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American Culture

Thalassa

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If I could pick one thing that defined the majority of Americans it is an almost obsessive interest in sports. I'm not sure if it is as prevalent in other cultures but if you stay up on your current sports knowledge you will always find a group of comrades in any setting.

Ey...lots of other cultures outside of the US are obsessed with soccer/football "footie" so I'm not really sure what you're talking about.
 

Thalassa

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More: You don't care much for soccer, that's pretty unusual. Speedos are mainly worn at Gay Pride parades and swimming shorts aren't just worn by the insecure boys at the pool with rolls of flab to hide. You're the only majority Christian/secular country in which male genital mutilation is still at all common and certainly the only one in which parents consider it a health measure.

The 'bigger is better' philosophy is fairly unique as far as I can tell. Huge buildings, huge bridges, huge dams, huge cars, huge meals, huge people, huge everything. Even the Smart car is made bigger for the American market, and its unique selling point was supposed to be that it's small. :huh:

I've heard that condoms are bigger in the US too, but I've never compared. Anyone know? :D

You're right the circumcision thing in the US is almost freakish.

There are some bigger condoms here. They can be purchased in different sizes.
 

Frank

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Ey...lots of other cultures outside of the US are obsessed with soccer/football "footie" so I'm not really sure what you're talking about.

Ey, if you read my post you would see that I said I am not sure how prevalent it is in other cultures. Also I think Americans are equally obsessed with all sports not just one national past time. I have friends who are completely obsessed with baseball, football, hockey, golf and basketball depending on what season it is. On both the college and professional level as well. If I had to venture a guess I would say this is the norm for upwards of 70% of males ages 16-50. Perhaps that is true in other areas of the world as well. If so we are all fucked.
 

Scott N Denver

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I've missed a few pages now, so forgive me if this has already been said,

To me, some of the defining factors of american culture are: 1) our relative lack of history, 2) our physical distance from most other countries [ie we can generally ignore them and not notice the difference], and 3) the tremendous amount of space/landmass that we have.
 

Skyward

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Ive been 'repping' people all throughout the thread and finally at the end I get to post.

right now I am typing on a finnish keyboard using windows XP in Finnish and windows explorer in Finnish in a Finnish school. A majority of americans don't even know what Finnish is. I have been asked by educated people if 'what they were looking at was a real language.' Many americans dont know where Finland IS. A Finnish friend of mine even said that BBC said Finland was part of Estonia at some point.

I grew up in a christian town of 13 thousand people in Minnesota. There are 7 lutheran churches here and at least one of each other common denomination of christianity. My parents currently have an indonesian foreign exchange student living in their home. She was decided by my parents because of the 4 years of work it took here to be eligible for AFS in her country. They said the Europeans seemed nice but werent as desperate for the opportunity to go to the US as this indonesian was.

My parents gave me the nickname 'Eurosnob' because of my will to go to Europe at some point and enjoying European culture more than US culture. Coming here I find that I only really liked Europe more because it was different and that my dad helped inspire wanderlust within me. I thoroughly enjoyed meeting a travelling German on the overnight train from Beijing to Xi'an, China. I am enjoying my stay in Finland, but America is still my home country. I still dont think of my self as a patriot. Maybe an expatriate in the future, but I just cant sit in one 'homestead' all the time, I want to see the other types of 'steads before I decide which one to settle down in.

I dont have the knowhow or the will to have the knowhow to make a major difference in the US, but I am willing to support someone who does. This is part of democracy, the freedom to make something even if it doesn't get very big or far. Also the 'I was born into this life and I cant get out' mindset isnt as pervasive in the US as in, say, Finland. Maybe its just my idealism talking, but whatever, idealism and optimism is my fuel. Not to mention I'm a working-at-it Christian so I always can pray if things hit rock bottom (Or pray for an umbrella during the fall)

Really, American culture, to me, is a quilt and mixmatch like any culture. It's the sum of its parts.
 

Alwar

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1472.jpg
 

Haphazard

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Ive been 'repping' people all throughout the thread and finally at the end I get to post.

right now I am typing on a finnish keyboard using windows XP in Finnish and windows explorer in Finnish in a Finnish school. A majority of americans don't even know what Finnish is. I have been asked by educated people if 'what they were looking at was a real language.' Many americans dont know where Finland IS. A Finnish friend of mine even said that BBC said Finland was part of Estonia at some point.

BBC isn't American.

Hey, at least you don't live in Asia Minor. Then people would be really confused.

"What's a Turkmenistan?"

"Georgia? Oh! You by Chattanooga?"
 

01011010

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I converted into Judiasm because I wanted culture, and now I find out I already had one?

Fuck. :/

lol Same here. Judaism has a rich history and culture, but America is still young. Take your pick.



Ey...lots of other cultures outside of the US are obsessed with soccer/football "footie" so I'm not really sure what you're talking about.

Yeah. Dudes are so boisterous about sports in the UK, that people get beat up all the time. Then again, that happens everywhere.
 

Edgar

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Yeah. Dudes are so boisterous about sports in the UK, that people get beat up all the time. Then again, that happens everywhere.

The British take it to a whole different level. If I remeber correctly, EU has a "hooligan list" featuring names a various blokes who are forbidden from traveling to matches. They are kind of like soccer terrorists.

