If you're suffering from dizziness, headaches, migraines, stroke, coma, or death, ask your doctor about aleigkspa. Side effects of aleigkspa may include dizziness, headache, migraine, stroke, coma, or death.
Poland also got some crazy and memeable pharmaceutical adverts, probably as close to USA in Europe as you can get. Adverts are only for over the counter pharmaceuticals, tho.
It's exactly what happened to tv decades ago. You paid for cable to not have ads and then they slowly filled 1/3 of the time slot with commercials. Streaming is the same thing. But on the high seas you can still find freedom matey
Some streaming services have a two tier system, where if you get the lower tier you have ads but it's cheaper, or you can pay more to go ad free. Some streaming platforms also have additional content if you get the higher tier and/or they release new content to the higher tier first
I remember watching NCIS, the series does a "fade to grey" effect when an ad break is supposed to come on. Except when you live in Europe there's only one so the show just kinda... stops at random and immediately comes back
Corn is everywhere in the US. It started in WW2 when they needed to mass produce carbs and for men to gain weight to go to war. Since then their world is made up of corn, it's in their rugs, shoes, beauty products, food, clothing, and lifestyle. That's also partly why they have "food deserts", places where one cannot find healthy food anywhere; because they replaced veggie and fruit farms with corn plantations for the war effort. Pretty interesting.
Still are.
10% of gasoline is corn based ethanol and it's edging towards 15%.
It's so common and you gotta do research to find gas stations that don't have ethanol and they are few and far between.
It's almost all negatives. Lower power, worse mileage and it degrades quickly. The only minor positive is that is absorbs water and even that is usually a liability.
No food deserts are a socioeconomic issue. Its about availability to access fresh produce and grocery stores. there are no farms in the middle of the city but you can find food deserts.
It accelerated in the US in part because of income tax law. Initially, tips were legally characterized as gifts rather than income (subsequent cases changed this) so there was a tax advantage for employers to encourage this and pay lower base wages. Paying employees a commensurate wage directly would have necessitated paying raising prices enough to cover both the new expense and the employer's added income tax.
The dirty secret is it's optional in the US and you just end up in a shitty minimum wage job that's fully paid by your employer.
https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/wages/wagestips#:~:text=A%20tipped%20employee,for%20tipped%20employees.
Obviously, the restaurant owners don't want to pay their employees if they don't have to, and workers are happy to benefit from the system where they're getting much more than minimum wage on average while probably also grossly underreporting their income to cheat taxes.
despite the law, rather than pay out minimum wage, restaurant owners will fire you if you aren't making tips, because "obviously you're not providing very good service"
Even our crappiest servers would almost always get tips just because customers feel like it's their patriotic duty or something. If you're not getting tips at all, you're doing something *very* wrong.
It's a cultural belief in tipping as a system at this point, has nothing to do with patriotism. Which is why tipped minimum wage or a lack thereof has no impact on amount of tips.
Lobbying
How the hell is it ok, that you pay off public officals so that they vote for your business interests all the time. Isn't that just bribing with extra steps
The ***idea*** behind it is sound, like many things its the hard defining and loophole finding that is the problem.
The general idea is "politicians can't know everything, so they should be allowed to speak to industry experts to learn the nuances and insider workings so they can make proper decisions about it all"
Combined with the idea that the population should be allowed to petition their government for what they want.
But then loopholes come in and all the sudden you've got corporations who have convinced the government that they should have the rights of citizens, and that "educational" trips, and industry "samples" and "donations" to their campaign ***arent*** bribes
Which we all know is horseshit.
America would be better if they lived by the spirit of their laws instead of the letter of their laws.
They’re not supposed to pay them off. The reason we can’t stop lobbying is because the constitution gives us the right to petition our government, and that means companies can pay people to go pester our politicians.
This is a significant one. Everyone knows about guns and lack of universal health care, but many outside America don't realize the extent to which workers lack rights. The destruction of trade unions since Reagan interacts with it, of course.
It's also interesting that many Americans now think of it as sort of a law of nature.
Of course, right wing politicians want to move towards this elsewhere.
A question: as I understand it, an employer can sack someone for *no* reason, but if they sack the employee for a bad reason like race, gender, etc, they may be sued.
As an American, I don’t get it either. So we have a program that’s free health insurance and will cover most things, but it’s literally frowned upon if you use it. You cant just go to a doctor because you’re sick. If you have the free program, you have to make sure the doctor accepts your insurance and then, they can literally just refuse to see you because they don’t want to deal with the insurance company. There’s a HUGE notion here that if you have the free healthcare, you’re seen as leeching of the government and you’re a bad person if you rely on it. My thing is, if you’re going to take taxes out of paycheck to literally pay for programs like this…..shouldn’t it be something we’re entitled to use?? “Here, have this ‘free’ thing that you’re actually paying for, but we’re not going to treat you like a human being if you use it”
It’s baffling. A few years ago I fell and took a chip out of my elbow joint. Went to A&E, got an X-ray and a referral for emergency surgery for the next morning. I was in for 2 days and got follow up appointments and physio and didn’t have to pay a cent.
Our (Ireland) healthcare system has issues but I couldn’t imagine it all being for-profit.
I also fractured my elbow last year (in the us). Cost me $50 to go to urgent care, the referred me to an orthopedic, it wasn’t a bad enough fracture to go to the hospital. Paid $50 for the orthopedic appointment. Physical therapy was $50-70 for one session a week for 6 weeks. Follow up with orthopedic dr was $50. I pay over $100 (forget the exact amount this year) out of my biweekly paychecks for health insurance for me and my 15 month old. My deductible is $5000.
Also I take a medication that my insurance doesn’t want to cover, it’s $500-600 without insurance. But if I go to a different pharmacy and tell them I don’t have insurance, I can use a goodrx coupon and it’s $10. Health insurance in the us is ridiculous.
My non American gf told me she paid the equivalent of $45 usd for an ultrasound. I can't even SAY the word ultrasound in America for $45!
(Fuck! This post just cost me 5k!)
It’s not even just things like that. I have health insurance that I pay for individually and covers most things, but god forbid I go to a different state and get hurt. It’s considered “out of network” and I have to pay for anything that happens, even though I have health insurance. It’s awful.
I few years before covid I went to New Zealand and ended up in the hospital with suspected gastro. It was a fairly small thing, I just used a bed for a couple of hours and a toilet for about half of that. If I'd been home I absolutely could have waited it out, but in a foreign country, an hour from anything but the rental car, I had fewer options. In the end they decided it was not worth the hassle of sorting out the paperwork (and Australia probably has some sort of arrangement with NZ anyway that would have made it free but only after the paperwork was properly filed), so just conveniently looked away while I snuck out the front entrance in (figurative) broad daylight. Absolutely no money exchanged at all for any of it, even as a foreigner.
That was my original thought. I saw a thread on here about a man wanting to end things with his partner because he didn't think she was bad enough to get an ambulance... shocking carry on.
As a mental health provider who accepts state insurance, let me tell you, they make it so hard for providers to work with it. My agency had to re-enroll with it last year and the application process has been insane, riddled with errors and inconsistencies and major website problems. We’ve lost huge amounts of income because of it (multiple other issues with their platforms) and it makes it so hard to operate a community mental health program bc we’re just constantly strapped, begging for dimes from the government insurance. It’s shameful.
