[lordnacho]

I've often wondered how Americans see the world. I have a lot of family and friends from there, and something about meeting them is striking.

The rest of the world gets an enormous amount of information from America. I've never lived in the US, but I know all the states. I couldn't write out all the counties in the UK. I know more US supreme court justices than combined from all other countries. I know the presidents going back 100 years, which I can't say I know even for the countries I've lived in for decades. I know some names of people who play the local sports there, the ones that aren't played in Europe. I even know brand names of businesses that don't have a European presence. This is all stuff outside of celebrity culture, where of course you get a huge number of US singers and actors.

What happens when you go to Europe and everybody knows a bunch of stuff about your home country? Does it surprise you? Do you ever run into people expecting you to know how the economy of Sweden was doing in the 90s? Or what the Departements of France are?

[saalweachter]

As an American, I've actually already experienced this, sort of.

I grew up in the Midwestern US, on a farm, miles from the closest town and miles more from the closest city, the name of which would probably only register with people in a 2-5 State radius.

When I moved to New York City after college, I realized I could already name more streets and places in NYC than I could from my childhood. I knew the museums and the bridges, the boroughs, the landmarks; Battery Park and Castle Clinton were right out of Deus Ex. My "home town" didn't have a mayor; I couldn't name one of the nearby city, but I knew LaGuardia and Giuliani.

I'm not actually sure if NYC and LA are overrepresented in American media -- the NYC metro area is something like 8% of the US population, after all -- but because a half dozen cities are the backdrop of so much of American culture even the people who live in one have all the rest, thousands of miles away, to develop that distant familiarity with.

(On the topic of brands, the biggest question New Yorkers had for me, coming from the Midwest, was whether Long John Silver's really existed; the ads saturated New York advertising despite not having any locations within a state or three. Likewise, I'd never encountered a Dunkin Donuts prior to moving to the coast.)

[PaulHoule]

It is definitely true that NYC and LA are over-represented in American media.

Marx and Lenin wrote about the "idiocy of rural life" but there is an urban idiocy to go with it. Frequently you meet urban people who have no idea where wealth comes from, any more than you'd get an understanding of ecology from looking at a fish tank.

In New York it is a running gag that downstate black politicians are opposed to marijuana legalization because they think some of the business has to be "cut out" for black people because otherwise white people are going to sell all the weed, or that a city councilmember wants to see off-track betting subsidized (not even the racetrack!) to "save jobs".

[runjake]

> "idiocy of rural life"

I think it's important for all free people to ask questions of themselves such as, "If organizations and government weren't there to provide me $service, what would I do to stay alive?"

($service being personal security against threats, healthcare, emergency care, power, fuel, water, food, and so on.)

It is my opinion that everyone should have a rough game plan for each of the above.

The answers to these questions might explain the perceived "idiocy" of rural life to many people.

[s1artibartfast]

I don't understand your example. It seems to me that rural residents have a much better game plan and experience with those questions.

What am I missing?

[runjake]

I'm suggesting they/we have good reasons (self-sufficiency) behind our "rural" ways.

Eg. a law enforcement response to a serious crime is still about 20 minutes. We have extended power outages every year. Every few years, we have 24-72 hour power outages.

[pjc50]

> I know more US supreme court justices than combined from all other countries

The hegemony of coverage of the US legal system and politics causes all sorts of weird effects. You get Canadian protestors invoking the First Amendment .. to the US constitution. (The first amendment to the Canadian constitution seems to be the accession of Manitoba?)

Just as you get people wearing NY Yankees baseball caps everywhere, people outwith the US claim allegiance to one of the US political factions, follow along with the games, and get into fights with supporters of the opposing team.

[thatBilly]

Hi pjc50, are you Scottish?

[pjc50]

Yes, the use of "outwith" was deliberate!

[Fnoord]

When someone who's native English complains about my English (and I've been complimented about it throughout my life, it being the only secondary language I more or less (feel like) I can control), I say: how's the quality of your secondary language? My primary language is Dutch, not English.

Same with anyone in Europe I meet who speaks English (except for Ireland and UK): its their secondary language. So when I hear someone who's native Spanish speak English, I have compassion and appreciate their effort. For Dutch not so much. Its a relatively small and nowadays insignificant language. We grow up with English, its normal to speak, read, and comprehend English.

What you shouldn't forget is that you're generalizing. Americans refers to people of USA in this context, and USA is a large country, with a lot of cultural backgrounds, and various levels of intelligence. That goes for any country, but this country specifically has over 200 million people, and last 20 years it has become polarized as hell.

[rendall]

As an immigrant from the US to Finland, it's such an overwhelming advantage that it actually interferes with my engaging with Finns on their own terms and in their own language. Almost everyone is delighted to switch to English and discuss all things America, to the point that I really do not have immediate, external pressures to level up my Finnish. Nearly everyone finds my grumpiness about this baffling, so I just have to choose cheerfulness. But holy shit I wish English were not my native language, sometimes.

[7thaccount]

How is living in Finland, and how is your Finnish? I thought the language was nigh impossible to learn.

[rendall]

I love, love living in Finland. It has brought me much joy. In a way, when I go back to the US to visit, I have a weird feeling that I'm leaving a more civilized place to a one that is still quite civilized, just, a little less civilized.

