This week, Reddit user lmqr asked: "What do Americans think is normal for everyone, but actually it's not normal for anyone but Americans?"
The thread quickly went viral as people all across the globe started sharing the strangest things they've noticed about American culture — things most US citizens might assume are totally normal. Here are the top-voted responses:
1. "Asking everyone 'What do you do?' when you first meet them. I live outside the US and realized there are some people I’ve known for years, and I still don’t know their job. I think in the US, jobs are a bigger part of a person’s identity than in some other places."
2. "American accents. I mean, everyone thinks their own accent is normal, but I’ve met Americans who think that they have no accent, like theirs is the baseline somehow."
4. "That the entire traffic has to stop when a school bus stops."
5. "Writing dates as MM/DD/YYYY."
7. "In America, my maternity leave was six weeks unpaid, and I had to fight them on not shorting me because I went past my due date and didn’t keep working until the day I went into labor."
8. "The idea that giving birth to a child is prohibitively expensive to a lot of people. One way or another, most of the world does not have that problem."
10. "Big glasses of water WITH ICE at restaurants."
11. "Identifying as your heritage instead of your nationality. Americans will say that they’re Italian, German, Polish, etc., when they don’t speak the language and have no real connection to those countries anymore. In other parts of the world, people just identify with the country they were born in or have lived in for a significant amount of time, regardless of their ancestry."
—K_51
13. "Pledging allegiance to the flag in class."
14. "Extra-large bottomless cups for cola or soft drinks...you could bathe in those..."
16. "Ambulance rides that cost money seem pretty absurd to people from other countries."
17. "Actively avoiding healthcare visits/checkups because if there's something wrong and you don't have the money to pay for treatment, then you'd rather just not know."
19. "Putting a ton of sugar in products like bread."
20. "Not putting the final price on the tag. I'm not sure whether it's still like this, but a few years ago, one never knew whether the $1 item in McDonald's or Burger King was actually $1 or maybe $1.08."
22. "Naming side effects on medication advertisements. F@#king hilarious to us Brits."
23. "Gratuitous violence in entertainment is normal. But show one boob and people lose their s@#t."
25. "Talking about and sharing your life with complete strangers. I have met quite a few Americans, and it seems the norm that you share and engage with strangers in public. The bus, train, parks, etc. And then you go on your way. In Denmark you'd be a 'freak' if you did that."
26. "A flag in every corner of a classroom, and Americans being very patriotic to the Stars and Stripes. Other countries barely give a poop about their flags."
28. "Not owning kettles and MICROWAVING water for coffee/tea."
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Oh, please enlighten us, comrade. Or was your observation just made up of adopted convictions that you don't really need to support, but can be applauded for online?
#11 as well, and #8 too.
#24 and #16 : Education and Medecine aren't free. Never. Nowhere.
You really shouldn't consider absurd to pay for it.
Even if some government pay for you; remember it always get its money from you.
Nurses, doctors and teachers aren't benevolent and need tools which aren't created by benevolent too.
.... and spelling metre as meter.
We hate you because you are uneducated and stupid. You have become the school bully of the world, pushing everyone around and no one can stop you, because you have the biggest muscles. But it's fine, just like the bully's , your future is grim and dark and it already shows.
Show me on this anime doll you have in your parents basement where the USA hurt your feelings.
© Izismile.com, 2020
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izispicy
amen brother well stated
You're all about freedom and liberty? Great! Me too!
Blowing up stuff on the 4th of July equals freedom, right?
Staying in your houses when a tyrannical governor says so, too?
You're not free - you're freerange.
Liberty ends by guiltshaming everybody else into wearing useless muzzles.
Land of the greedy and home of the (mindcontrolled) slaves.
You have to be asleep to have the American dream.
Brace for a rude awakening.
As an American I am ashamed of dip sh#ts and yahoos like this hogging the stage. Hang with us, we're just going through a phase.
Biggest and most blatant does not mean greatest and best.
A cow sh#ts where it stands a traind dog or cat does not.
Most of the world:
Hip replacement = 0
Complicated birth = 0
Open heart surgery = 0
You get the jist!
In gods own US of A
Anything above a Paracetamol will put you in the poor house :-(
Yay go US and please keep up the isolation politics and you will go from first world to african world economy in 5-10 years.