Funny Americans

People outside America love to make fun of Americans. Considering the political and cultural influence of the US, it’s understandable. But all countries have people who are made fun of—usually people who are stupid or who do stupid things. America’s sheer size makes it easy to find such people.

However, let’s be honest here: America does seem to have more than its fair share of geographically-challenged people. Part of that’s probably due to history and geography being taught less frequently and less well, but I’ve always thought that the main reason Americans are so often ignorant of the world is because they don’t need to know about the world. American-made television, movies and music are big business. America’s internal markets are huge, so Americans can expect products and services to meet their desires.

For example, the rest of the world has switched to the metric system, but America stands alone with the old Imperial system—because it can. American businesses who export have found ways around that, like, for example, packaging capable of holding similar amounts (12 US ounce cans hold 355ml elsewhere; 20 US ounce bottles hold 600ml elsewhere).

That doesn’t excuse Americans not knowing more about the world. The “ugly American” tourist stereotype exists because, like all stereotypes, there’s an element of truth (stereotypes are so pernicious precisely because they contain an element of truth). American tourists run into trouble overseas because they don’t know about the place they’re visiting.

However, Americans who choose to live overseas are different. In general, since they’ve chosen the country they live in, and they want to be there, they’ve learned about the place and try and fit in. We’re so good at it, in fact, that in nearly twelve years in New Zealand I’ve never met another American apart from the occasional store clerk.

Over at Ramble Redhead I ran across a YouTube video of an Australian comedy programme’s segment making fun of American stupidity. They likely only picked the shots where people said the most ignorant things, but I’ve actually heard people say similar things. There are at least three versions of this on YouTube, and I picked the full version because it includes a segment where the host pretends he’s Australian Prime Minister John Howard. Okay, so the video isn’t scientific or representative, but it is a bit of fun. After all the serious subjects lately, a little diversion is in order.