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People Never Knew These 44 Stereotypes About The US Were Actually Not Lying
For most non-Americans, Hollywood and the media are the main frame of reference for life in the United States. And because they haven’t experienced life on the ground up close, they develop stereotypes based on what they’ve seen.
But after visiting the country and immersing in the culture, the preconceptions are typically either broken or reinforced. These people were left in shock and amazement, as they share their stories in a recent Reddit thread.
If you’ve gone through anything similar after a trip to the US of A, feel free to share it in the comments below!
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
People actually going to see a high school or college sport game. In my country no one except the parents of the team players would bother to go watch an extracurricular sports game.
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#2
Old school diners. Did a road trip from New York to Connecticut and stopped at this classic diner in upstate New York with the tables, long sit down counter right out of the movies.
#3
I spent almost a month in a Denver suburb without ever seeing a bus. Public transportation really does suck.
nottheactualphoto 6 hours ago
The photo was taken in Manhattan (NYC). Public transportation doesn't suck one bit there.
#4
The massive gap between the bathroom stall door and the frame. You're just sitting there making direct eye contact with people washing their hands.
Daisydaisy 4 hours ago
This just seems so weird to me. There must be a reason for it, but I would never use toilets with doors like that!
#5
The homeless people.
I have never seen so many homeless people in my live. And that was during the 90s. Can’t imagine what the situation is nowadays.
#6
Sugary food.. sure, we all know about the milkshakes, sodas, massive bags of candy (which are all true) but man EVERYTHING here is full of unnecessary sugar. Yoghurt, pasta sauce, breads, coffee etc. Took me some time to figure out why everything tasted odd to my European taste buds.
nottheactualphoto 6 hours ago
Recently I was reading the label on a jar of peanuts. It had *five kinds of sugar.*
#7
That Americans are very friendly. I have lived in the US now for 19 years and I can happily say that this is very true. As a brown immigrant, overwhelmingly, I have been treated very well here and people have always been very friendly.
Beak Hookage 4 hours ago
That was my impression when I went there too. People were outright delighted to meet an Aussie and would get excited when they heard my accent.
#8
My host sister from Germany - the high school cheerleaders.
She thought it was just a cheesy movie trope, or an exaggeration. She was absolutely exasperated that it was a real, genuine sport and a genuinely normal thing to see a school sporting events, let alone professional events.
#10
How genuinely friendly strangers are. I expected the whole “Americans will talk to anyone” thing to be exaggerated, but people actually started conversations with me like we’d known each other for years.
#11
They really do have very loud personal phone conversations while walking down the street.
Accepting of differences - at least in NYC. I didn't realise quite how much rudeness towards autistic people was part of my everyday life until I visited somewhere where it isn't.
#12
Not me but my cousin visiting from Mexico. She was surprised by the SHEER amount of American flags. She had challenged herself to count all the American flags she saw and gave up when we passed a car dealership that had like over 50 lol.
Beak Hookage 4 hours ago
Well, they wouldn't want everyone to forget which country they're in, right?
#13
The first time I visited the rural parts of the southeastern states, I was shocked at how many churches I saw. I thought that was just a US movie thing. I even stopped measuring my driving speed in km/h and started measuring in churches/h.
#14
How big the country is, there are parts that are still properly wild. Europe has been shaped by humans for thousands of years, there are signs of occupancy *everywhere*. You would struggle to find a significant area that doesn't have sign of humans having lived there at some point. All the land you see, even the equivalent of national parks are re-wilded to some extent. The US has large areas where there's little to no sign of humans now, or for extended periods of time.
The drive from LA to Vegas was illuminating, long stretches of MAMBA (Miles And Miles of Bugger-All). Other than the road, there's nothing out there. Internal flights are also interesting, in some cases, there just seems to be cities in the middle of nowhere just because there needs to be *something* there after so much empty space.
Daisydaisy 4 hours ago
Is it "empty space" or is it relatively pristine wilderness, an increasingly rare and precious thing in today's world?
#15
My nephew came over from Germany and was shocked the buses were actually yellow. He enjoyed the American experience though.
Beak Hookage 4 hours ago
Seeing my first REAL yellow American schoolbus got me all childishly excited. Probably because I grew up seeing them on TV and in the movies.