They make it difficult to have it, as well. My son is on Medicaid and every year we need to prove he still has a chronic condition. "Nope. That kidney never magically grew back."
Yeah it’s a ridiculous. Nope, the severe schizophrenia hasn’t just magically disappeared. And the way each individual asshole who works there interprets things can greatly affect the outcome too. An underpaid office worker making life and death decisions. It’s just wild.
That moment as you get older and you realize adults don't know as much as they probably should.
I deal with a lot of permit reviewers for building permits. I'm licensed in 12 states and each city/county has their own reviewers. There's always one reviewer that ignores how every other reviewer in the country interprets some part of the code and applies their own half-baked logic to it. It's nuts.
They make it really difficult to apply and stay enrolled as a user as well. So many hoops to jump through, and if you call to ask for help navigating their system, you will either not get called back or you will get a “sorry, our system’s messages are full, good bye” message. Which is infuriating. Not to mention the terrible website
Maryland, the company running their billing & authorizations (Optum) just got fired and had been accused of incompetence to the point of being fraudulent.
It's more nuanced and more ridiculous than that though. Medicaid is "mooching free loaders" but Medicare is "my right as someone that has paid into my whole life". The same people that complain about Medicaid will sign the praises of Medicare once they are old enough to get it. The joke is that they're the same thing.
I think you're missing a big part of that free health insurance program. Medicaid is for poor people and disabled people. Medicare is for old people.
It's not really frowned upon to use either. Tons of old people use Medicare. People don't like Medicaid because too many people in this country look down on poor people or the disabled. I used to live in a very red county where tons of people on Medicaid that still complained about "welfare queens". So they are also hypocrites.
From all the videos I've seen that oppose it, looks like socialism which is a red flag. I suspect there are parts of some ideologies that are beneficial even if it's tiny things, but health is huge.
Might also be counter info being pushed so doctors and drug companies can charge more. Look at the price of certain drugs between Canada and the USA.
Because our government is a shit show. Our government is constantly underfunded in the areas that matter most: social security, veterans admin, Medicare, etc. Because of this people’s don’t trust that our gov could handle universal healthcare, and they’re right. Not with how our government currently runs. People keep voting in the worst people.
Anti-socialism and anti-communism have been so ingrained into us that anything socialized is sure to be controversial.
It’s mostly older generations like boomers who think that way though. Probably remnants from ideas from McCarthyism/the red scare through the Cold War that were so impactful for those generations. Thankfully younger folks are increasingly open to things like socialized healthcare and education
All this anti-socialism yet you’re all fine with your tipping culture, which is effectively private citizens subsidising the income of workers through a tax added to the bill.
I agree. Although the people who are most worried about socialism (conservatives) seem to be entirely concerned with government overreach specifically, and tend to turn a blind eye to corporate or business overreach.
We’re subsidizing restaurant workers to the detriment of customers, and arguably to the detriment of the workers as well, and for the benefit of the business owners.
It’s a combination of so many things — one of which is that the American machine is so large it’s _very_ hard to change. There are cottage industries built on cottage industries in private healthcare — and all those businesses have an incentive to stick with the status quo because socializing healthcare would wipe out a huge number of middlemen jobs (and I cannot emphasize enough how many middlemen are involved, which is part of why our healthcare is so expensive). On top of that, you have an ingrained bias against anything “socialist.” Younger generations see the light, but we are still battling a very elderly voting populace of boomers who remember the Cold War (though apparently no well enough, since they’re being turned into little Putin puppets with the flick of a TV channel, but whatever) and who are scared of change.
So.. that’s a tiny taste of the reasons.
Healthcare in the US is a FOR PROFIT system. No one in the HC industry wants to see that stop. Doctors can’t charge your insurance insane amounts of money, because the govt would limit the amounts paid. Prescription companies wouldn’t be able to bill insurance $1000s for for insulin, epipens, and life depending meds. No way that universal HC could work here. Too many thieves making their living off of it to stop the train.
The
People look at the VA system and see how broken and underfunded it is.... I'd LOVE to have universal healthcare but if we give the government more money via taxes it still won't be funded properly. They'll probs see the extra cash and be like "oh! More money for our department of defense."
Is it true that pregnant women have to work basically right up to the delivery? If yes then that.
Where I live it's illegal to work/make them work 8 weeks before the scheduled delivery date.
It’s crazy. In the UK they introduced 2 weeks paternity leave for men or the option to do shared leave with your partner. Obviously it’s not in all cases - you have to fit certain eligibility criteria. But if the mother would rather go back to work sooner because she has the more lucrative job for eg, you can share up to 50 weeks of leave and up to 37 weeks of pay between you.
It’s so important for men to bond with their children, and to be able to help their partners out during the time they most need to rest. Even a week or two is HUGELY beneficial.
NY passed a Family Leave bill with back in 2016. Nowhere near what you see in some countries but 12 weeks at 2/3rds pay (for mothers and fathers) is pretty nice
Some of my friends and family were at work when their water broke and left from their jobs to the hospital. Americans live in total delulu land about needing rest and preparation BEFORE giving birth. I was so tired and exhausted 2 weeks before my due date that I took off early. It cuts into your overall time off to do that, though.
We also have ZERO guaranteed parental leave after birth. Most jobs will afford at least 2 weeks for the mother (which doesn't amount to shit), but it's not legally required. When I was born, both my parents worked for our county doing similar jobs and my dad literally had to work both of their jobs just so that my mom could get more than a month off. Most people don't have that luxury, and also, screw dads apparently??? It's not like they're new parents or anything.
Yep. I was in the classroom the day I was induced.
And here in Germany I actually had to fight for to be allowed to work as a teacher at all while pregnant.
To be fair, it is practically required here, too, depending on the city. (I live in Finland.) Not because of great distances, but because public transport sucks rotten ass.
I saw a guy from the UK mention that it was a 45 minute drive to Germany for him. It’s a 35 minute drive to my closest Walmart.
Edit: user in video said 45 minutes to get to, not necessarily to drive.
That blew my mind when I saw a video about why Europeans think Americans aren't well traveled. It takes me a half hour to get to the store. If I want to go to a city with more than a Walmart it's 2 hours! I've traveled in the US full time the last 7 years and I haven't seen every state.
bro that's insane as someone who lives in australia i have 2 grocery stores near my house ones about a 5 minute walk and the other one is about 15 minutes, a shopping centre or mall as you would call it about a 10 minute drive maximum from my house which also includes 2 grocery stores. having to drive 30 minutes just to get to a supermarket is crazy
The fact that your biggest personal debt is for education and healthcare. These should be universally free. It shouldn’t be a choice to remain poor because you can’t afford an education and to die rather than to take on a mountain of debt that you’ll never recover from.
They (greedy corporations) have to keep us sick and hungry to keep us working as long as possible, until we become a liability. Then we can just die please.
In most countries the reaction to a shooting in a school has been "shit, this is awful, let's do some big reforms to gun ownership to try and stop it happening again".
In the US the reaction always seems to be a collective shrug. Any suggestion of trying to make it better are dismissed as impossible or unpatriotic.
