The pervasive, loud, aggressive "America is full of stupid yokels and has no culture herp derp" sentiment seems to have really ramped up in recent years. I really wonder if it's a side effect of recent politicians pushing increasingly bizarre and oppressive agendas, and actually getting elected.
At least here in the UK there has almost always been a distaste for 'americanisms' among the middle-aged and older (conveniently forgetting the ones that entered common use during their youth.) Its largely just snobbery and old man yells at clouds.
It is also less that the states have no culture as they only have low culture. Again, ignoring that most 'high culture' is just old, and was low when it was new. Shakespeare wrote for the common folk, Dante's Inferno was something of a hit piece on everyone he didn't like. The Rite of Spring was hammered by critics who saw it as barberous to the point of insult and suggested women should not be permitted to see it, should it continue to be performed. The Count of Monte Cristo was serialized not unlike a comic book (and was abridged to not scandalise English speaking audiences.)
Its tough when Americas old culture is centered around greed or religion. Every bit of old culture has an awful undertone to it unless you were part of the right group.
The pervasive, loud, aggressive “America is full of stupid yokels and has no culture herp derp” sentiment seems to have really ramped up in recent years.
we're sick of the US being the dominant , assumend cultural force and want something else.
That kinda makes sense. At the same time, Brazil is just as young as USA but we have a ton of "old-ish" culture here. The beliefs and stories of the native population merged in with the ones from several incoming cultures and it's now hard to really separate them, as some are much older than the country itself but are clearly inspired by stories from the old world as well.
Some mythical creatures that are good examples of this: Saci, Curupira and the Headless Mule.
"Behold, someone so inundated in their own culture they can no longer recognize it." Yeah, I've seen that Tumblr post too, you're very funny and original.
Imo the flaw of both the op and this comment is it almost completely leaves out the reasons why it is "young". Were the people who created the "new" culture settling on pristine virgin land? What could possibly have happened to the existing people who bore the "old" culture? Hmm
spoiler: the answer is that anglo saxon protestants were convinced of their superiority and almost uniquely violent, with few qualms about outright massacring and displacing natives. At least the spanish speaking catholics in south america intermarried and assimilated somewhat
What do you mean? One relatively unique thing is that the US Constitution protects anyone physically on US soil, not just citizens. There is very little that treats physically present US citizens different from non-citizens beyond voting and certain welfare benefits.
That said, the police here can absolutely enforce the law unfairly. But that's not really a problem with the law, but instead the individual police departments.
As an American, I think there's a lot we can do better to be more fair, but I also think our system of laws is quite fair in general. We just need to get our police in line and change the "us vs them" mentality in our military and policing. I'd really like it if we would stop bombing people we don't like and instead strive to open trade routes.
American exceptionalism always made me cringe, but it makes me cringe more the older I get. I hate how presidential candidates feel like they have to call the US the most powerful, the greatest, and so on.
I think most USA hate comes from the US government's history of global political interference. It's understandable. For the same reason that Britain is still viewed negatively in many parts of the world.
Personally, I don't hate the US or Americans generally. Things exported from the US whether physically, technologically, or culturally have played a major part of my life. It would be dumb to have a blanket hatred of anything American.
Most Americans I've met have been very friendly and cheerful.
Personally, I don’t hate the US or Americans generally.
~ Vietnamese Guy circa October, 1955
~ Chilean Guy circa September 10th, 1979
~ Iraqi Guy circa July, 1990
~ Palestinian Guy circa October 6th, 2023
Most Americans I’ve met have been very friendly and cheerful.
Most people I've met have been very friendly and cheerful. But that goes afield from "culture". When you start digging into what constitutes a US cultural export - plastic Coca Cola bottles, Ford F-350s and Chevy Suburbans, whitewashed jazz music, 6-year-olds doing beauty pageants, CIA blacksites, Ads on top of Ads on top of Ads on top of Ads, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion - you lose a lot of the characteristic friendliness and start feeling a bit creeped out.
The young, curious, carefree American traveler is a delight. The old, cynical, covetous American businessman is less so.
You're ignoring a lot of the cool stuff that America has put out:
Broadway musicals
alligator wrestling
Cajun food (basically French, African, and Spanish fusion food) and American Pizza
a wide variety of music genres (grunge, big band/swing, etc)
The best thing about America is the fusion of different cultures. It started as a refuse for the oppressed, and its culture reflects that. Unfortunately, it has itself become an oppressor in many ways, but that shouldn't detract from its unique, blended culture.
To me, pointing out, "America has culture too!" Feels dismissive of how the most brilliant "American" cultures developed specifically in spite of being segregated from and exploited by the dominant American culture. It's not called the bureau of native american affairs for a reason.
I guess I'm not ready to reclaim an American identity before all others.
Can someone explain the love for Taylor Swift to me? I know she makes music a lot of people enjoy. I've heard the stories of her giving big bonuses to those who work for her. I guess all I see is a billionaire with a great PR team.
