Warning: If you are pissed off easily, don’t read this post.
Although plenty of (American) commenters agree with me, I’m also getting
a flood of angry comments and hatemail, but this is my (as always)
frank and honest non-watered-down opinion,
take it or leave it!
If you are coming here from Stumbleupon or Facebook, please share this post with your friends if you enjoy it 
. You may also enjoy reading my post about the 29 life lessons learned in travelling the world for 8 years straight, and make sure to look around the site for some language learning tips!
Normally, after I spend considerable time in a country/city, I like
to summarise my cultural experience there and tend to put a positive
spin on it, as I did with
Germany,
Amsterdam,
Brazil, and even
Paris, which was actually a negative experience for me.
This time I’m not doing that.
This post is my
rant about America because of all the places
I’ve been, the people who always complain the most about the local
country are travelling Americans. It has annoyed me so much over the
years that I honestly feel like a lot of you need to hear a foreigner
complain about YOUR country.
Note that I’ve actually really enjoyed my last three months in the
states, but there have been too many things that confirm that this
really is not the place for me.
I’m not interested in whining about foreign policy, economics or
politics. This is entirely about my frustrations with day to day life in
America. The United States is a huge country, and it’s impossible to
generalise all 300 million of you, but the points below are my
observations after spending:
3 months in upstate New York, 4 months in La Jolla/San Diego, 1 month
in Chicago, 1 month in Nevada, 6 weeks in San Francisco, 1 month in
Austin, 2 weeks in New Orleans, 2 weeks in Los Angeles, as well as
several days among other cities like Portland (OR), San Antonio,
Houston, Durham (NC) … (and visiting sites like the Grand Canyon). Over a
year in total, most of which was in trying to live as a local rather
than staying in tourist accommodation.
Right now I’m back outside the USA (in Peru on another
language learning mission;
Quechua)
and I feel like it’s such an improvement in so many ways when I see
things I’ve been missing over the last months travelling in the states.
While technically I’ve already “lived” in America [edit for clarity: when I say
America
in this post and in comments, I mean USA of course], each time was
always a temporary visit. And when you read the conclusion, you’ll see
that I’ll definitely be back. But when I do finally settle down it will
not be in the United States and this post explains the many reasons why.
Sorry if you find this post offensive, but I expect you to because…
1. Americans are way too sensitive
Sometimes I wonder if political correctness is in your constitution. I
found out very quickly in my first visit that I had to bite my tongue
pretty much all the time, and (more annoyingly) that nobody was
ever straight with me.
It seems that speaking your mind
to individuals is a major
taboo. You can’t tell a friend straight when he has fucked up, nobody
will ever tell you that you look fat (oversensitivity with not telling
obese people to get their act together is a major contributor in my
opinion to why there are so many of them in the states), and there’s way
too much euphemism to avoid the hard truth.
To a certain extent, I can understand it – America generally does a
great job of preventing people from singling out ethnic groups and
toning down hate speech. But it waters it down far too much at the
individual level.
A lot of Americans I met feel very lonely, and I feel this is a major
reason. You may never find a boy/girlfriend if a friend who knows you
well and supposedly cares about you, doesn’t tell you the hard facts of
what makes you so damn annoying… so that you can change it! Being
insulting for the sake of it is needless aggression. But
constructive criticism is what friends are for.
The one time in my entire last three months that someone was straight with me was when my friend
Karol Gajda
gave me some tips to improve my presentation in future after I gave a
TEDx talk, while everyone else was doing nothing but massaging my ego.
It was really useful advice but it caught me off guard because I was
used to months of…
2. Everything is “awesome”!
I really hate the word
awesome. It
used to mean “that which inspires awe”, but in the states it means nothing! It doesn’t even mean
good - it’s just a word – a filler, like “um” or “y’know”.
This is the stereotypical American cheesy word, and I heard it until
my ears started to bleed. Too many over-the-top positive adjectives like
this get thrown around so much that they really mean nothing.
And when you ask someone “How are you?” the answer will inevitably be “great!” even if they are far from it.
When you start using excessive positivity it waters down the meaning,
and those words become neutral. Then what do you do when you need to
express true positivity? Of course, when someone says they are “OK, I
guess” then you
know things are pear shaped! I don’t think “bad” is in America’s vocabulary.