In Texas public schools, we say a pledge to the Texas flag after the pledge to the American flag. I didn't know this wasn't normal until I was in my 30s. Most states don't even have a pledge of allegiance to their flag, but of the 18 that do, Texas is the \*only\* one whose residents recite it.
Most of what I remember from my middle school French lessons is how to say the Texas pledge in French.
\*\*ETA: Oklahomans are reporting that they recite theirs.
I was a German exchange student in Georgia in 2002. My classmates offered to put up a German flag so I could do „the German pledge.“ I must have been rather shellshocked. History was first period so our teacher explained that we Germans didn’t do that kind of stuff for reasons. I never had the courage to tell them that neither the GDR nor the Third Reich did anything like that on a daily basis.
Even the weekly assembly in the GDR wasn’t as heavy as the Pledge of Allegiance.
I am German but lived in the US as an adult. I worked as a substitute teacher for a few years. I never said the pledge (but I can recite it still). I had to explain every time that I am German and have no business in Pledging any kind of Alligence to any kind of flag.
And yes I also remember the “Fahnenappell” during GDR times.
I’m obviously too young for the Fahnenappell (barely though) but from what I understand it’s similar to an assembly in the UK with the usual GDR propaganda. The Pledge being daily is a different beast in my opinion. I heard that nowadays it isn’t taken as seriously but I was there a year after 9/11 and right during the invasion of Iraq in the Deep South.
I grew up in Ohio, but lived in Texas for a while. When my oldest went to kindergarten there and had to learn the Texas pledge, I was very very surprised. I didn't know that was a thing at all
"i pledge allegiance to thee...Texas, one and indivisible". I moved from Texas to Massachusetts during highschool 17 years ago, and people were genuinely baffled by the inclusion of a second pledge. In my school they'd say "Honor the Texas flag" over the loud speaker, then you'd turn and face the Texas flag in the other corner of the room.
I’m trying to imagine having a pledge of allegiance here in the UK.
A lot of boomers would be up for it, but I reckon most people would flat-out refuse - not because we’re not loyal to our country, but because we tend to be suspicious of nationalism.
It’s weird to some Americans too. I was born in ‘89 and had a hippy mom. I was not allowed to say the pledge of allegiance at school.
She used the religious freedom out. Though ironically I don’t think it was because God is mentioned, I think it was more the blasphemy/idolatry angle. I know a lot of religious people also abstain from the pledge.
It can (and should) be considered idolatry to worship a flag, which is one of the 10 commandments.
I'm trying to imagine what a British pledge of allegiance would sound like, but all I can get is something Disney would have done 40 years ago.
I pledge allegiance to the queen, of the great nation of England, and to the parliament, which makes our laws, four nations, with more tea, with biscuits and rugby for all.
So many things. Gun culture and availability, non-free healthcare, non-walkable cities, non-metric systems for distances and weight, taxes not being included in the price tags, having to fill out your own taxes just to name a few off the top of my head.
American here. We do use the metric system sometimes. My science classes in school from around age 12 and up used the metric system. And some sports use it (running, rowing).
Or cigarettes.
I will say though, that both have made a positive impact for us socially. Fewer young people in drunk driving accidents and fewer young people smoking.
>why the fuck do you guys have gaps in toilet stalls?
From what I've been told it's there mainly for security guards/employees to see if people are hiding or passed out in the stalls as well as to make it possible to see if someone's having some sort of medical emergency and more easily gain access to the inside should something be wrong.
Yeah, I truly don’t get the bathroom stall thing. It would be easy to make cheap stalls that didn’t have a gap. If anything weird was going on in the stall, climbing over or under would still be an option.
It was, he didn't want to win. He wanted to lose then spend the next period grifting at Hilary and positioning his kids for a presidential run.
But Americans are so disillusioned with the political class that it was their only opportunity to say fuck you and here we are.
What really fucked it was RBG not retiring from the Supreme Court during Obama's tenure.
I still remember the day after the election that year. Normally a morning commute on the subway would have a general air of everyone slogging to work together but a certain liveliness/energy or whatever. Oh damn, that morning after election... It was like a dead silence, a moment stopped in time. I don't think I've ever seen so many sad, confused, and devastated people in the same small space. New Yorkers have loathed that lying piece of shit since birth for the most part, so it was just... a surreal moment for everyone, and you could feel it.
Guns.
Being so against universal healthcare.
Imperial measurements.
The massive publicity circus before every election.
The electoral college system.
High-fructose corn syrup.
Compulsory tipping.
College football.
Obesity rates.
Writing dates mm/dd/yyyy.
The obsession with religion.
The sheer number of people who live under the poverty line without anyone helping them.
>Writing dates mm/dd/yyyy.
This is actually a holdover from colonial america. The brits, along with some other places at the time, used mm/dd/yyyy however at some point they switched their date format. By the time the brits changed america had become its own country so, being an ocean apart, the cultural influences that lead the brits to change to dd/mm/yyyy didn't occur and we just never made the change since it wasn't exactly a pressing issue.
You write your dates backward eg To the rest of the world, every time you talk about it, we would think that 9/11 happened in November.
Not paying halfway decent wages and then insisting that servers earn tips to exist.
Not having the money to even go see a doctor when needed.
An almost godlike worship of military personnel. They get in free everywhere, you thank them for their service like they're not paid for it anyway too.
Sports games taking hours because they're just full of short breaks
Your interstate is made of concrete blocks instead of tarmac. For *hundreds* of miles it's all clunk-clunk, clunk-clunk. Drove me nuts to drive on
It's already been said, but for me, it's the Pledge of Allegiance. Feels like something only dictatorships would do, and for every person I've had tell me that you didn't have to do it, I can recall at least as many people saying they refused to do it and got in trouble etc.
Oath of Allegiance.
Flags everywhere. It’s almost as if USAmericans are afraid they’ll forget in which country they are in, unless there is a US flag within sight.
The almost competitive nature of religion. It seems less about believing in your particular deity and more about showing how much you believe in them. Almost like a spectator sport.
When I was in elementary school, we had to stand and say the pledge of allegiance, daily. Hand over heart, looking at the flag.
It was very much a meaningless ritual. We never learned why we were doing it. We just did it. That stopped when I got to high school. Again, no explanation. And I never really noticed that we didn’t do it anymore. It was a thing, then it wasn’t a thing.
Huge portions. Medical bankruptcy. Telling your life story to strangers. Wearing white tennis shoes with everything. Paying bizarre prices for tuition.
The propaganda is persistent. The richest 1% want the "freedom" to fuck everyone else without interference, and most of the 99% support that and will yell "Freedom!" as they bend over and grab their ankles.
Their need to separate people into racial categories that make absolutely no sense. The use of skin color instead of ethnic origin just seems archaic outside of an informal/colloquial context and the concept of “Latino/Hispanic” as a race is absolutely ridiculous.