Finnish is not impossible. It is difficult in some respects, but really a good half of the difficulty stems from the fact that nearly everyone speaks English and experiences myötähäpeä (vicarious embarrassment on your behalf) when you struggle with it, so they will step in immediately with English rather than watch you dangle on the hook. It's a rare treat when someone refuses to, or cannot, speak English and we're forced to speak only Finnish.

[pyjarrett]

> I've often wondered how Americans see the world.

Many are mesmerized by it and lots want to travel, but are prohibited due to costs or time from doing so. Other countries are seen as exotic, my wife can probably name a dozen fashion companies from Europe and requests gifts from them for holidays. Going to most places outside of the Caribbean islands, Central and South America, or Canada is outside the limits of many people. Taking a vacation to Europe is often seen as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The language barrier is big, there's usually little need in many states to learn a second language, though in parts of California and Texas that being English/Spanish bilingual is becoming much more commonplace.

I've lived in, and visited many regions on America, and it is not homogeneous. The US is geographically large (many of our states are bigger than most European countries) but relatively sparse with often many different subcultures inside the same state. One place I lived was 1,000 km to the nearest foreign country. Accents in the various parts of the country used to be a lot more distinguishable but that seems to be evening out a little. It can still be difficult for some Americans to understand other Americans.

While many forms of media are commonly consumed by America, a lot of American subcultures are heavily and incorrectly stereotyped in media or ignored altogether. Most of the media comes out of very small regions of New York and California, with most of the details described being at a federal (national) level, which doesn't affect our day-to-day activities very much. Europeans may know a lot about America, but very little about the things which affect you. Most Americans also don't even know much about the rest of America, and many people can't even remember the state I live in, which is quite different from the other states nearby.

The problem is a fan-in vs fan-out problem. It's easy for many countries to look at the heavily broadcasted messages of America, but very difficult for Americans to become intimately familiar with details of other countries especially due to the language barriers. Modern technology has simplified this quite a bit, and hopefully Americans are becoming better informed travelers.

[cainxinth]

I solo backpacked Europe in the mid 2000s and found that telling people you were American was decidedly uncool. I’m sure the dislike of W Bush abroad had something do with it, but it was also partly because of what you are describing. Everyone already knew a lot about America. It wasn’t interesting to then.

I remember staying at a hostel in Croatia with a diverse group. At breakfast we went around the room saying our names and home countries. There were Germans, Australians, Koreans, French, Brits, Brazilians… and then it got to me and people practically rolled their eyes when I said I was from the states.

[PhineasRex]

I've had the opposite experience living in Brooklyn and traveling to Europe. Saying I was from New York was boring but—Brooklyn being in vogue at the time—I quickly learned to be more specific and found lots of fast friends wanting to know about what it was like living there.

[CPLX]

It depends. I got in the habit of just saying I’m from New York instead of the US. Seems like everyone wants a friend in NYC to fulfill their goal of going there someday for a trip and having a cool local connection.

[cainxinth]

I’m from Philadelphia, and I learned that most people outside of America either don’t know of it or only know two things about it: cream cheese and the theme song to the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

[CPLX]

Just say you live in the Philadelphia district of the New York area.

[k2xl]

There is somewhat of an unconscious assumption from us Americans that the rest of the world is aware of the events of our country… Language, current events, or even geography.

For example, when I visit Europeans, it always throws me off a little when someone doesn’t know where my home state is. “Georgia? Is that near New York? Or is it near California?”

There is never the reverse expectation. I have never felt that a European was surprised that I didn’t know a particular state, political party, or news event going on. In fact, I have seen them impressed when I happen to know anything about their home country.

[NoImmatureAdHom]

Interesting to note that only ~44% of U.S. citizens have a passport[0] and most haven't ever left the country. My American parents got their passports at age 50 or thereabouts. The U.S. is big. The only other countries you can get to by land are Canada and Mexico, and only Mexico is meaningfully different culturally (sorry Canada). Everywhere else that's different is a long, pretty expensive plane flight away. If you're in the center, you're far from basically everything that isn't America. Some villages in Europe may have similar provincial people, but I get the sense they are a lot rarer.

The U.S. is probably better compared to the E.U., or maybe Europe as a whole, in most contexts. It has centralized federal power for some things (like external affairs: diplomacy, war), but its power internally is quite weak sometimes (e.g., domestic enforcement of drug law). It's more like a loose grouping of countries than many people believe.

0:https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/about-us/reports-... divide # of passports in circulation by population (~332M). Probably a slight under-estimate because some people counted in "population" might not be eligible for a passport.

[harpersealtako]

It's definitely odd. I find, though, that the average European overestimates their knowledge and understanding of America. There are so many misconceptions I hear whenever I talk to a European about the US that it's literally impossible to correct them all; most of them seem to be stereotypes from TV or news. It leads to a lot of unnecessary confusion, and the particularly frustrating part is that they are often unwilling to accept that their preconceptions about America are wrong when corrected on them.

[bingohbangoh]

I have personally found that the western european countries are not surprised and tend to talk like you're on the same base line. I suppose it comes off as "you know a lot about my country like everyone else from my country."

The exception is anywhere east of Poland. Then they're shocked I know anything at all.