What can be said about Americans?

[viscousmemories]

It seems people in these online forums - particularly (but not exclusively) of the non-American variety - are always on about "Americans this" or "Americans that". But from where I'm sitting there's no such thing as an average American. Some of us grew up filthy rich, some dirt poor. Some in cities, others on farms. Some like Country music, others Western. Hell, a very many didn't even grow up in America at all. Or they grew up in an ethnic subculture. On and on it goes.

So what can we say about Americans in general? I mean are there things that are distinctly and uniquely American that apply pretty much across the board to all Americans? I'm interested in the insiders or outsiders views here. I honestly can't think of anything in particular that distinguishes the lot of us.

And I'm not looking to have a political debate here, I'm more interested in apolitical cultural observations. Although I don't really mind if it ventures into the political realm, really. As long as nobody's mean about it. We Americans are sensitive.

[Socratoad]

Content removed because material was written at 3 AM EST and I was not satisfied with the quality of my own contribution.

[lisarea]

I think what a lot of people don't understand is just how huge the US is. Characterizing something as American is more akin to characterizing something as European than it is to characterizing it as French of Spanish or whatever.

We have our federal government, a common language, and a common national media, but apart from that, there's not really all that much else that cpuld be characterized as broadly and universally American. Our legal systems, our cuisines, our cultures and social traditions, our lifestyles, dialects, ethnicities, etc., all vary pretty widely. I was born in New Jersey, grew up there and in rural Pennsylvania, moved to North Carolina, then came to Colorado. I don't think a lot of people really appreciate how very different things are, even across basically the same socioeconomic strata. The social trends vary widely, from whether you say "Hello" to a person passing you on the street to whether your neighbors knock first or just walk in when they come to visit. The weird little semiotic markers are different, so the clothes you wear in high school in the southeast convey entirely different messages than they do in the southwest. Food is completely different. Your standard mom and pop diner will serve wildly different menus, with only a few standards, depending on where they are in the US. The dialects in some of the places I've lived were different enough that I had to speak very slowly when I first moved, and the terminology is entirely different. (Hell, the LM just gave me a hairy eyeball just yesterday for calling a pen an ink pen, and he doesn't know what it means to red something up.)

I think the perceptions about "American" things are influenced very strongly by the lowest common denominator factors, like the junk food and fast food we export, as well as our crappy TV and other crappy stuff. But I have to ask, how do these people criticizing them know so much about it? They import the stuff is how. I remember some Swedish exchange student once bitching about American processed cheese food product, and it turned out he was the only one there who'd ever even eaten the stuff. He also bitched a lot about American TV shows and American culture in general, but he set his fucking alarm clock for something like 4 am every day so he could watch Love Boat on cable. Hell, some guy on II was complaining about Americans and their stale flavored popcorn that they eat all the time, and I could not for the life of me remember the last time anyone I knew ate that stuff. Hey Europe! Help yourself to David Hasselhoff and some "cheese" flavored popcorn! YHBT. YHL. HAND.

I'm not saying that there's not a market for shit here, or that the lowest common denominator isn't pretty fucking low and pretty fucking common. It is. Our national media sucks, for the most part. The bland, mass produced food that is available everywhere in the US sucks. Our national government sucks. It is very difficult to find commonalities in such a big, diverse country. So yes, we produce a lot of shit. But we also have some of the best stuff, too. Our narrower market news media is among the finest in the world. For as much as corporate interests may control our news media, our government does not. Libel tourists do not sue in the US. We can write about Nazis, Saudis, our own government, anything we want to. I'd stack some of our regional cuisines against anyone else's. We have some of the best artists, scientists, writers, chefs, brewmasters, vintners, directors, and journalists in the world. We have some of the worst, too, of course, but again, why does the rest of the world know so much about Budweiser and McDonalds and Doritos and Fox News?

It's not because Europeans or Asians or anyone else are dull and bland and stupid, any more than we are. It's just that anything that's going to be broadly accepted must be easy to produce en masse and blandly inoffensive enough to appeal to the greatest number of people possible.

(I was nice, see? I didn't say anything about Swedish action movies or British sitcoms or German disco. Until just now, that is.)

[JoeP]

You make good points, Tom and Lisarea. I shall make sure I'm more specific next time I'm slagging off something American. I have some fuzzy thoughts on what kind of things people generally generalise about (!) but since everything else is fuzzy atm I'll hafta post them another time.

[godfry n. glad]

The utter necessity of automotive transport and the ubiquity of peanut butter.

godfry :D

[Adora]

They import the stuff is how.
Or they have the stuff imported for them. I'm not arguing for some Marxist dictatorship of business telling consumers what they do and don't like, but a lot of the time, because of capitalist economics, because of ingrained cultural values, and because of factors far outside the control of the consumer, their choices are limited to A and a A with a different label.