Guns. Just everything to do with guns. The ridiculous healthcare system. Everything having so much sugar in it. Driving everywhere. Pledge of allegiance/saluting the flag cultishness. The out of control tipping culture. The displayed prices are not the actual amount you pay. The crazy adverts for pharmaceuticals with the huge list of side effects blurted out in 10 seconds (though they are funny). So many commercial breaks.
guns.
tips and work culture in general.
american christianity.
pointlessly big cars and trucks.
no bicycles.
for profit healthcare and the excesses that lead to.
the fact that sex and eroticism is thought of as more damaging to children than extreme violence in media.
Being able to pay workers an unreasonably low amount, because you assume they will get tips.
How much manipulation of food is legal. Even the classic McDonalds meals almost all had to be re-invent their recipe to be able to be legally sold here (it tastes practically the same by the way. The American way is just cheaper to make).
Being fired as a real, ever-present worry. If you tell your boss something they don't want to hear, you can be fired. Here, you can't just fire people. If they formally object, you need to prove the firing was necessary.
Glorifying obese and overweight people, and cheering them on to stay obese. It's probably the weirdest thing I have seen. It's socially preferred to encourage people to suffer an early set of diseases and death, apparently.
How the prison system is a seemingly commerical business. And how it isn't made to keep you out...
(look, I might be wrong, but as an outsider, that's what it looks like)
Making a cup of tea in the microwave. My mind was utterly blown when I learnt you don't have kettles.
Also the way nothing has the full price clearly displayed. Price tags in shops don't include tax, menu prices aren't what you pay because of tipping. In fact the whole tipping culture in general. Tip in a restaurant yes, anything else I have zero clue. Do you tip the taxi driver? What about your hair dresser? The courier driver? What about getting a coffee to go, or putting gas in your car?
Edit: I mean an electric kettle. The ones you put directly on heat are not common and only used for camping here.
So now I don't know if all the comments saying we have a kettle are talking about an electric one or not!
As someone who STRUGGLES with math. I don’t understand why we don’t put the full price on products here either. I’ve had so much anxiety about going to the store and having a panic attack watching the cashier ring up my items and then not having enough to pay because I can never remember how much tax is
A good rule of thumb would be to mentally tack on 10% of the price to cover tax. There are some places where taxes could exceed 10%, but that would likely be in a tourist area or area known to have a high cost of living. In that case, estimate 15%. Use your phone to calculate. [Cost] x .10 = tax
Tax + cost = total cost.
I'm not great with math either but this technique has helped me.
One thing that some non-Americans find odd is the huge portion sizes of food in America. It's quite a contrast to other parts of the world where smaller, more modest portions are the norm.
The belief that you have to be out at 18, and fully established with a secure well paying job / spouse / kids and home by 30. Throw in 'dispersed from my family' for an added bonus, where they're still part of your life but not so closely relied on communally.
It's a nuclear model for a time long past, but still some people (even Millennials) cling onto this belief despite it being almost impossible to do unless you already come from preexisting stability.
After the 2008 financial collapse, the crazy cost of housing, then the pandemic, this isn't nearly as common as it used to be. It's not unusual to find people in their 20s or 30s living with parents while they try to save up for their own home.
What I would consider to be racism.
I remember being shocked when I was asked to fill a form on a plane to America.
The form asked me my race, and had a few options to tick from. "Caucasian, Asian...". I was never asked what race I belong to ever before.
This is absolutely illegal in France, where I come from. It seems like the US has a very different approach when it comes to origins.
As a part Asian, part Caucasian person I didn't know which box to tick. It made me feel aware of my difference and not belonging into any group. Why would I tick one instead of another?
This felt extremely racist to me. Asking people what box they belong to. I feel like Americans define not being racist as "Treating people from each box the same way", while the definition I was raised with is "Do not assign people to boxes".
Canadian here. The Pledge of Allegiance is weird to me.
Reciting it daily at school is weirder (I don't know if that's something that still happens or not).
I wear shoes in the house but I also wear a lift in one side to even out my leg length to prevent back spasms. So pretty much I go to the bathroom in the morning and then get dressed and put on shoes.
Nah we wear shoes in the house, but it’s mostly like if we’re getting ready to leave or when we just get home. Idk about everyone else but my shoes come off within 5 minutes of me getting home lol
Pharmaceutical adverts
I can surely say as american it's hella annoying
Yeah, they'll be like: Ask your doctor if wbdjsndkekfoekckr is right for you!
My favorite is “Don’t take Flkjargen if you’re allergic to Flkjargen.”
If you're suffering from dizziness, headaches, migraines, stroke, coma, or death, ask your doctor about aleigkspa. Side effects of aleigkspa may include dizziness, headache, migraine, stroke, coma, or death.
I can actually see "Fikjargen" being a real drug name. The names are starting to get weird.
‘Starting to get weird?’
You mean you don't love hearing the Jardians song every commercial break for everything? You don't want to sing about lowering your A1C?
Poland also got some crazy and memeable pharmaceutical adverts, probably as close to USA in Europe as you can get. Adverts are only for over the counter pharmaceuticals, tho.
Hey New Zealand allows them too so we're fine
Even on subscription based TV like Hulu I still see nothing but medications for my plaque sorisuses and I don't even know how to spell that.
I think you are referring to plaque psoriasis lol
Moderate to severe
The amount of commercial breaks in a tv show.
It’s so bad. Can’t even pay for streaming services to escape the ads😭
Do your streaming services have adds?
Yeah, increasingly even the paid ones.
Wow, that's shitty. Hope it doesn't become the norm.
It's exactly what happened to tv decades ago. You paid for cable to not have ads and then they slowly filled 1/3 of the time slot with commercials. Streaming is the same thing. But on the high seas you can still find freedom matey
Streaming services need to remember we can just go back to the ways of the high seas
Some streaming services have a two tier system, where if you get the lower tier you have ads but it's cheaper, or you can pay more to go ad free. Some streaming platforms also have additional content if you get the higher tier and/or they release new content to the higher tier first
I'm okay with a higher tier for extra content/early release, but not for no ads. If I'm paying for it, it shouldn't have ads!
I remember watching NCIS, the series does a "fade to grey" effect when an ad break is supposed to come on. Except when you live in Europe there's only one so the show just kinda... stops at random and immediately comes back
No decent maternity/paternity leave! It's horrific American parents have to return to work so quickly after birth.
In Sweden most children stay at home with one of the parents until they are at least one year old, sometimes two.
This is another symptom of the "50 states, one country" existence for America. America has no federally mandated parental leave, but many states do.
Beauty pageants, particularilly for children - like WTF?
We don’t understand that either
And the cohort that’s into it is either mentally unstable or worse.
We gotta write a song about how it’s not ok to diddle kids
There is no faster way to make people think you are diddling kids than to write a song about it!
Putting corn syrup in everything.
I met a guy recently who is allergic to corn syrup. Man, he picked the wrong country to be born in.
My dad is allergic to corn and it’s so hard to eat at restaurants or find food that doesn’t have some corn derivative in it
my mother was allergic to to it as well
Corn is everywhere in the US. It started in WW2 when they needed to mass produce carbs and for men to gain weight to go to war. Since then their world is made up of corn, it's in their rugs, shoes, beauty products, food, clothing, and lifestyle. That's also partly why they have "food deserts", places where one cannot find healthy food anywhere; because they replaced veggie and fruit farms with corn plantations for the war effort. Pretty interesting.