#16
Towns in the middle of nowhere, downtown is one long strip road - a couple of fast food places, a grocery story, a petrol station, a bar with no windows and four churches.
Beak Hookage 4 hours ago (edited)
We have country towns exactly like it in Australia (except for the multiple churches thing) so it didn't shock me much.
#17
Portion sizes. I got a *very* affordable plate of teriyaki that was really 2.5x the size you'd get for the same price in Canada. I got halfway through and was stuffed.
Kabuki Kitsune 4 hours ago (edited)
A large part of the reason why the portion sizes are large as they are, is Americans typically don't expect to eat everything at one singular sitting, but rather eat a good bit of it, and then take the rest home for leftovers. This really started up in the 1970's, but gained more popularity in the 1980's, with the introduction of the microwave oven, which meant food could quite easily be reheated.
#18
For me it was just how big the grocery stores are. I had heard the joke from the cold war era of some USSR child going to the US and being enamoured by the grocery stores.
I come from Australia, we are a first world country, our stores are decently sized and have a good variety. But, heck, I went to a Wegmans with a model train in it running through the store, a sitdown restaurant, and so much variety I felt like I was from some impoverished backwater.
#20
I say this as a half-Japanese, half-white American man living in Houston, TX:
Football down here is a religion for some. And yes, majority of the school funding did go into building the monolith stadium for a high school team. The movies and shows downplay it slightly.
#22
According to my German friend:
American Patriotism. Nationalism to this degree is basically unheard of over there, and my friend did not realize just how prevalent our patriot ideals are.
#23
Not so much of a stereotype but more so an effect. Growing up as a kid (not in US) I watched movies shot in New York and there would be steam coming out of the manholes in the street in dark scenes, think Batman. I always thought that the steam was a movie effect till I visited New York last January and the steam coming out of the manholes is definitely real. My jaw kinda dropped at seeing it and then I felt like an idiot.
#24
Specific to the south, namely Texas: my wife was mildly shocked that people actually wear cowboy hats and boots. Not ironically, not part of a costume, just everyday attire.
Gail Lott 3 hours ago
When I moved to Texas I thought I would see a lot of cowboy hats and boots. I didn't. In my part of Texas the official footwear seems to be flipflops. I do occasionally see a cowboy hat and boots but it's obvious the people wearing them actually need them as opposed to a fashion choice. They are the hardworking outdoors people.
#25
The real shock was how much space everything takes, so now I factor in drive time between stops instead of distance when I plan trips there.
#26
The obesity. The Target parking lot was full of very big people. I live in a city (Toronto) and the difference was stark.
Janissary35680 56 minutes ago
I don't know how Australia, New Zealand, or South Africa are doing on this point but obesity is a serious problem in the UK and I think Canada too. It has to do with diet and lifestyle. Or maybe being an Anglophone makes you fat.
#27
New York drivers really are using their horns all the dang time.
(And I’m an American from the west coast).
#29
How prudish most people are. Outside certain enclaves, people in the USA (not all America) are in fact extremely prudish.
Daisydaisy 4 hours ago
I wonder if their obsession with religion is to blame for this, banning art books with paintings of nu-des in them, freaking out about women nursing their babies, refusing to allow se-x education in schools? And yet completely okay with everyone shooting each other with insane weapons all over the place!
#30
The size of the roads and trucks. Everything feels like it was scaled up by 150% compared to Europe or Asia.
#31
Not sure if stereotype, but went to watch a baseball game, and was amazed at how much stuff is going on around the game. The crowd seemed almost disinterested in the game, eating hot dogs, drinking budweiser, etc, but eventually, when the game reached the point where it was going to be decided who won, then suddenly everyone fell silent at once and suddenly the game was super-interesting.
#32
LOL.
I'm American and my British cousin visited me once. We went to a pizza place and I ordered a couple meatball hoagies. Pretty standard.
She was mindblown. She had never seen a sandwich that big except on American TV shows and she though those were jokes. She truly had no idea that a 12" sandwich is a perfectly normal thing here.
#33
I’d heard about American hospitality, but it’s nuts how friendly the vast majority of the people I met were. You’re good hosts and have an amazing country to show off
Edit. I’ve drank several beers. Guess what I’m saying doesn’t actually answer the question.