[wade-w]

But... but... the US is the sole source of all the evil in the world! We have that in common!

Adora, Lisarea's point is that just because your only experience with American beer is Budweiser, it does not follow that all American beers are total crap. The only Australian beer that I've ever seen on the shelves here is Foster's, which isn't much better imo. Should I therefore decide that all Australian beers are also crap?

[viscousmemories]

But... but... the US is the sole source of all the evil in the world! We have that in common!
Shhh... we mustn't let on about the allegiance.

Adora, Lisarea's point is that just because your only experience with American beer is Budweiser, it does not follow that all American beers are total crap.
Was it? I thought lisa was implying that they wouldn't import it if there wasn't a demand for it, and Adora was saying it's not so much a demand for it per se as a demand for the lesser of the only two available evils.

[The Lone Ranger]

Was it? I thought lisa was implying that they wouldn't import it if there wasn't a demand for it, and Adora was saying it's not so much a demand for it per se as a demand for the lesser of the only two available evils.

It's perhaps a good idea to keep in mind how utterly aggressive corporations (and our government(!)) can be when it comes to promoting products.

I don't know the details, but I remember reading an article in Reader's Digest years ago that asked why so many people in Southeast Asia smoke American-made cigarettes. The article claimed that it was because American cigarette companies promote their products very aggressively there (and there's no legal requirement to tell people about all the bad things that can happen to you if you smoke -- so they don't). All well and good. But the article went on to claim that the U.S. government plays a rather heavy-handed role in this by threatening sanctions against countries that don't give "proper access" (i.e. preference) to American-made products.

Disturbing, if true.

Cheers,

Michael

[Adora]

I got that wade. What I meant was that sometimes people have their choices made for them. Sometimes they project this resentment (mostly unconcious) onto the product makers they are forced to choose between, and by-proxy the home country of these makers.

Yes, it's not nice, but it's what happens. Because your only experience with US culture may be through product choices you are forced to make, for things you may no particularly be fond of (which, in the end, is a kind of cultural empiralism, though a complex one) you may not be particularly well acquainted of the good parts of a country.

And then there are people who are just racist because they're fuckwits. They eat chicken-chow-mein and buy clothes stamped with "Made in China" and work for a company that probably makes its money by exporting products to China, but they'll still bullshit on about "Bloody Chinkos" and such things. *shrugs* The beauty of human stupidity.

[Blake]

This reminded me of one of the few threads I ever started at IIDB, What characterizes America? (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=22409) Not quite the same, but close.

And ... no doubt it's a cliched response, but I just bought the album, so it's new to me: here's what Squeeze had to say:

Some Americans are very pretty
Some Americans are very shy,
Some Americans are Disney people
Some Americans eat apple pie.

CHORUS:
Some Americans scare me the leader of the pack,
Living in this theatre
I'm waiting for the trap to drop in the show.
Some Americans gung ho.

Some Americans are very happy
Some Americans will always win,
Some Americans are party people
Some Americans go out and sing.

(CHORUS)

Some Americans are very lucky
Some Americans are very poor,
Some Americans are burger people
Some Americans say no to war.

(CHORUS)

[viscousmemories]

This reminded me of one of the few threads I ever started at IIDB, What characterizes America? Not quite the same, but close.
Wow. Even two years ago that place was full of idiots. :D

Just kidding. Some of those responses were really good. I really liked ohwillke and Godless Dave's responses. I couldn't help but notice that someone named Bill the Cat kept editing your posts, though. Were you saying naughty things that a moderator had to keep removing? ;)

And you never finished the compilation! What gives?

[Sweetie]

I don't have any specific idea of "the common American," though I think the reverse is not true, there seem to be alot of Canadian sterotypes or ideas which aren't necessarily so. Had a girl babysitting for me awhile ago and she was reading this book about Canadians and common sterotypes, how we should talk to outsiders in a way that filters through the conception, lol. It was a joke book, satirical. Pretty amusing for the most part.

The only impression I ever picked up which is not necessarily true is that they tend to be fanatical, politically or religiously, activistic (if that's a word) or maybe the term boisterous might suffice, lol. It does often leave the impression of harshness, bosiness but when you frequent Message Boards, it would attract those type so you can't really say.