But nothing beats America’s over-positivity more than this:
3. Smiles mean NOTHING
When I meet Americans abroad, one of their biggest complaints are
along the lines of “nobody smiles on Prague’s trams!” “That waitress was
so rude to me! She didn’t even smile!”
Goddamnit America – I have the opposite complaint for you. You guys smile
way too much. It’s fucking annoying! How can you tell when someone means it? And why the hell
would a stranger doing a crossword puzzle on public transport want to look giddy?
When people smile in Europe it means something. For example, because
Germans don’t go around looking like an American toothpaste commercial
when I was with them and they smiled, it lit up the room – you know it’s
genuine and you can’t help but smile back, because you are genuinely
happy. You’ve shared a joke, or a funny story or you are in love etc.
But
all the time? When you smile all the time in public it
means nothing. Apparently a smile releases endorphins, but if your face
is stuck that way I’m sure your dreams of a natural high will fade soon.
I’d rather focus on trying to make my life better and have
reasons to smile than lie to myself and the world.
Despite how surly I sound in this post, because complaining is the
theme of the article, the fact that I vent when I mean it, means that
when you see me happy you know I’m truly happy. And that is indeed a lot
of the time
But not
all of it!
4. Tipping
While it’s a perk for most of you, for me it was terribly annoying to
be in restaurants and having a waitress interrupt me every 3 minutes
asking me if everything is OK. I’d have to feign a smile and thumbs up
to make her go away since my mouth was always full. I really don’t see
the point – if you’ve given me the wrong order or if I suddenly realise
I’m dying from an allergic reaction to your food, you’ll know it long
before those 3 minutes are up.
Eating out is always an annoying experience because of this. In the
rest of the world we call the server over when we need something. If
this was genuine interest, or if the person was trying to be friendly
that would be cool, but that’s not what it’s about. In fact, it’s all
down to “subtle” reminders that this person wants you to tip them.
This drove me crazy – I really think tipping as a means of waitresses
and others earning the vast majority of their living is ridiculous. If I
have to pay, say 15% anyway, then include it in the bill! It’s not a
bloody tip if it’s mandatory!!!
Once again, one huge complaint I hear in other countries is how rude
waitresses are, and Americans claim it’s because they aren’t tipped.
Instead of getting tipped they earn a wage like everyone else, and do
their job and if they do it bad enough they’ll get fired. But apparently
not pestering you every minute and not smiling like you are in a Ms.
World competition means you are “rude”.
I think the basic concept of tipping is nice – if someone does a
top-notch job, sure, throw them an extra few cents or a dollar – but I
just see it as a complex system of tax evasion for both restaurants and
workers in the states. Some people ludicrously suggest that it makes it
cheaper that the restaurant doesn’t have to charge more, but you’re
paying the difference anyway. What it does contribute to is clear
though:
5. False prices on everything
Tipping is just the peak of the iceberg.
It’s all one big marketing scam to make people feel like they are paying less. The price you see on a menu is
nothing compared to what you’ll actually pay. Apart from tipping, you have to of course pay
taxes.
Now taxes are things that you simply have to pay on items you
purchase – it’s how governments work all around the world. So why hide
it from us? It boggles my mind that places refuse to include the tax in
prices. The price they state is pretty much useless. It’s just saying
“this is how much
we get from what you pay, but you’ll actually pay more”.
I don’t give a flying toss how much YOU get, I want to know how much I
have to pay! How much money… do you want me… to hand to you? Do I
really have to spell this out?
The most laughable of all of these is the “dollar store”. We have
this thing in Ireland called the €2 shop. You can walk in with a single
€2 coin and walk out with something. If you have a single dollar, you
will be turned away from a “dollar” store though. It’s a dollar… that
they earn not that
you pay. Do you follow? The only thing that matters is the business’s perspective.
Airlines are the worst of all though. While in Europe some airlines are pretty bad with added fees,
at least you’ll see them when it’s time to pay. The crazy thing for me flying in the states (since I have check-in luggage) was that I would pay…
and then I’d pay again later.
It’s nothing but a large scale marketing scam. Make the price
seem cheaper, which is lying to people. One great way to get people in more debt is to make them
feel like they are spending less, but add the rest when it comes time to hand over the cash. This is one big part of….
6. Cheesy in-your-face marketing
I feel like scraping out my eyes with toothpicks when I’m forced to endure advertising in America. Make it stop.
Most Americans aren’t even aware of it – it’s on all the time so much
that it becomes nothing more than background noise. And this means that
advertisers have to be
even louder to get through to people. It’s a vicious circle that drives any non-American not used to it bonkers.
BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE!
I decided to watch an episode of
House one evening on TV. Up
until then I had only really seen American shows online with
advertising removed or back in Europe with European advertising
inserted.
Holy shit.
Every few minutes you get torn out of the show and bombarded with
irrelevant spam, and “awesome” images of people who practically
experience orgasms as soon as they buy product X, that is (of course) on
special offer just right now. And if it’s anything medical you get a
super fast voice spur every kind of medical complaint you can imagine
that his product will create as a side-effect. But at least the cheesy
model is still happy, so it’s probably not so important.
Some of my American blogger friends apply this to the online world
and cover their site with flashing or aggressive banners, and a writing
style that is psychologically very effective to make a sale, but damn is
it annoying. One online pet-peeve of mine is email pop-up sign-up
forms, which you can justify with marketing stats, as long as you ignore
how much you piss off people you don’t “convert”. I’d recommend you
install
Randy‘s Stoppity plugin for
Firefox or
Chrome to turn those off.
And here’s the thing: Americans are marketing geniuses. This can
never be disputed. Every time I went to buy just a carton of milk,
something about the supermarket that’s different to what I’m used to
gravitated me towards some expensive garbage I didn’t need and I almost
bought it, or
did buy it, feeling very stupid as I walked out.
If you are in Las Vegas you’ll see how skilled they are at this
manipulation by
how they design the casinos. No windows, no clocks, impossible to find
exits, no way to get where you want to go without walking through slot
machines, the slot machines themselves have lots of shiny lights and
bouncy music to entice you. You feel like you are being hypnotised. They
know exactly what they are doing and have the billions of dollars to
prove it.
But it’s still manipulation, and to those of us not used to the
loudness it’s plain cheesy. Every corner of America is plastered with
some kind of advertising or sponsorship, and I feel so at peace now that
I’ve left. No more random phonecalls on any landline (including hotels I
was paying for) with a recorded voice to try to pitch me something and
no more spam promotional brochures taking over my physical mailbox.
7. Wasteful consumerism
Some of the consumerism is difficult to avoid when you are flooded
with advertising, but some of it really is entirely the person’s own
fault for being so wasteful.
The best example I can think of by far is Apple fanboyism. So many Americans waste so much cash to have the
latest iteration
of Apple’s iPhone, iPad, or Macbook. When you buy one that’s fine – I
personally don’t like Apple products (I find the operating system too
restrictive), but there are many good arguments for why it could be
better. I also like to have a good smartphone and laptop for example,
and I’m as much a consumer as you if you happen to have an Apple
equivalent.
The problem is when you replace your iPhone 4 with an iPhone 4S, and
do it along with an army of millions of other sheep for no good reason.
It’s pointless and wasteful consumerism at its best.
I actually took advantage of this when I was in Austin this year. I waited until the day the iPad 2 was announced and
as I predicted there were 20 new ads
per minute on
Craigslist in that city alone from desperate fanboys trying to sell
their iPad 1. Since my laptop is so big (I consider it a portable
desktop), it was worth my while to invest in a tablet and I convinced
one idiot to sell me his
with a bluetooth keyboard case for
$250. (I’ve written a few blog posts on it in cafés so it was worth my
investment) He was so desperate to have the latest version that was ever
so slightly thinner and faster, and with a camera that makes you look
like an idiot when you point your iPad at something, but otherwise
basically exactly the same.
Personally I only replace my smartphone when I break the other one
from travel stress or dropping it in an ocean etc. I’m also a consumer
though, and will occasionally buy stuff that I don’t need, but replacing
something I have for something marginally better for a large price is
something I can never understand.
What makes it worse is that these people sometimes claim to not have
much money and Apple products are added to their “necessities” list. The
gobshite I bought my iPad from sighed when I told him what I do, and he
said that he wished he had the
money to travel. I wish he had the common sense to realise that if he stopped wasting his money he’d have plenty left over.
