We know more about the USA than Europe

honestly, though, you people act like you actually know about the united states. you've bought into such a viciously skewed and narrow version of an entire nation of cultures and behaviors. it's like me watching a show on the cultural behaviors of emo kids in london and saying "i know ALL ABOUT the UK." you need to know that the vast majority of the shit that makes it to tv is because it's bizarre, and here's the secret, IT'S BIZARRE TO US, TOO! american sitcoms make it look like there's this vast homogeny of white middle class people, with the occaisional token person of varying ethnicity. i find myself just dying to know where the fuck you people get your ideas,based on the opinions i've seen spewed out here, but really, it makes you look pretty damned ignorant.

 

Well, I think many of us probably read and listen to a variety of sources about America, we don't just all watch TV. We have newspapers, books, films, radio, documentaries, the internet, many of which are Americans themselves talking about their lives. Any view on a culture to which you're not native is going to be a little limited, but we have far more information available to us on the USA than any other culture except our own.

Can you give an example? (And you're not allowed to pick J0hn, I think he actually is smoking crack.)

 

well, like we're all having shootouts every day. we all speak at a dull roar. we're all fat asses grazing on frozen burritos while we desultorily wander the aisles of walmart and none of us are literate. if we are literate, we're reading the national enquirer. that every single one of us follows nascar religiously except those who for some unknowable reason worship the english. who, BTW, have proven again and again to be every bit as rude, loud, crude and obnoxious as the vast majority of you claim americans are. i've seen endless claims we're all arrogant bastards who couldn't find their asses with both hands and a manual.

 

I thought you were going to point out the misconceptions

 

yeah.

 

so anyway, back on topic. you know we have to pay extra for spanish language stations here? aside from the networks ones, of course. i think they have the best options, spanish speakers, since nearly all the english language stations also broadcast in spanish. if everyone could do that, i think we'd all have more interesting tv to watch.

 

hahaha, that's exactly what I was thinking.

and France has had some great directors, but most of them are dead. unless you go in for that gimmicky carnivalesque school of directing that people like Jeunet and Gondry are guilty of. whom I guess I like, to an extent.

 

I'm skinnier and more well-read than most English people. HAH! :jester:

 

Hello! Awhile back CBS went on strike for a couple of weeks and our news was replaced by the BBC. I liked it at least the news was handled seriously – in Canada it seems to be all fun and games and the news anchors seem to compete to be the thing that people tune in to see. For the last few weeks our news has mostly been about Anna Nicole Smith and there must be more important things happing in the world. Anyway cheers!

 

i call the us news the nightly death report. if they can't find enough tragic deaths from that night, no shit, they'll report tragic deaths they missed days or weeks ago. there's no actual relevant news, just the daily bloodbath. you can't watch american news. it's either T&A or If it Bleeds It Leads. utter garbage.

 

The only reason that the media cares about America is that people seem to eat up the news coming out of America. If they didn't care, their rating would go down and they would adjust accordingly. I agree with everyone that says to turn off the television, because quite frankly, that's a powerful statement to make. But you need a lot of people to do that; it takes a massive movement.

I am American and my wife is English, but I know an awful lot more than she does about this countries history, political climate, and literature. She knows an awful lot mroe than I do about pop culture and z-rate celebrities. That could come down to the fact that, in the US, History is a massively important subject. Between the ages of 13-18, I had Texas History, two courses of US History, World History, and European History. Two history classes were required by my University of every student regardless of major. It does actually come as a major shock to me in some ways I can walk by something and speak briefly of the history, while my wife and her friends are amazed that I know that information...

But the truth is, if you want to know more about something, then know more about it. It's an individual effort, and you can choose not to care about the US news or info if you like. But if you want the whole country to have such a revelation, that will take a sea change that's not going to come about from a rant on a forum.

 

it's true, we are history obsessed.

 

I believe that we British have become influenced by the American. We have now become Britmericans. What with hotdog stands in market places, bagel stands at train stations and Abc1. That is just scratching the surface of it. We seem to know more about America because the media glorify America as though it were holy and we never really hear about what happens in Germany or France or Spain unless a terrorist has struck the city or someone has started an election.


Why we still need a passport to get to france I dont know. If you were in Germany, get the train and all you need to show is an ID card.Sometimes you don't need to show a passport.