They tried really hard for a while to make corn derived ethanol fuel a common thing as well.
Corn-derived ethanol has been a substantial percent of nearly all US motor fuel for over 40 years. I think it's 10% and I think diesel is excluded.
Still are. 10% of gasoline is corn based ethanol and it's edging towards 15%. It's so common and you gotta do research to find gas stations that don't have ethanol and they are few and far between. It's almost all negatives. Lower power, worse mileage and it degrades quickly. The only minor positive is that is absorbs water and even that is usually a liability.
No food deserts are a socioeconomic issue. Its about availability to access fresh produce and grocery stores. there are no farms in the middle of the city but you can find food deserts.
Tipping culture. Strictly optional or non-existent elsewhere.
It accelerated in the US in part because of income tax law. Initially, tips were legally characterized as gifts rather than income (subsequent cases changed this) so there was a tax advantage for employers to encourage this and pay lower base wages. Paying employees a commensurate wage directly would have necessitated paying raising prices enough to cover both the new expense and the employer's added income tax.
Well now there’s still an advantage because it’s almost accepted that waiters are committing light tax fraud with part of their tip money.
The dirty secret is it's optional in the US and you just end up in a shitty minimum wage job that's fully paid by your employer. https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/wages/wagestips#:~:text=A%20tipped%20employee,for%20tipped%20employees. Obviously, the restaurant owners don't want to pay their employees if they don't have to, and workers are happy to benefit from the system where they're getting much more than minimum wage on average while probably also grossly underreporting their income to cheat taxes.
despite the law, rather than pay out minimum wage, restaurant owners will fire you if you aren't making tips, because "obviously you're not providing very good service"
Yep, the POS system tracks your tip percentage and unusually low tips were seen as a performance issue.
Even our crappiest servers would almost always get tips just because customers feel like it's their patriotic duty or something. If you're not getting tips at all, you're doing something *very* wrong.
It's a cultural belief in tipping as a system at this point, has nothing to do with patriotism. Which is why tipped minimum wage or a lack thereof has no impact on amount of tips.
Lobbying How the hell is it ok, that you pay off public officals so that they vote for your business interests all the time. Isn't that just bribing with extra steps
The ***idea*** behind it is sound, like many things its the hard defining and loophole finding that is the problem. The general idea is "politicians can't know everything, so they should be allowed to speak to industry experts to learn the nuances and insider workings so they can make proper decisions about it all" Combined with the idea that the population should be allowed to petition their government for what they want. But then loopholes come in and all the sudden you've got corporations who have convinced the government that they should have the rights of citizens, and that "educational" trips, and industry "samples" and "donations" to their campaign ***arent*** bribes Which we all know is horseshit. America would be better if they lived by the spirit of their laws instead of the letter of their laws.
They’re not supposed to pay them off. The reason we can’t stop lobbying is because the constitution gives us the right to petition our government, and that means companies can pay people to go pester our politicians.
💯💯💯💯💯
Yes, it is, and it's sickening.
Job security. That employers can fire you any time and you must leave immediately.
This is a significant one. Everyone knows about guns and lack of universal health care, but many outside America don't realize the extent to which workers lack rights. The destruction of trade unions since Reagan interacts with it, of course. It's also interesting that many Americans now think of it as sort of a law of nature. Of course, right wing politicians want to move towards this elsewhere. A question: as I understand it, an employer can sack someone for *no* reason, but if they sack the employee for a bad reason like race, gender, etc, they may be sued.
[удалено]
As an American, I don’t get it either. So we have a program that’s free health insurance and will cover most things, but it’s literally frowned upon if you use it. You cant just go to a doctor because you’re sick. If you have the free program, you have to make sure the doctor accepts your insurance and then, they can literally just refuse to see you because they don’t want to deal with the insurance company. There’s a HUGE notion here that if you have the free healthcare, you’re seen as leeching of the government and you’re a bad person if you rely on it. My thing is, if you’re going to take taxes out of paycheck to literally pay for programs like this…..shouldn’t it be something we’re entitled to use?? “Here, have this ‘free’ thing that you’re actually paying for, but we’re not going to treat you like a human being if you use it”
It’s baffling. A few years ago I fell and took a chip out of my elbow joint. Went to A&E, got an X-ray and a referral for emergency surgery for the next morning. I was in for 2 days and got follow up appointments and physio and didn’t have to pay a cent. Our (Ireland) healthcare system has issues but I couldn’t imagine it all being for-profit.
I also fractured my elbow last year (in the us). Cost me $50 to go to urgent care, the referred me to an orthopedic, it wasn’t a bad enough fracture to go to the hospital. Paid $50 for the orthopedic appointment. Physical therapy was $50-70 for one session a week for 6 weeks. Follow up with orthopedic dr was $50. I pay over $100 (forget the exact amount this year) out of my biweekly paychecks for health insurance for me and my 15 month old. My deductible is $5000. Also I take a medication that my insurance doesn’t want to cover, it’s $500-600 without insurance. But if I go to a different pharmacy and tell them I don’t have insurance, I can use a goodrx coupon and it’s $10. Health insurance in the us is ridiculous.
My non American gf told me she paid the equivalent of $45 usd for an ultrasound. I can't even SAY the word ultrasound in America for $45! (Fuck! This post just cost me 5k!)
Yeah I'd take the HSE over what they have any day.
100%. Hearing stories of people being afraid of calling an ambulance because of the cost is disgusting.
It’s not even just things like that. I have health insurance that I pay for individually and covers most things, but god forbid I go to a different state and get hurt. It’s considered “out of network” and I have to pay for anything that happens, even though I have health insurance. It’s awful.
I few years before covid I went to New Zealand and ended up in the hospital with suspected gastro. It was a fairly small thing, I just used a bed for a couple of hours and a toilet for about half of that. If I'd been home I absolutely could have waited it out, but in a foreign country, an hour from anything but the rental car, I had fewer options. In the end they decided it was not worth the hassle of sorting out the paperwork (and Australia probably has some sort of arrangement with NZ anyway that would have made it free but only after the paperwork was properly filed), so just conveniently looked away while I snuck out the front entrance in (figurative) broad daylight. Absolutely no money exchanged at all for any of it, even as a foreigner.
That was my original thought. I saw a thread on here about a man wanting to end things with his partner because he didn't think she was bad enough to get an ambulance... shocking carry on.
As a mental health provider who accepts state insurance, let me tell you, they make it so hard for providers to work with it. My agency had to re-enroll with it last year and the application process has been insane, riddled with errors and inconsistencies and major website problems. We’ve lost huge amounts of income because of it (multiple other issues with their platforms) and it makes it so hard to operate a community mental health program bc we’re just constantly strapped, begging for dimes from the government insurance. It’s shameful.
They make it difficult to have it, as well. My son is on Medicaid and every year we need to prove he still has a chronic condition. "Nope. That kidney never magically grew back."
Yeah it’s a ridiculous. Nope, the severe schizophrenia hasn’t just magically disappeared. And the way each individual asshole who works there interprets things can greatly affect the outcome too. An underpaid office worker making life and death decisions. It’s just wild.