You know an internet meme of who is tougher, ninja or a pirate? Well I always wondered, who is tougher, British hooligan or a German cop. I think 1 on 1 hooligan will win, but 10 on 10 german cops will win.
 

compulsiverambler

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Okay, wow. I spent my whole morning researching this, and I came up with five different answers, and I have no idea which one is the right one.

1. It's meant to slow down the eaters, like a QWERTY keyboard, by the constant switching of utensils, so people would remember to chew their food and talk to each other during mealtimes (it's debatable how successful this is, if this is the case)

2. Colonizing was dirty business, so the colonists adopted the Middle Eastern/Indian practice of reserving the right hand for eating and the left hand for the toilet (no idea how they would have known this, but eh), so mostly the right hand was used for eating in this method.

3. American colonists were so poor that families often only had one knife between them. By setting the knife down for most of the meal, it allowed everyone to have a turn with the knife. (This would explain the 'cutting with the side of the fork' thing Americans do that apparently no one else does, because you wouldn't take the family knife if you didn't have to, if it were true)

4. This way of eating is actually older, and the "European" style, always holding both utensils, came into fashion because of the French revolution/occupation/whatever. In the new style, you could see where the other person's hands were at all times, so you knew they weren't doing any treachery. Because this never happened in America, they never adopted the new style.

5. Probably the most convoluted one: England was the last of Europe to catch onto the whole fork idea, so when England began to colonize America, they knew about forks but they weren't in style yet, so Americans didn't use them until later. However, as forks became more popular in England, shipments of knives into America became duller, so Americans began to use spoons to steady their food while cutting it and then switching it back to the right hand because before these dull knives they would always wield the utensil with their right hands. (This would explain why this method is uniquely American if it were true, because pretty much nowhere else had this circumstance)
That's really interesting. I'd heard of only the second and fifth theory. You'd think contemporaries would have written about it, especially visitors noticing the difference and asking where it came from.
 
S

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Is this another one of these stupid piss contests betweem Euro-trash and Ameritards? :dry:
 

The Outsider

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A Finnish friend of mine even said that BBC said Finland was part of Estonia at some point.

That seems backwards.

Either way, as Estonia is apparently a part Russia, you may as well start calling yourself a Russian. :D
 

Skyward

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That seems backwards.

Either way, as Estonia is apparently a part Russia, you may as well start calling yourself a Russian. :D

Sure does look backwards. Everything outside of Talinn is real poor.

I have a friend here who moved from Moscow when he was little. He's still afraid that the Russian military will come over and make him work in their military. (The same friend that told me that bit about BBC)

Is this another one of these stupid piss contests betweem Euro-trash and Ameritards?

Fo' REEL, yo!

Alwar's picture of Spartan-like pwnage

SISU!
 

The Outsider

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Sure does look backwards. Everything outside of Tallinn is real poor.

I have a friend here who moved from Moscow when he was little. He's still afraid that the Russian military will come over and make him work in their military. (The same friend that told me that bit about BBC)

Lol. The Estonia being part of Russia bit was a joke. ;)
I live in Tallinn, and I can assure you, everything outside my hometown is not real poor. While the economy is focused on Tallinn, it is still merely an interesting misconception on your friend's part.
 

Skyward

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Lol. The Estonia being part of Russia bit was a joke. ;)
I live in Tallinn, and I can assure you, everything outside my hometown is not real poor. While the economy is focused on Tallinn, it is still merely an interesting misconception on your friend's part.

Oh! Then I can tell them that :D *Skyward gains +1 Experience: Foreign Economics!*

My hostmother talks about how similar yet different Estonian is from Finnish. Kind of like how Swedish and English are similar but very different.
 

The Outsider

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Oh yes, similar languages. I can pretty much understand a lot of Finnish, but can barely speak it myself.
 

Athenian200

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American Culture:

borg_queen.jpg


YOU WILL BE ASSIMILATED

discuss.

:rofl1:

I can see why someone would see the Borg as symbolic of American culture. It's because we have a tendency to move through phases, like locusts, picking up tendencies that suit us and discarding everything else as we go along. American culture tends to be pragmatic, technology and business-centered and doesn't contain a lot of enduring tendencies, but is rather very faddish and superficial in general. All cultures have a facet with this character, but it is a chief feature (if not THE chief feature) of American culture. The enduring tendencies we do have are usually things we picked up from other places.

Also, with globalization occurring through a structure created by Americans (the Internet), and mostly via English, this particular culture of pragmatism, technological advancement, and faddish behavior is spreading throughout the world, eroding cultures that had once been far more established and entrenched. It's slowly connecting the whole world, breaking down boundaries and homogenizing human culture. When we inevitably turn the technology inward on our own bodies, it's very likely that we'll eventually come to resemble the Borg, the ultimate manifestation of democracy and freedom of expression within a collective (the Borg queen is a retcon for dramatic effect in First Contact, the Borg were actually ruled by the entire collective's thoughts). All they sacrifice is individuality, which is being eroded on many levels by the level of media interconnection we're experiencing these days anyway. In other words, it is one possible future endpoint for American culture if it survives and we remain on the same course.

Good enough?
 

Gewitter27

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I live in the USA, and I hate our culture.

What I'd give to not be expected to respond positively to a stranger attempting to talk with me.
 
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