She's a "self-made" female billionaire. Her money isn't from something like Walmart or Amazon, where it's obvious how she's exploiting people. It's clear she's very talented. And she seems smart and like she won't get pushed around by scummy music execs (Taylor's version).
Her music speaks to people and makes them feel like they're understood and like they understand her. When she got a lot of hate (because most things teenage girls enjoy get a lot of hate), plenty of people felt personally attacked, and that made them more defensive and appreciative of her. She poked fun at the stereotypes making her more endearing.
In addition to some great comments, Swift seems genuine and sincere. There's a great video going around of her arguing with her dad, literally crying that she can no longer keep her mouth shut about injustices perpetrated by the right.
I know jack about her music, but my little kids were blasting something intensely catchy. "That's pretty cool! Who is that?" You guessed it, Swift.
Foreigners might not get this post's reason for existing, but with some people it really does feel like we're supposed to rebuke everything we see on a day to day basis and sometimes everyone we see, or else we're no better than Maga MacDougall who actively donates to AIPAC over here. Sometimes an exception is made for Black culture, but it's usually a shallow one that unravels the minute they have to elaborate on their dislike for American culture. "Americans should be more cultured" is an okay criticism but a lot of people who say that aren't satisfied unless we come to the conclusion that everything about our home is bad.
And I have never found an elaboration on "America has no culture" that wasn't steeped in some combination of appeals to a pure and ideal past, ignorance of how migration shapes every culture, classism, and sometimes even racism. As far as I'm concerned, you're a statue PFP if you say this.
A lot of fun things listed, but they aren’t going to mean anything to any of us when we’re collectively burned out from working endlessly and incapable of retirement… thanks to America’s capitalists.
I was thinking how to express something similar for this post. I think its easiest to express in song:
And I'm ashamed to be an American where folks pretend their free
And I won't forget the men who lied, and stole that right from me
And I'd gladly sit down next to you and protest her still today
'Cause there ain't no doubt I love this land
Work to save the USA
Do the guy also love US terrorism and foreign interference? Because that's what people probably take most offence with. There is not a single additional nation on this planet that has couped to many democratically elected governments and replaced them with corrupt authoritarians that are more than willing to oppress and torture their people and cause civil wars and sell out their nation's interest to US interests in exchange for power. The US is sole world leader in evil and hase been for over a hundred years, only briefly eclipsed by individuals like Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Kissinger.
Because as someone who is "deeply critical" of US his government and military, he really seems like jeans and jack o'lanterns have any weight when people call the globally most hated nation on earth a barbaric terrorist shithole.
And let's not even start counting warcrimes or threats of acts of war towards their "allies".
Fun fact: ask people to name three governments the US has couped. See what happens. Just three.
What do you suggest we Americans do? I can vouch for the fact that spending my entire life feeling ashamed of my country has not helped to make it better, despite doing my best to be an outspoken critic of American policy.... so I'm hoping you can provide a suggestion for a viable path to redemption.
Protest. Create awareness. Because, you now, unlike the Chinese or Russians, Americans have the freedom to do so without getting vanished in re-education camps and gulags.
I think the problem is more that many Americans are very focused on their own culture to the exclusion of every other culture and in a sense love these things more because they are theirs and they grew up with them than out of an honest appreciation after comparing it with alternatives.
I think the problem is more that many Americans are very focused on their own culture to the exclusion of every other culture
Of course, this position directly contradicts the other dominant criticism in this thread, that Americans don't have any culture of their own and just take from others.
Americans are a remix culture, and take in influences from elsewhere (especially through 200+ years of immigration) and make it our own.
I think it's more a complaint about the people not being cultured in general than it is a complaint about the country not having a culture (also, a bunch of the things mentioned aren't culture but whatever).
The "Victorian House" is just the commonly accepted name for the archetectural style. I'm not an architectural expert, but the average person in the US would hear that and imagine a 3 story house with porches and elabroate decorations. The US certainly has a distinctive building and decorative style from that era that is different than any Victorian homes in the UK.
A LOT of things in that list aren’t originally American, or even commonly American
That's literally one of America's superpowers. immigrants bringing ideas and foods from their cultures then as they integrate these ideas become more ingrained in local identities (and of course morph over time to adapt to local tastes) and later might even become something entirely different and so nationally popular that it becomes an exported cultural sensation.
USA culture will be forgotten when the present empire falls. How much Prussian/ German culture do you consume? Prussia was considered a high watermark for culture, but nobody seems to care about it anymore. And y'know? Good. Because countries who are violent, imperial, oppressive? Their culture deserves to be forgotten.
Yeah, American Christmas is pretty much entirely derived from German tradition: Santa, gifts, Christmas trees, lights, carols, etc.
So much of American food derives from German food: hot dogs, pretzels, hamburgers, modern beer (hopped beer and bottom fermentation of lagers were both invented by Germans, and are now the dominant form of beer globally).
And as America exported all of these cultural traditions, those still derive from German immigration to America to begin with.
The English language itself still has strong Germanic influence.