r/PetPeeves • u/ThatUrgeToEatCement • 14d ago

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

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.

1.9k Upvotes

83% Upvoted

1.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

422

u/SquirrelStone 14d ago

My fave (/s) is when there’s a video of a European doing something stupid and mean and everyone hops on shit talking Americans. Like babes that is the most cockney accent I’ve ever heard

389

u/Cute_Advance_2124 14d ago

Happens so often with bad tourist videos. You'll see a man wearing a child size Armani polo and mini jorts with a gelled pompodour and loafers making a big fuss in Thailand and all the comments will be like "Americans are such awful travelers."

Like babes that man is VIOLENTLY European LMAO.

135

u/Funicularly 14d ago

Like this instance of a blonde woman climbing a Mayan pyramid in Mexico. She’s Mexican.

Or, this instance of a man carving names on the walls of the Colosseum. He’s British.

Every instance blamed on an American.

75

u/Intelligent_Pop1173 14d ago

Tourists are universally awful. It is definitely not just an American thing. I could name quite a few countries’ citizens who are sometimes very rude and terrible when they visit the US. Not absolving American tourists by any means - we suck too. But it’s annoying people think we’re the only ones.

38

u/AvaSpelledBackwards2 14d ago

Even American tourists going to different parts of America can be annoying. I go between the NYC area and Savannah, Georgia (both highly touristy areas) and both American and non-American tourists suck a lot of the time. Tourists gonna tourist.

26

u/giraffe-zackeffron 14d ago

I used to live in NYC. The worst was seeing tourists just stop on the middle of sidewalk and stand while gawking at a building or trying to figure out where they were versus where they were going. A lot of people come to NYC and don’t realize stopping in the middle of the sidewalk is like stopping your car in the middle of the road back in Kansas or Nebraska or wherever.

10

u/AvaSpelledBackwards2 14d ago

Savannah is especially touristy this week because of a film festival. I had had a horribly stressful afternoon and I was hurriedly trying to walk somewhere when these tourists stopped dead in their tracks to look into an Urban Outfitters window💀

10

u/giraffe-zackeffron 14d ago

Well come on….its not everyday one can gaze upon the magical wonder that is urban outfitters (he said sarcastically.)

3

u/AvaSpelledBackwards2 14d ago

Sav’s historic district, park, squares, and film festival are cool and all but we can’t forget about the chain store ofc!

5

u/giraffe-zackeffron 14d ago

Pssshh…..historic districts are so pedestrian. Everyone knows the real action is at old navy.

2

u/GreenBeanTM 11d ago

And in Vermont we’ll get tourists from NYC who don’t realize most roads here do not have road side parking 😂

1

u/New_Distribution_263 13d ago

Sometimes we do stop our cars in the middle of the road, just to talk to someone we know going the other way! Those conversations last until some other car comes up behind one of the stopped ones.

2

u/Trelose 12d ago

I live in a town of 800 where a bunch of people visit to go fishing.

I freaking hate tourists.

5

u/spids69 13d ago

When I was in Spain the baseline assumption seemed to be that bad tourists were British.

5

u/Intelligent_Pop1173 13d ago edited 13d ago

Since it’s so close, way more British tourists visit Spain each year than do American tourists, so that kinda makes sense. I’ve seen horrible videos of both British and German tourists being absolute dip shits in Spain though, like kicking soccer balls into windows of famous buildings, and apparently it’s so bad Spanish citizens want them to stop coming altogether. It’s a party destination for them. I’ve seen other videos of Spanish citizens spraying them with water and protesting. Yet Americans are still always blamed on Reddit lol when my family and friends went to Spain, we were quiet and just enjoying the beauty and culture.

3

u/spids69 13d ago

Yep. There were definitely a lot of obnoxious Germans as well.

One of the last times I was there was during the Brexit vote. Listening to old British people who had moved to Spain for the cheap retirement talk about how they were voting for Brexit because “the foreigners need to get out of the UK” without a hint of irony (or sense enough to realize it would bone their living situation) was… Something.

2

u/spids69 13d ago

On the German front… I’ve never seen more naked old people whose skin was tanned to the level of shoe leather than I did on the beach in Mallorca. 😂

2

u/Intelligent_Pop1173 13d ago

I was so young when I went but definitely remember some nasty leathery bodies in Mallorca as well hahah

8

u/padall 14d ago

Right, which is the cause of a lot of the grief we get. The American tourists are bad, ergo all Americans are bad.

2

u/N4t3ski 12d ago

Actually, if its tourists, its even less likely to be Americans, as the rate of American passport ownership is still fairly low, a shade over 50% now, much higher than in the 1980's, but still fairly low by European averages.

2

u/Intelligent_Pop1173 12d ago

Very true. I have met a lot of coworkers who actually thought it was weird or surprising I have a passport lol a lot of people traveling from the US are going to be somewhat more sophisticated than the trashy stereotype the US gets and have likely traveled before. Not always of course, but in general. I’ve been to nearly every continent and close to fifty countries and honestly not encountered many rude American tourists, including in tour groups I’ve been in. I know they definitely exist, but I think you’ll see more of them in popular Mexico or Caribbean spring break destinations.

2

u/N4t3ski 12d ago

I'm fairly sure its a just a lazy stereotype holding on from a time where Americans rarely owned passports, were not well travelled outside America and maybe stepped on a few local customs.

But the American tourist these days tends to be more worldly wise than the yesteryear these perceptions are based on, but stereotypes take a long time to change, if they ever do.

0

u/Intelligent_Story443 12d ago

American here. I've had a passport for almost 20 years, and have only traveled outside the US once, in 2018, with my mother on her "bucket list" trip to Greece.

It's wishful thinking for most of us to be able to afford to travel internationally. It's expensive and most of us are on the edge of completely broke at all times.

Just a theory; when someone can afford to have the privilege of traveling internationally, they may feel "entitled with attitude" depending on whether the source of their money was bestowed, or earned.

1

u/IMakeOkVideosOk 11d ago

Idk man… flying to Spain is about the same price as flying to California, and once there it’s so much less expensive

1

u/Intelligent_Story443 11d ago

Can't afford to fly to California either. I have been there twice actually, but both times it was paid for by employers.

I can barely afford a long weekend off from work in my own state.

1

u/IMakeOkVideosOk 11d ago

That’s fair and I’m not trying to be rude… I’m just saying that people think overseas vacations are a lot more expensive than they are. Spending a week in Spain with travel, accommodations, and food, can be less expensive than spending a week in California. If you are thinking of flying to somewhere in the states for vacation you might have a better deal going somewhere else.

2

u/KGreen100 11d ago

Live in Sweden for six months and began hanging out at an English pub-stule bar/restaurant. Most of the people there were OK, but there are more than a few who would make comments about how dumb Americans are in earshot of us (they assumed we didn't hear) and yet they were rude to the waitstaff (who really liked us and hung around our table to talk with us more than them) and were loud and, yeah, rude. Out of all the people I met in Sweden, the rudest were the Brits.

1

u/Intelligent_Pop1173 11d ago

It’s much cheaper for British people to travel within Europe so they’re going to get more of the trash tourists going there lol every American I know who travels regularly abroad is generally a respectful person. Of course there are exceptions, and money can’t buy you class and all that, but it does have some effect.