Hi everyone. I was not sure where to put this but I figure it was a pretty serious topic so I thought it would be okay to post this here. This came up in my mind because I heard about OJ Simpson writing a book with the subject being something like I didn't kill them, but if I had, this is how I would have done it. Fox news is going to pay him to do an interview about it. I found it appaling that he sets to profit from such a horrific event.(I am not trying to bring up a debate about OJ Simpson exactly, just the idea in general of profiting off cases like this). Anyone have thoughts on this?

It also reminded me when that run away bride was offered a lot of money to retell her story after she had falsely said she had been kidnapped and cost time and money to local and national authorities. People joke all the time that this could happen only in America or make comments on the "American way" and I know with the recent war and so forth that the opinion of Americans is not very high, or at least that is what we are told to believe. Do these examples reflect how people view American culture and society? I know there are members of this forum from countries all over the world and I would really like some feedback from many different cultural views(including Americans). I hope this post makes sense on what I am trying to ask. Thanks for taking the time to read it.

I think that using the "American way" words is a device to make the news sound more appealing for Americans. You can see stupid things happen all over the world, not just the US.

Also, the US has really powerful mediums, so what happens in the US can be more obvious, that what happens in, let's say, a 3rd world country. For example: Would you believe that not too long ago, a man in Colombia assaulted a bus with rats. Yes, he threatened to release the rats if the people in the bus didn't give him their valuable possessions.

PS: The ones to write a book should be OJ Simpson's lawyers one "How to make an obviously guilty man, an lawyers. On, "How to make an innocent man from one who's obviously guilty.". Also, OJ Simpson seems not to be the most intelligent man, any other in his position would have remained silent.

I don't know what the rest of the world thinks about this, but there are certain things that I find dislikable about American society. First of all, I think it's flat out annoying how people sue for absolutely everything. When my dad was called for jury duty, they presented a case to him about a woman who slipped on the icy steps of an apartment building, and her husband was sueing the owner of the building. Not because the woman was injured so they could pay for her medical bills but because her husband said that she couldn't perform in bed temporarily because of the injury.

I personally detest almost everything done by Fox News.

That's another thing I don't like about American society. I don't know if it's unique to our country, but a lot of people seem to have no problem making money off of just about anything. I refuse to shop at Wal-Mart because of the horrible way they treat their workers and their exploitation of sweatshops, and they do it all without any apparent flicker of morality.

One particular incident of exploiting a situation to make money that really disgusted me was this past summer. I was in city this past August, and decided to visit the site of the WTC. I had made a personal point not to go to the financial district at all since 9/11, so it was the first time I had been there in about 5 years. When I got there, naturally, there were a lot of people. What can you expect with such a tourist attraction? What disgusted me was that people had set up stands where they were selling knock-off designer bags and I<3NY t-shirts to exploit the large crowds. It was the most disrespectful thing they could do.

Anyway, those are my two cents...

Wow. Now THAT is scary.

I have to agree with Sadhana; people really do sue for the most minor things, while we have much more important things to be worrying about.

Another thing I hate about America is how rude people are.

This may just be a stereotype, but wherever I go, people completely disregard other's rights. They act so tactless, so thoughtless, so brash and short-fused, it's no wonder why there are such high criminal rates.

I also dislike the amount of drinking/drug usage; it leads to a lot of crimes...

I am not that informed on politicts; so I can't say much about that.

America, in general, is the best of places, and the worst of places. :sweat:

I don't make much sense.

I guess its because most people around the world, America is viewed as the most powerful nation in the world and one of the largest. Watching the news from my life, there is lots of great things about America, and lots of bad things. I suppose it just comes from the size, I don't know a lot about the world but America has a lot of power and money that people tend to say "It could only happen in America,". Well, at least over here in Scotland.

Well when I went there, I found the people to be extremely friendly and helpful, but maybe that's because I was there on holiday and I was their paycheck :lol:

One of my favorite videos... Political Science.

WARNING: Possibly offensive.

I think that might've summed up why some people dislike us. :lol:

:lmao: Possibly. I know a LOT of jerks, though, personally. xD

I guess that since I AM an American, I don't really notice what I say about it. Me and my freedom of speech are going places! :P

That Political Science video.... :lmao:

I know this is an old topic but this way I don't create a new topic for nothing ^_^

It looks like there're a lot of american people here and I wanted to ask something.
I saw this famous Youtube video about a young celebrity who didn't know what was Hungary and thought that Europe was an country.

Edit: Here it is for people who never watched it:
Clicky

I told myself that she wasn't representative of her generation and tons of people were really really really bad for geography everywhere in the world.

But now in France we can watch a show called "The War". Newspapers say it was made by directors because 40% of students thought that during WWII (1939-1945) USA and Germany were allies against Russia.

So what do you think about the whole thing? Is it a prejudice?

Thanks a lot and sorry for spelling :( Hope I make sense!

America is a nation divided. We really do have a large number of idiots in this country, and I'm sure if you asked a bunch of rednecks what Hungary was (much less where), they would point to their stomachs and ask you for a cheeseburger.

But there's quite a lot of intelligent people here too, else America wouldn't be as successful economically and culturally as it is. I think there is a stereotype that Americans are all a bunch of uneducated morons, and nothing could be further from the truth. Compare, for example, a bunch of unemployed rednecks on welfare to the student body of CalTech or MIT. Every nation has its share of morons, our idiots just seem to get more publicity ;).

Also, our celebrities are NOT representative of the intelligence of the general population. For some reason, most of our celebrities are complete idiots (Britney Spears, anyone?). Maybe it's just because they are so stupid, they entertain us :).

Coral, that woman is not anything near representative of Americans. That show she's on specifically picks stupid people so that the viewing public can laugh at their idiocy. It's like how American Idol picks a lot of terrible singers for the first round so that everyone can laugh at them.

I'm sure America has its share of idiots, but I would be shocked to learn that our idiot population is anything outside the usual range for any other country.

Wait, French students thought that or American students thought that?

Thank you so much for answers!

The Machine: I understand perfectly. I've been to USA twice and I'm working on american painting so I really admire America for tons of things ^_^ .
But still I don't understand why is it divided so...harshly? Why people is brillant on east coast and why "rednecks" as you call them are not? Is school different there?

I agree Sadhana. I hate it when medias control us! I remember about fires and riots in France. It wasn't that big and USA news (like CNN) showed a map with giant fires everywhere as if the whole country was burning. It wasn't the case, I was there.
Besides on these maps some "burning french cities" were placed in Germany or Spain...XD how accurate!
That's how prejudices appear and it's a pity because we didn't decide it :(

American students. It's a study made by the National Concil for History Education. That's why "The War" show was created. Did you hear about it?

In France we frequently hear about WWII because it changed our whole country and society. We were invaded by nazis for 3 years and american allies came to help us. I think that's pretty clear in every mind.

But we're dumb for tons of others things ^^

Sorry for spelling!

Aerisbolt, how serious is your question?

To be honest, the United States is hated by a lot around the world and not without good reason. The Middle East hates us for many reasons. I'll start with the most current events and go into the past. The Iraq War. No really explanation needed. After all, who wants an foreign army in their country that tortures "terrorists" and kills innocent civilians? Under all the hatred is the issue of Palestine and Israel. That's the heart of the problem. The United States supports Israel and supplies it with American weapons and when Israel's army enters Gaza and murders it just makes the US look like the ultimate terrorist. Now the history lesson. The US supported dictators in the past and still does as long as they bow to us...bin Laden, Sadam, the Shah...etc. China doesn't really like us because we support independence of Tibet and Taiwan which belong to China besides that we sold them opium in the 19th century along with Britain.

Every country has their unique culture which means different mentalities of living, understanding of things and different ways of thinking, interpreting.

Because of that, there will be alway missunderstanding which easily leads to an uncomfortble relationship,...hate,...fight,...and war.

America isnt the cruelst country on earth if you think about the NAZI in Germany during the WWII, the french revolution (civil war), the first king of China (who had created many horrofic ways to kill people against his political power), the Sino-Japanese War, Britains in India... ... etc...

Look at the world history, there are always wars continuely on earth!

The most important thing to notice is, that not even one of them has learned from the past and got developed to a better world!!!!


PEACE isnt now or in future. Isnt it a must to questiion about HUMANITY?


Is mankind truely mad in heart? Or is it a failure to believe DEMOCRATIC would be a perfect state's form. (We always trusted the decicion to our political leaders, why we choose them when we know what they do is f***! )

From what I heard, wachted, listened and expereinced in different nations, America dosent have a good image in others countries. What all they see in America is MONEY MONEY and MONEY.

Sorry about my bad english, I havnt used it for a while.

AHAHAHAHA. That's hilarious. :lmao:

I don't like the censorship, honestly. And all of the conspiracies. Jesus. :gift: I also don't like how our leaders have the tendency to repeat the past. Even when it was already repeated and the same results occurred.

rofl

No country is without fault, period. My Lai massacre in Vietnam anybody?

Honestly, I think it's unfair to classify a lot of things as a "purely American" factor or movement as there are very few things in this day and age, if at all, that can be classified as 'purely any nation'. The globe is (figuratively) smaller now, compared to in the past, due to the continuous advancements in technology for both communication and transportation and information and ideas flit across the air almost instantly. If one nation doesn't profit off the curiosity of the masses, another will.

On your first point, Aerisbolt, I think it's the curiosity--the want to see the flaws and foibles of someone that seemed so much better than you that drives the celebrity market. The socially encouraged glamorization of these people occurs everywhere--and as a result, this glamorization has also produced its opposite, the tabloid industry.

TL;DR--my main point is that there are idiots and geniuses everywhere. I view America as one country out of many and there is nothing particularly intrinsically unique about us that sets us apart from other countries in terms of the people that come from this nation. There is nothing special in the air that makes someone more or less likely to not know where Hungary is.

I sincerely apologize if I missed the main point of the discussion, btw.

P.S. I'm assuming you have some relation to mainland China, Angelwing Aeris--am I incorrect?

Like what other people have said, when you have such a big, powerful country like America, people are bound to be looking. Oh, and it probably doesn't help that when you do look, what you see are people making total idiots of themselves. But really, not everyone's like that.

It's just the media. America seems to thrive poking fun at itself and idiocy, as well as (IMO) shallow celebrity gossip, so you put that on air. Which, of course, puts a very "stupid" impression on other countries.

The way I see it, it's kind of like stereotyping countries---like how people see Japan as total omgANIME and suicide, or Europe as the fanciest, and thus most uptight country evar. Which, as we all know isn't true. ^_^

Makes you fear the media, huh? :ph34r:

If there's something I'm bothered about with America though, it's the youth---what with the school attacks, as well as the idiocy blahblahHannah Montanablah they see. Then again, that might just be Fox News. :P