in Australia. However we're largely indifferent toward Charles and I've seen many people even say "can we get to William already?"

Reminder that Charlie boy helped get a peado off the hook for a while.

spikethedevil posted...

Reminder that Charlie boy helped get a peado off the hook for a while.

I remember.

Dark_Arbron posted...

I remember.

Pepperidge Farm remembers...

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The common thread is that all of these issues are caused by the layout forcing large distances between people, their places of work and other places that they might visit, which all but demands cars. I don't dispute that this is the reality of 98%+ of North America, but it's down purely to the choice to develop with cars as the most important mode of transport with everything else being an afterthought.

To contrast this, it's fairly rare in the UK to be more than about a 15 minute walk from a grocery store. unless you're proper out in the country. The absolute furthest distance I'd have to travel is about 4 miles to my workplace. I currently use public transport, but I could also cycle it in about half an hour at a leisurely pace, much of which is along dedicated bike lanes. This is a near best case scenario in the UK, but it's far from uncommon.

I'm sure that is the case, but I live in an area where large vehicles are used a lot. I probably use the bed of my pickup around once per week. Anecdotally, my neighbor sold his truck and got a smaller, hatchback type of car. He later said he didn't realize how much he was actually using his truck as intended. So now he borrows mine :(

I believe you, but your area is the exception to the rule. The majority of these vehicles are never used for anything remotely demanding. Also just to shit on SUVs in particular, they're generally worse for moving stuff than many smaller and better designed vehicles because they have relatively little usable space. I feel comfortable in saying that the vast majority of SUV owners would be better served by a different vehicle.

I think I should clarify that this mostly falls on car manufacturers and their lobbyists rather than drivers. I also don't want to totally eliminate people driving from more urban areas. Towns are better when there are many ways to get around and you don't have to travel dozens of miles a day just for normal stuff like work and groceries. Less drivers on the road would also be better for remaining drivers as there would be less traffic, to say nothing of safety and environmental benefits.

I get what yall are saying about big business influencing suburban sprawl, but the people played their part too. Its not like returning GIs were like we all want to live in densely packed cities!, and the government said no, you must live in a subdivision 29 miles from downtown!.

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Yeah, it sucks because literally everyone loses despite no one supporting the status quo. On top of that, it's a relatively recent phenomenon.

I would say yes and no. Pretty much most of Texas is this way, from what I can see. The other aspect is safety. Small cars and shitty SUVs (Jeeps...) get crumpled in wrecks around here. I've known 3 people in the last 2 years that got obliterated (killed) on the highway by semi trucks because they were in smaller vehicles. It's a god damn epidemic.

I don't like that things are this way, but it's continually a cause-and-effect sort of situation.

Bold needs to be emphasised more. People want big vehicles to protect themselves from... other big vehicles. This is despite them often being less safe than smaller vehicles in the sorts of situations they would face regularly. It's effectively turned into an arms race and it's causing so much death and destruction.

Even worse is the fact that highways are generally on the safer side compared to actually within cities, so it's even worse than your experiences. That's a rant for another day, because there's many things that could be done even with existing infrastructure. American traffic planning is about as bad as American healthcare for the staggering number of problems that could be solved within the existing infrastructure and budget.

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They're safer for the occupants* but far less safe for everyone around them. Smaller cars, motorcyclists, bicyclists, pedestrians, the occasional first floor building occupant....

*unless it's a rollover, in which case they're less safe than anything other than a motorcycle or convertible

willythemailboy posted...

They're safer for the occupants* but far less safe for everyone around them. Smaller cars, motorcyclists, bicyclists, pedestrians, the occasional first floor building occupant....

*unless it's a rollover, in which case they're less safe than anything other than a motorcycle or convertible

Even then, the rigid frames mean a lot of the force from impacts gets transferred to the contents and occupants, rather than getting dissipated by the crumpling of smaller vehicles, which is disastrous.

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Which is actually quite stupid, as the vast majority of vehicle fatalities do not involve semi trucks. The number of fatal SUV rollovers - ignoring all other types of fatal SUV collisions - is roughly equal to the number of total fatal semi truck collisions regardless of vehicle. The short version is the difference between 2 tons and 3 tons doesn't matter much when the other vehicle is 17 tons.

Foppe posted...

https://satwcomic.com/art/core/you-have-no-secrets.jpg

Please, the reason Americans only care about what happens here and sometimes England is because anything that's not in English we can't read.

Also most of us forget Canada isn't just our hat.

Sometimes I wonder what people from other countries think about American cultural hegemony.

"The obsession with high school. I have friends who say their best years were spent in high school, and I think that's really, really sad.

Japan's on life-support.