Round these parts, politics is usually something like, you watch a few advertisements, read through some stuff, you mostly have a general idea of who you are going to vote for anyways, if you're really energetic, you put a sign on your lawn and that's it. You might have a light discussion about it here and there, but. For instance, I don't know what how my parents are voting until after they vote usually, though in that case, they like to keep it to themselves consistent with their rearing us independent. Don't let my vote influence yours, though this year, I was trying to influence hers, lol. Didn't work, damn. :D

Actually, at any place I ever worked, which is mostly just two main places, at work discussion about politics, religion is pretty much forbidden, as much as you can "forbid" grown adults to do anything, but you can't say that it's just "frowned upon" either. If you are making someone uncomfortable with your subject matter, with the language you use ie: fuck this, fuck that, goddamit, you can start the process towards being fired.

Other than that, I always felt that Canadians and Americans were similar enough that only farther away outsiders could differentiate, our cultures are near enough though our politics are different. The language is pretty much the same, most shows I watch from America, I don't detect an accent. The general idea is that Canadians tend to be friendlier, and I don't know if we are generally friendli-er, but I have definately experienced friendliness first-hand so I know we're friendly. Are Americans friendly? Some are, some aren't though I would say it seems to be the case that on average, the Americans I run into need some warm-up time before they get friendly. There doesn't seem to be alot of "openess" in the American, maybe that's a tribal thing, lol, there's always someone waiting around the corner to criticize them, try to browbeat them in the sense of doing that to each other, so perhaps. :P We're not a SuperPower though and that could make a big difference.

Now, I have worked for an American for a short time and he was pretty cool, though he was panting after a co-worker the whole time I knew him. Well actually, I worked with a guy from Georgia too, got along real well with him though he got along real well with a guy from Newfoundland, now Newfoundlanders are interesting critters. :P I used to always love when hunting season came around and all the American hunters came through buying hunting equipment. I liked their accents, were interesting people. Met some guys down in Denver once when I was younger, corresponded for a short time. They were from Arkansas I think.

NZ-ers on the other hand, lol. :P I have only encountered two in my travels so I can's say. :wink:

Australians- exhuberant, and even if they aren't, they sure sound like they are. :D

[Petra]

There is always a great deal of diversity within the personalities and characters of any populace, but there is still often a hint of "national character" in the populace, too.

Also, when people talk about "America", they are often talking about that bit of "national character" that many (many, not all) people of a certain nation have, or they are talking about the nation as an entity - like a corporation, perhaps. An example, is that I might say to myself "fucking telecom!". Now that doesn't mean that I take issue with every single, separate worker for Telecom, but I'm taking issue with, say, corporate policy and practice as it affects non-Telecom workers and Telecom customers.

Fortunately, the internet has meant that Americans and non-Americans gather to build friendships, exchange ideas, play Secret Santa :D, debate contentious issues, and otherwise generally enjoy discovering each other as individuals.

From my own point of view - I went to High School in Ohio, and in NZ I lived in a very tourist town where every summer an influx of middle aged and fairly wealthy Texans, Californians, and Floridians would show up in hideous clothes that really shouldn't even be worn on a golf course! Of course, this was back in the 70's and much within American culture (and indeed my own culture) has changed drastically since then.



Oh, bloody hell - I have to answer more fully later - Zoe and her friend want to play computer games. Bugger. Rock on the new school year! I'm counting down the sleeps - only 4 more weeks to go! Yay!


bbl...

:wave:

[JoeP]

Also, when people talk about "America", they are often talking about that bit of "national character" that many (many, not all) people of a certain nation have, or they are talking about the nation as an entity - like a corporation, perhaps. An example, is that I might say to myself "fucking telecom!". Now that doesn't mean that I take issue with every single, separate worker for Telecom, but I'm taking issue with, say, corporate policy and practice as it affects non-Telecom workers and Telecom customers.
As a counterexample, when I say "fucking Telkom!" I do have a personal anger at every single Telkom employee, director, shareholder and regulator. I'm tempted to buy shares in them (and maybe Microsoft too) so I can feel part of the evil empire and dissipate that anger. "There will be no dawn for Men!"

[Petra]

You Bastard! Capitalist Pig!


And I just reread my post and it appears I was talking out of my arse. I think. I dunno, I'll tell you tomorrow when the Stella wears off.

*hic*


:quaff:

[viscousmemories]

You Bastard! Capitalist Pig!


And I just reread my post and it appears I was talking out of my arse. I think. I dunno, I'll tell you tomorrow when the Stella wears off.

*hic*


:quaff:
Well I for one wanted to see where you went with it... :wave:

[Blake]

I couldn't help but notice that someone named Bill the Cat kept editing your posts, though. Were you saying naughty things that a moderator had to keep removing? ;)
Shuddup, you (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?p=916778#post916778).

And you never finished the compilation! What gives?
Yeah, I have problems following through to completion in lots of ways.

No, not that way ... :rolleye1: