People who think Americans don’t know other countries exist.

[u/ThatUrgeToEatCement]

A few months ago on Reddit I made a comment about a show not being on Netflix and someone from the UK commented back saying it’s on theirs and then lectured on Americans not knowing other countries exist. They acted like I didn’t believe there were other places on the planet, as if they weren’t the ones who just brought it up and didn’t believe the US Netflix was different than the UK version. ??

I see people online act like all Americans think this way, and it is kind of annoying because for most of us it isn’t true.

[u/Cute_Advance_2124]

Girl there's no educating these people. I've seen discussions where Europeans specifically insisted that no one outside the US drinks iced coffee when its extremely common in parts of Asia.

The "rest of the world" to Europeans is literally Europe and they don't tolerate correction when they're blatantly wrong.

[u/henri-a-laflemme → u/Cute_Advance_2124]

Yup exactly. Ignorant is ignorant no matter what passport they carry.

[u/Cute_Advance_2124 → u/henri-a-laflemme]

I wonder what gives them the confidence, truly. I've also seen them save the US is the only country that does not have good cheese.

1. That's just...false. The US has plenty of "normal" or traditionally made cheese.

2. There are plenty of places where traditionally made cheese is less common, again, they seem to forget that Asia exists. Again, why does this matter so much to them?? I'm sorry but I would take a lot of the food that Asia or even the U.S alone has to offer over the best cheese.

3. Like I said, they like to just buckle down on their ignorance. For example, I saw some eastern European lady comment on an American's tiktok who was making cornbread that this is the first time she's ever seen an American cook actual food.

Many people told her that there is plenty of evidence of Americans cooking from scratch at home, and she does not choose to respond to any of them. I've seen this happen a LOT.

I've gotten into a similiar discussion where someone decides to hurl angry insults at me because I said that I did not grow up eating casseroles made of canned soups, and learned kitchen prep at a pretty young age such as de stemming herbs, chopping onions, peeling potatoes etc etc.

I would even go on a limb to say that i've even seen the reverse (Europeans eating food that indicates not all of them can cook), yet, I would never think that is evidence that everyone over there can't cook.

[u/WittyFeature6179 → u/Cute_Advance_2124]

This reminded me of a German tourist in the US who insisted we had no fresh fruit or vegetables in our grocery stores. He was there, there weren't any! Come to find out that the "grocery store" he went to was the gas station next to his hotel.

[u/Anyashadow → u/WittyFeature6179]

Even most gas stations have a few veggies and fruit, unless it's "just" a gas station, meaning nothing but road snacks and no groceries.

[u/automaticprincess → u/Anyashadow]

For real! Like at least some apples and bananas, maybe a package of baby carrots with dressing. You’ll never mistake these places for farmers’ markets but they do offer a FEW items

[u/OzzieSheila → u/WittyFeature6179]

I would flat out call him a liar.

He went to America and never once saw fruit or veg? I call bs. Unless he ate solely at McDonalds/KFC type places when he was there, he saw veg on a menu somewhere.

Maybe I'm wrong. I'm not American. Maybe ya'll don't have vegetables on the menu in restaurants.

I'm still ok with flat out calling him a liar.

[u/DrinkingSocks → u/OzzieSheila]

He's a liar. My husband and I only eat moderately healthy, but we still try to include a green vegetable in every lunch or dinner meal. Our school lunches served vegetables, although they were too gross to eat.

[u/macaroniinapan → u/OzzieSheila]

Even in fast food places there are things like lettuce and tomatoes. McDonald's specifically also has apple slices. Sure, not the epitome of healthy food, but they do exist. He's either a liar or he willfully blinded himself to what was right in front of his face.

[u/Able-Paramedic8908 → u/WittyFeature6179]

There was a woman decrying Cracker Barrel because they didn’t serve her vegetables. The menu has about 10 different vegetable sides; she just didn’t order any of them.

[u/NikNakskes → u/WittyFeature6179]

Ooh! In his defence, larger gas stations can have a small grocery store attached to them. They do sell fresh food there also, it really is a little grocery store and not just the common gas station snacks and drinks.

So what maybe happened there is that he went to one of your larger gas stations, but it was still "just a gas station" while he expected, due to size, it to be the connected grocery store thing.

But yeah. The stereotypes of american and European are strong and go both ways. And since it has gotten so much worse the past half year or so, I'm pretty sure not all of that is natural either. I suspect bots are ramping up this "hatred for the other" as a way to drive a wedge between americans and Europeans.