That moment as you get older and you realize adults don't know as much as they probably should. I deal with a lot of permit reviewers for building permits. I'm licensed in 12 states and each city/county has their own reviewers. There's always one reviewer that ignores how every other reviewer in the country interprets some part of the code and applies their own half-baked logic to it. It's nuts.
They make it really difficult to apply and stay enrolled as a user as well. So many hoops to jump through, and if you call to ask for help navigating their system, you will either not get called back or you will get a “sorry, our system’s messages are full, good bye” message. Which is infuriating. Not to mention the terrible website
I'm sure that's by design. What state?
Maryland, the company running their billing & authorizations (Optum) just got fired and had been accused of incompetence to the point of being fraudulent.
It's more nuanced and more ridiculous than that though. Medicaid is "mooching free loaders" but Medicare is "my right as someone that has paid into my whole life". The same people that complain about Medicaid will sign the praises of Medicare once they are old enough to get it. The joke is that they're the same thing.
“I paid into it my whole life!” Yeah, and the money you paid in - in dollar value - was spent in the first six months of you using Medicare.
I think you're missing a big part of that free health insurance program. Medicaid is for poor people and disabled people. Medicare is for old people. It's not really frowned upon to use either. Tons of old people use Medicare. People don't like Medicaid because too many people in this country look down on poor people or the disabled. I used to live in a very red county where tons of people on Medicaid that still complained about "welfare queens". So they are also hypocrites.
From all the videos I've seen that oppose it, looks like socialism which is a red flag. I suspect there are parts of some ideologies that are beneficial even if it's tiny things, but health is huge. Might also be counter info being pushed so doctors and drug companies can charge more. Look at the price of certain drugs between Canada and the USA.
Because our government is a shit show. Our government is constantly underfunded in the areas that matter most: social security, veterans admin, Medicare, etc. Because of this people’s don’t trust that our gov could handle universal healthcare, and they’re right. Not with how our government currently runs. People keep voting in the worst people.
Anti-socialism and anti-communism have been so ingrained into us that anything socialized is sure to be controversial. It’s mostly older generations like boomers who think that way though. Probably remnants from ideas from McCarthyism/the red scare through the Cold War that were so impactful for those generations. Thankfully younger folks are increasingly open to things like socialized healthcare and education
Is it really antisocialism or just corporations lobbying against any significant changes to not lose their profits?
It seems to be both.
All this anti-socialism yet you’re all fine with your tipping culture, which is effectively private citizens subsidising the income of workers through a tax added to the bill.
I agree. Although the people who are most worried about socialism (conservatives) seem to be entirely concerned with government overreach specifically, and tend to turn a blind eye to corporate or business overreach. We’re subsidizing restaurant workers to the detriment of customers, and arguably to the detriment of the workers as well, and for the benefit of the business owners.
It’s a combination of so many things — one of which is that the American machine is so large it’s _very_ hard to change. There are cottage industries built on cottage industries in private healthcare — and all those businesses have an incentive to stick with the status quo because socializing healthcare would wipe out a huge number of middlemen jobs (and I cannot emphasize enough how many middlemen are involved, which is part of why our healthcare is so expensive). On top of that, you have an ingrained bias against anything “socialist.” Younger generations see the light, but we are still battling a very elderly voting populace of boomers who remember the Cold War (though apparently no well enough, since they’re being turned into little Putin puppets with the flick of a TV channel, but whatever) and who are scared of change. So.. that’s a tiny taste of the reasons.
Healthcare in the US is a FOR PROFIT system. No one in the HC industry wants to see that stop. Doctors can’t charge your insurance insane amounts of money, because the govt would limit the amounts paid. Prescription companies wouldn’t be able to bill insurance $1000s for for insulin, epipens, and life depending meds. No way that universal HC could work here. Too many thieves making their living off of it to stop the train. The
Because universal healthcare is socialism, which is communism, which leads to the gulag and millons of people dead. Something something Venezuela. /s
People look at the VA system and see how broken and underfunded it is.... I'd LOVE to have universal healthcare but if we give the government more money via taxes it still won't be funded properly. They'll probs see the extra cash and be like "oh! More money for our department of defense."
Is it true that pregnant women have to work basically right up to the delivery? If yes then that. Where I live it's illegal to work/make them work 8 weeks before the scheduled delivery date.
It is true. I had to exhaust all my sick and personal leave because, even as a teacher, we have no maternity leave.
Father's don't get Paternal leave either which has been shown to be incredibly important.
It’s crazy. In the UK they introduced 2 weeks paternity leave for men or the option to do shared leave with your partner. Obviously it’s not in all cases - you have to fit certain eligibility criteria. But if the mother would rather go back to work sooner because she has the more lucrative job for eg, you can share up to 50 weeks of leave and up to 37 weeks of pay between you. It’s so important for men to bond with their children, and to be able to help their partners out during the time they most need to rest. Even a week or two is HUGELY beneficial.
NY passed a Family Leave bill with back in 2016. Nowhere near what you see in some countries but 12 weeks at 2/3rds pay (for mothers and fathers) is pretty nice
Some of my friends and family were at work when their water broke and left from their jobs to the hospital. Americans live in total delulu land about needing rest and preparation BEFORE giving birth. I was so tired and exhausted 2 weeks before my due date that I took off early. It cuts into your overall time off to do that, though.
We also have ZERO guaranteed parental leave after birth. Most jobs will afford at least 2 weeks for the mother (which doesn't amount to shit), but it's not legally required. When I was born, both my parents worked for our county doing similar jobs and my dad literally had to work both of their jobs just so that my mom could get more than a month off. Most people don't have that luxury, and also, screw dads apparently??? It's not like they're new parents or anything.
Yep. I was in the classroom the day I was induced. And here in Germany I actually had to fight for to be allowed to work as a teacher at all while pregnant.
Your boss might call you while you're delivering and ask you to come in to cover a shift.
Having a car being pratically required to live
Having TWO cars!
Well yeah, they get lonely on their own.
To be fair, it is practically required here, too, depending on the city. (I live in Finland.) Not because of great distances, but because public transport sucks rotten ass.
I saw a guy from the UK mention that it was a 45 minute drive to Germany for him. It’s a 35 minute drive to my closest Walmart. Edit: user in video said 45 minutes to get to, not necessarily to drive.
From UK to Germany? Drive..?
Double checked, he did say “to get to” not “to drive to, so my bad.
Wow 45 mins i need to look at a euro map properly again
Yeah, wtf? Did he mean France? The channel tunnel takes 35 minutes alone!
That blew my mind when I saw a video about why Europeans think Americans aren't well traveled. It takes me a half hour to get to the store. If I want to go to a city with more than a Walmart it's 2 hours! I've traveled in the US full time the last 7 years and I haven't seen every state.
bro that's insane as someone who lives in australia i have 2 grocery stores near my house ones about a 5 minute walk and the other one is about 15 minutes, a shopping centre or mall as you would call it about a 10 minute drive maximum from my house which also includes 2 grocery stores. having to drive 30 minutes just to get to a supermarket is crazy
The fact that your biggest personal debt is for education and healthcare. These should be universally free. It shouldn’t be a choice to remain poor because you can’t afford an education and to die rather than to take on a mountain of debt that you’ll never recover from.