#34
Kentucky. Yes they really are that dumb.
#36
The American west, [west of Kansas] features slot machines at every gas station. The opportunities to gamble are incredible!
#37
That fat people actually exists with those invalid scooters, they were everywhere in Orlando Florida.
#38
The weird advertisements on the radio like in GTA. Went to the US for 2 weeks as a kid and there were weird ads on the radio in the car every day.
#39
The go-getter attitude. I work with americans on and off on projects, had a US based boss for a year, and I was used to the yeehaw approach to new projects in the "what could possibly go wrong" approach, but jesus H, I had take a lot of meetings, town halls, like really a campaign level operation to convince a large and very diverse group of people from various subsidiaries that did not really talk to each other much because they were all merged or bought out in short period, we needed to convince them to unify their IT systems as much as possible and consolidate 180 datacenter locations into ..4. We went there, all eastern europeans, where the mindset is "don't try..and you still be dissapointed", chiseled into you from kindergarten, and now you sit in front of literal strangers, they don't know you, they don't know fully understand where are you coming from, oh yeah, we heard the majority shareholder is now XY, but what... oh, you want us to get rid of this 30 year old Windows NT that does payroll for this 30mil revenue company? HELL YEAH. nobody touched it since Fred retired and Fred retired during Clinton era.
We did crazy stuff for years, we did stuff even Microsoft told us they never tried live and actually had two Azure guys join us for a weekend to observe, we would never be able to do it in Europe or Asia. I waited 8 months for few permits in Munich building and had to go there 3 times to waste time speaking to Detlef who was scared to touch anything
when inevitably things go south the EU team was looking for a wobbly chair and 6ft of rope, and Ken just called and said "so what's the plan D"...after plans ABC failed.
does the american kids learn 40 different success stories about famous inventors and businessmen? because you guys seem to spill it on demand "don't worry, John H. Whatshisname burned down his garage 495 times before got the recipe for peanut butter right".
#41
Altoona style pizza is an arrestable offense.
#43
My cousin was visiting for my son’s graduation. She got to see snipers on the roof and was excited about it because it was “ A real American experience”.
Science Nerd 4 hours ago
Where did he graduate from that required snipers? Not normal for any school that I can think of.
#44
The whole “bless your heart” thing about the South. I moved from UK to Tennessee 13 years ago and the people here are the least judgmental, most honest and good people I’ve ever met. The politics is insane and racism is real and sometimes shocking, so, I fully understand that not everyone’s experience would mirror mine, but I’ve travelled the world and I’m yet to find better people than Americans.
Elladine DesIsles 4 hours ago
I'm sorry, but it is not possible to be surrounded by people who are the "least judgemental, most honest and good" while their racism is "real and sometimes shocking."
What do you think ?
Linda Lee 6 hours ago
I grew up in NY. When I was a kid, my brother and I were in Colorado to visit. We saw a tumbleweed for the very first time. I thought they were only in black and white cowboy movies. Then we saw a regular person riding a horse, not a cop on horseback, this was a real cowboy.
Roman Arendt 5 hours ago
Okay, this list comes up once a week here (in one form or another). Please do this with other countries and regions, BP.
Beak Hookage 21 minutes ago
I'd say "do Australia next time" but then remembered they've already done us more than once (with, as usual, most of it being stuff you only see in rural Queensland).
Load More Replies...
Lyone Fein 5 hours ago
I think firsthand experience is necessary for understanding any culture you didn’t grow up in.
Linda Lee 6 hours ago
I grew up in NY. When I was a kid, my brother and I were in Colorado to visit. We saw a tumbleweed for the very first time. I thought they were only in black and white cowboy movies. Then we saw a regular person riding a horse, not a cop on horseback, this was a real cowboy.
Roman Arendt 5 hours ago
Okay, this list comes up once a week here (in one form or another). Please do this with other countries and regions, BP.
Beak Hookage 21 minutes ago
I'd say "do Australia next time" but then remembered they've already done us more than once (with, as usual, most of it being stuff you only see in rural Queensland).
Load More Replies... Lyone Fein 5 hours ago
I think firsthand experience is necessary for understanding any culture you didn’t grow up in.
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