Disclaimer: This is not meant to be a bait or any kind of bad-faith devaluing or stereotyping. This is only based on my experience, hearing similar stories from others and wanting to understand. I’m aware that there are good and bad people everywhere.
So I’m European and starting on a good note I always admired America for many things like the freedom, diversity and cool movies.
But after more experience with meeting real Americans I noticed this personality type that I and I think many other non-Americans would describe as arrogant.
Like I stated before I’m not saying every American is like that and I know there are many very nice Americans. But I often saw that some Americans seem to only be nice on the surface (if at all) but actually seem to have this attitude of “I don’t give a f about you”. And I know that America is a very individualistic culture that focuses on the self and the belief that everyone can achieve anything on their own.
But I still think having a sense of empathy and sensitivity towards others is a very important core human quality that everyone should have. And from personal experience and also from a very prevalent notion of others both in every day life and when looking it up online it’s clear that many non-Americans perceive many Americans to cross a line there.
For example there’s a prevalent observation of Americans visiting other countries and acting like they own the place by being very loud, demanding and not accepting if things aren’t the same way as they are in America.
We know that Americans have very big issues with divisiveness and social injustice and it seams like there’s also this sort of “ghetto” personality including trash-talking, lots of vulgar slang and slurs and bragging.
And a general perception of money playing a big role as if many Americans judge someone’s worth by money and this attitude of not feeling like needing to help someone. I think there’s this famous description of a person lying in the middle of the ground in a public city and people just walk around the person not feeling the need to help.
It almost feels like they’re very entitled and put their ego up way higher than it actually is and lacking the quality of making themselves smaller/putting themselves second to treat others with more dignity.
I’ve heard similar stories during my random travels around the world over the years. It’s unfortunate that people in Europe and elsewhere are subjected to these negative encounters. As you said, I don’t believe it’s every American, but from these consistently shared anecdotes, I learned early on in my travels that the USA is not always sending its best people.
With that said, I would like to share some observations about this from the perspective of someone from the USA. Amongst my friends and other American travelers I have spoken with, there is a noticeable anti-American sentiment that we have felt from, for example, Europeans while we are traveling throughout Europe. It ranges anywhere from immediate, perceptible changes in demeanor upon hearing my accent, to unsolicited and overly judgmental comments on every aspect of American society, all the way to unprovoked anger.
Many of the complaints I’ve heard from Europeans about Americans, I’ve ironically experienced myself from Europeans: arrogance, intolerance, racism, overt drunkenness and loudness, a lack of understanding about geography (Europeans don’t seem to understand how large the USA is), uninformed opinions they absorbed from sensationalized media sources, etc.
As a result of these experiences, we are sometimes hesitant to talk or discuss anything related to our country when forced into a conversation about these topics. The key word is forced. This is not to say we are afraid of admitting the issues that are prevalent throughout our society. In fact, I would say most Americans who are traveling would agree with you. It’s just that when we travel, it can be difficult to have a conversation with a European without being bombarded by unsolicited opinions on everything they believe is inherently wrong with me. While I have encountered this elsewhere, this tends to be a mostly European experience for me.
Having to hear that over and over can get tiresome, whether deserved or not. Especially since this isn’t something new, and has been going on for many years before the Trump and Bush eras. I’ve resorted to self-deprecating humor when any of those topics come up, which seems to assuage most people. I’ve noticed a lot of Americans do this online or in person, even some taking it to the point of self flagellation.
All of this is to say that most of my travels and encounters with people around the world are positive. It’s a great way to experience other cultures and people different than our own self-contained society. It’s one of the reasons why I love to travel, and encourage most of my fellow Americans to do so. The more we learn about the world, the better we will be at being good neighbors. Until then, I’m sorry we keep sending shitty people to your countries.
We’re aware but who nobody actually cares when 95% of cities all look like the same garbage car designed extreme sprawl hellhole. And yes I know that’s an exaggeration, but you from south england to wales or Manchester then upto to Edinburgh youd see more variation than most of USA in culture and city
As an ethnic south Asian who goes to Asia a bunch, I can can tell you. Americans are genuinely loved in very few places and even those that aren’t outright telling you suck, are just people more polite and jumble than the Europeans but still feel the exact way. Except Americans are even more fucking animals and creeps in Asia. You aren’t alone in that, British tourists can be awful, french people should be exterminated and the Chinese tourists is just a villager from hunan with too much factory money and not even sense.
That all said. Definetly not all, and many Americans exude personality. One of my best friends was a dude from Philadelphia who was a republican who became friends with the mortal enemy of the republican party haha
Whoa
Yeah no, this is just wrong, and again completely ignoring the, “people don’t seem to understand how large the US is.”
I am aware that most of our large cities were designed around automobiles, but there’s (literally) countless smaller cities and towns that vary wildly in appearance, tradition, population, etc. 99% of which you will never even hear about as a European.
For example, do a quick Google search to see how many boroughs are in New Jersey alone. Then look at how small NJ is compared to the rest of the nation.
You can drive pretty much anywhere in the state of NJ, and be unable to swing a cat without hitting a world class pizza place, great Chinese food, amazing sushi, Mexican, Thai, etc. etc. Like quite literally the best pizza in the world.
The food you will find in a literal hole in the ground in Paterson fucking NJ is better than most of what you can find from South England to Edinburgh.
He became friends with the concept of education?