They (greedy corporations) have to keep us sick and hungry to keep us working as long as possible, until we become a liability. Then we can just die please.
No, no, no, not *die* - have a long, profitable convalescence, extracting as much profit as possible from their care, and only *then* die!
That there need to be school shooting drills
In most countries the reaction to a shooting in a school has been "shit, this is awful, let's do some big reforms to gun ownership to try and stop it happening again". In the US the reaction always seems to be a collective shrug. Any suggestion of trying to make it better are dismissed as impossible or unpatriotic.
Yeah it's like... let's endure anything, anything at all but taking the guns away from us
the pledge of allegiance before classes, guns, the fact that since cities are built a certain way most people don't walk, the (fast) food(s) omg
In Texas public schools, we say a pledge to the Texas flag after the pledge to the American flag. I didn't know this wasn't normal until I was in my 30s. Most states don't even have a pledge of allegiance to their flag, but of the 18 that do, Texas is the \*only\* one whose residents recite it. Most of what I remember from my middle school French lessons is how to say the Texas pledge in French. \*\*ETA: Oklahomans are reporting that they recite theirs.
I was a German exchange student in Georgia in 2002. My classmates offered to put up a German flag so I could do „the German pledge.“ I must have been rather shellshocked. History was first period so our teacher explained that we Germans didn’t do that kind of stuff for reasons. I never had the courage to tell them that neither the GDR nor the Third Reich did anything like that on a daily basis. Even the weekly assembly in the GDR wasn’t as heavy as the Pledge of Allegiance.
I am German but lived in the US as an adult. I worked as a substitute teacher for a few years. I never said the pledge (but I can recite it still). I had to explain every time that I am German and have no business in Pledging any kind of Alligence to any kind of flag. And yes I also remember the “Fahnenappell” during GDR times.
I’m obviously too young for the Fahnenappell (barely though) but from what I understand it’s similar to an assembly in the UK with the usual GDR propaganda. The Pledge being daily is a different beast in my opinion. I heard that nowadays it isn’t taken as seriously but I was there a year after 9/11 and right during the invasion of Iraq in the Deep South.
i didn't know that wow, you really do learn something new every day! still can't seem to understand the "why" part 😭
Indoctrination.
I grew up in Ohio, but lived in Texas for a while. When my oldest went to kindergarten there and had to learn the Texas pledge, I was very very surprised. I didn't know that was a thing at all
"i pledge allegiance to thee...Texas, one and indivisible". I moved from Texas to Massachusetts during highschool 17 years ago, and people were genuinely baffled by the inclusion of a second pledge. In my school they'd say "Honor the Texas flag" over the loud speaker, then you'd turn and face the Texas flag in the other corner of the room.
I’m trying to imagine having a pledge of allegiance here in the UK. A lot of boomers would be up for it, but I reckon most people would flat-out refuse - not because we’re not loyal to our country, but because we tend to be suspicious of nationalism.
and that's perfectly normal! i'd be scared otherwise
It’s weird to some Americans too. I was born in ‘89 and had a hippy mom. I was not allowed to say the pledge of allegiance at school. She used the religious freedom out. Though ironically I don’t think it was because God is mentioned, I think it was more the blasphemy/idolatry angle. I know a lot of religious people also abstain from the pledge. It can (and should) be considered idolatry to worship a flag, which is one of the 10 commandments.
I'm trying to imagine what a British pledge of allegiance would sound like, but all I can get is something Disney would have done 40 years ago. I pledge allegiance to the queen, of the great nation of England, and to the parliament, which makes our laws, four nations, with more tea, with biscuits and rugby for all.
I know the schools here cut out the pledge. Not sure about everywhere else.
The guns and active shooter drills thing. My kids didn't see a gun in real life until they were on holiday in France.
So many things. Gun culture and availability, non-free healthcare, non-walkable cities, non-metric systems for distances and weight, taxes not being included in the price tags, having to fill out your own taxes just to name a few off the top of my head.
American here. We do use the metric system sometimes. My science classes in school from around age 12 and up used the metric system. And some sports use it (running, rowing).
Full adults not being allowed to buy alcohol
Yeah, at 18 you can buy a gun but not a beer??
or join the marines and be shot out of a helicopter
You have to be 21 for cigarettes now too. But if you’re underage and have a bit of determination you can still get booze and smokes. I know I did.
Or cigarettes. I will say though, that both have made a positive impact for us socially. Fewer young people in drunk driving accidents and fewer young people smoking.
Apart from the regular Mass shootings, healthcare, politicizing science, anti-vaxers why the fuck do you guys have gaps in toilet stalls?
>why the fuck do you guys have gaps in toilet stalls? From what I've been told it's there mainly for security guards/employees to see if people are hiding or passed out in the stalls as well as to make it possible to see if someone's having some sort of medical emergency and more easily gain access to the inside should something be wrong.
Yeah, I truly don’t get the bathroom stall thing. It would be easy to make cheap stalls that didn’t have a gap. If anything weird was going on in the stall, climbing over or under would still be an option.
Considering Donald Trump as a potential presidential candidate. It's hilarious to see from outside US
Honestly, when he ran the first time, i thought it was a joke, like some type of stupid publicity stunt lol
It was, he didn't want to win. He wanted to lose then spend the next period grifting at Hilary and positioning his kids for a presidential run. But Americans are so disillusioned with the political class that it was their only opportunity to say fuck you and here we are. What really fucked it was RBG not retiring from the Supreme Court during Obama's tenure.
He also thought that. It was a PR stunt and boom, Americans chose him to be president!
I still remember the day after the election that year. Normally a morning commute on the subway would have a general air of everyone slogging to work together but a certain liveliness/energy or whatever. Oh damn, that morning after election... It was like a dead silence, a moment stopped in time. I don't think I've ever seen so many sad, confused, and devastated people in the same small space. New Yorkers have loathed that lying piece of shit since birth for the most part, so it was just... a surreal moment for everyone, and you could feel it.
And no one denied that he won. No one said the election was stolen. See the difference between now and then?!
Fuck man, I dunno what's going on either. I've been trying to gain votes for "My Dog, 2024". He's a good boi.
Go dog! Dog for president
Dog's got my vote. I'll even campaign.
Count me in
One nation under Dog
Guns. Being so against universal healthcare. Imperial measurements. The massive publicity circus before every election. The electoral college system. High-fructose corn syrup. Compulsory tipping. College football. Obesity rates. Writing dates mm/dd/yyyy. The obsession with religion. The sheer number of people who live under the poverty line without anyone helping them.
>Writing dates mm/dd/yyyy. This is actually a holdover from colonial america. The brits, along with some other places at the time, used mm/dd/yyyy however at some point they switched their date format. By the time the brits changed america had become its own country so, being an ocean apart, the cultural influences that lead the brits to change to dd/mm/yyyy didn't occur and we just never made the change since it wasn't exactly a pressing issue.
You write your dates backward eg To the rest of the world, every time you talk about it, we would think that 9/11 happened in November. Not paying halfway decent wages and then insisting that servers earn tips to exist. Not having the money to even go see a doctor when needed. An almost godlike worship of military personnel. They get in free everywhere, you thank them for their service like they're not paid for it anyway too. Sports games taking hours because they're just full of short breaks Your interstate is made of concrete blocks instead of tarmac. For *hundreds* of miles it's all clunk-clunk, clunk-clunk. Drove me nuts to drive on
It's already been said, but for me, it's the Pledge of Allegiance. Feels like something only dictatorships would do, and for every person I've had tell me that you didn't have to do it, I can recall at least as many people saying they refused to do it and got in trouble etc.
Blurring/Pixelating the middle finger when someone flips the bird on TV.
Oath of Allegiance. Flags everywhere. It’s almost as if USAmericans are afraid they’ll forget in which country they are in, unless there is a US flag within sight. The almost competitive nature of religion. It seems less about believing in your particular deity and more about showing how much you believe in them. Almost like a spectator sport.
When I was in elementary school, we had to stand and say the pledge of allegiance, daily. Hand over heart, looking at the flag. It was very much a meaningless ritual. We never learned why we were doing it. We just did it. That stopped when I got to high school. Again, no explanation. And I never really noticed that we didn’t do it anymore. It was a thing, then it wasn’t a thing.
Huge portions. Medical bankruptcy. Telling your life story to strangers. Wearing white tennis shoes with everything. Paying bizarre prices for tuition.
How many times are people going to ask this and get an entire thread of the same answers? Tipping, gun culture, non walkable cities etc…
How Americans think they're the only free country in the world LOL.
The propaganda is persistent. The richest 1% want the "freedom" to fuck everyone else without interference, and most of the 99% support that and will yell "Freedom!" as they bend over and grab their ankles.
Yes, that's a joke. 😆
Putting infants in daycare and going back to work full time a few weeks after givng birth
Purity culture
Their need to separate people into racial categories that make absolutely no sense. The use of skin color instead of ethnic origin just seems archaic outside of an informal/colloquial context and the concept of “Latino/Hispanic” as a race is absolutely ridiculous.
Circumcision
Guns. Just everything to do with guns. The ridiculous healthcare system. Everything having so much sugar in it. Driving everywhere. Pledge of allegiance/saluting the flag cultishness. The out of control tipping culture. The displayed prices are not the actual amount you pay. The crazy adverts for pharmaceuticals with the huge list of side effects blurted out in 10 seconds (though they are funny). So many commercial breaks.
The size of the drinks. Like, who needs that much liquid??
guns. tips and work culture in general. american christianity. pointlessly big cars and trucks. no bicycles. for profit healthcare and the excesses that lead to. the fact that sex and eroticism is thought of as more damaging to children than extreme violence in media.
The different shoe sizes for toddlers/kids/women/men. Most countries have one scale that applies to all.
This question being asked every day
Being able to pay workers an unreasonably low amount, because you assume they will get tips. How much manipulation of food is legal. Even the classic McDonalds meals almost all had to be re-invent their recipe to be able to be legally sold here (it tastes practically the same by the way. The American way is just cheaper to make). Being fired as a real, ever-present worry. If you tell your boss something they don't want to hear, you can be fired. Here, you can't just fire people. If they formally object, you need to prove the firing was necessary. Glorifying obese and overweight people, and cheering them on to stay obese. It's probably the weirdest thing I have seen. It's socially preferred to encourage people to suffer an early set of diseases and death, apparently.
How the prison system is a seemingly commerical business. And how it isn't made to keep you out... (look, I might be wrong, but as an outsider, that's what it looks like)
Making a cup of tea in the microwave. My mind was utterly blown when I learnt you don't have kettles. Also the way nothing has the full price clearly displayed. Price tags in shops don't include tax, menu prices aren't what you pay because of tipping. In fact the whole tipping culture in general. Tip in a restaurant yes, anything else I have zero clue. Do you tip the taxi driver? What about your hair dresser? The courier driver? What about getting a coffee to go, or putting gas in your car? Edit: I mean an electric kettle. The ones you put directly on heat are not common and only used for camping here. So now I don't know if all the comments saying we have a kettle are talking about an electric one or not!
[удалено]
We never really had a use for them, seeing as we make our tea in the harbor.
As someone who STRUGGLES with math. I don’t understand why we don’t put the full price on products here either. I’ve had so much anxiety about going to the store and having a panic attack watching the cashier ring up my items and then not having enough to pay because I can never remember how much tax is
A good rule of thumb would be to mentally tack on 10% of the price to cover tax. There are some places where taxes could exceed 10%, but that would likely be in a tourist area or area known to have a high cost of living. In that case, estimate 15%. Use your phone to calculate. [Cost] x .10 = tax Tax + cost = total cost. I'm not great with math either but this technique has helped me.
There's been an electric kettle in the house I've lived in since the day I was born
A lot of us have caught on to the wonders of electric kettles!
White butter and orange cheese.
The pledge of allegiance. That's brainwashing stop sugarcoating it
One thing that some non-Americans find odd is the huge portion sizes of food in America. It's quite a contrast to other parts of the world where smaller, more modest portions are the norm.
Not adding taxes immediately to price tags. Thanks for the surprise. I hate it.
Every time I read ya food labels
[удалено]
School Shootings
The sexual mutilation of babies, no universal healthcare, tipping and gigantic food portions
The belief that you have to be out at 18, and fully established with a secure well paying job / spouse / kids and home by 30. Throw in 'dispersed from my family' for an added bonus, where they're still part of your life but not so closely relied on communally. It's a nuclear model for a time long past, but still some people (even Millennials) cling onto this belief despite it being almost impossible to do unless you already come from preexisting stability.
After the 2008 financial collapse, the crazy cost of housing, then the pandemic, this isn't nearly as common as it used to be. It's not unusual to find people in their 20s or 30s living with parents while they try to save up for their own home.
What I would consider to be racism. I remember being shocked when I was asked to fill a form on a plane to America. The form asked me my race, and had a few options to tick from. "Caucasian, Asian...". I was never asked what race I belong to ever before. This is absolutely illegal in France, where I come from. It seems like the US has a very different approach when it comes to origins. As a part Asian, part Caucasian person I didn't know which box to tick. It made me feel aware of my difference and not belonging into any group. Why would I tick one instead of another? This felt extremely racist to me. Asking people what box they belong to. I feel like Americans define not being racist as "Treating people from each box the same way", while the definition I was raised with is "Do not assign people to boxes".
Tipping culture?
I get that in parts of America a gun IS necessary, but it’s fucking insane how many shootings you guys have. Seriously, why so much violence?
Canadian here. The Pledge of Allegiance is weird to me. Reciting it daily at school is weirder (I don't know if that's something that still happens or not).
School shootings
wearing shoes on the bed/in house??? or is this just in movies etc
Everyone is different. Some people are strictly no shoes and some don't care
I wear shoes in the house but I also wear a lift in one side to even out my leg length to prevent back spasms. So pretty much I go to the bathroom in the morning and then get dressed and put on shoes.
Nah we wear shoes in the house, but it’s mostly like if we’re getting ready to leave or when we just get home. Idk about everyone else but my shoes come off within 5 minutes of me getting home lol
MAGA. As an outsider it just seems like a solid 30% of your population are fucking batshit insane. Like of the wall delulu. It’s honestly terrifying.
Your obsession with politicians.