8. Idiotic American stereotypes of other countries
Many of us have seen videos online of Americans arsing up basic
questions of international geography. I went out of my way to avoid
people
that stupid – my beef is with the supposedly educated ones.
Luckily, Americans you meet abroad tend to be much cleverer, but
meeting those who haven’t travelled made my head hurt with the amount of
facepalms I’d have to do.
Now, I know there are 300 million of you, but I have had this exact
same conversation on both the east and west coast, and in the mid-west
and south:
“Hi, I’m Benny”
“Awesome! I’m X. Where are you from?”
“Ireland”
“Wow! You guys certainly know how to drink!”
“Actually,
I don’t drink”
“Oh, you’re not really Irish then, are you!”
Again, and again and again… and again. The same idiotic script – I
knew it was coming every time. They demanded to see my passport, said
that I’m the only Irish guy they’ve ever met who doesn’t drink (and very
stupidly then admitted that I was the ONLY Irish guy they ever met!!)
or had visited Ireland and spent all their time in Temple Bar (not even
leaving Dublin), confirming that all Irish people are drunkards.
This is just one of the many idiotic things they would say, which of course annoyed me the most.
A few others I’ve gotten include:
- How was the boat ride over here? [Surprised that we have airports in
Ireland - I must have arrived in rags in New York harbour of course]
- Too many people insisting that Ireland was part of the UK. They actually argued it with me!!
- Did I have to check my car for IRA bombs when I was growing up? (there were so many things wrong with this)
- Surprised that I knew more about technology than they did. Aren’t we all potato farmers in Ireland?
Whenever someone said anything about Ireland I’d always try to change
the subject immediately or they’d quickly find out how blunt I can be.
Edit: If you think this is hypocritical, I’d argue that this post
is NOT filled with stereotypes because it’s based on my actual experience
in hanging out with thousands of you. Americans who stereotype us Irish
(and other nationalities) have generally never been there, or at best
“seen” (not spent time with) a couple of tourists. Stereotyping is based
on hearsay and misinformation, and almost always from total lack of
contact, or only superficial contact with the people you stereotype.
I’m not talking about Americans being all loud and war mongers
and only eating at McDonald’s and all being stupid etc. (typical
American stereotypes),
because these just aren’t true for many
people. I’m talking about what I’ve actually experienced from normal
people in every day situations after an entire year of living and
working in America.
9. Heritage
Every American you meet is not actually American. They are a fourth
Polish, 3/17 Italian, ten other random countries, and then of course
half Irish. Since Ireland is more homogenous, it’s hard for me to
appreciate this, so honestly I don’t really care if your great
grandfather’s dog walker’s best friend’s roommate was Irish. I really
don’t.
The amount of “Oh my gaaawwwd, me too!!” retorts I heard when I said I
was Irish is quite silly. I use country adjectives more restrictively
than Americans do, so this was quite the pet peeve of mine. I finally
learned that “I’m from Ireland” means what I wanted to say to them
better than “I’m Irish” does.
I don’t want to say I don’t respect people’s rich heritage (a nice
mixture makes a country more interesting; the melting pot of cultures
and skin colours is one reason why Brazil is my favourite country for
example), but when people start talking about it as if it were genetics
and their Italian part makes them more passionate and their Irish part
makes them good drinkers I really do have to roll my eyes.
Edit: Commenters keep pointing out that it’s a language
difference, so “Irish” actually means “Irish American” as I’d understand
it. That’s fine, but I’m trying to convey that foreigners find this
annoying. There is no right or wrong, but it’s important to realise that
rephrasing it or saying “I have Irish/Italian heritage” may be more
appropriate if you are talking to someone from that country. This is
especially true if speaking other languages.
10. ID checks & stupid drinking laws
Seriously, I promise I’m not 12. Please let me into the nightclub!
I’ve even seen 60 year olds get IDed. Nowhere else in the world do
they ID me now that I’m clearly in my late 20s. A few times I haven’t
had my passport (the most important document I own that I really don’t
want to get beer spilled over) in my jeans pocket and have simply been
refused entry.
I find it incredible that drinking age is 21, but you give 16 year
olds licenses to drive cars and you can buy a rifle at age 18. And you
can’t walk around outside with an open drink in most states (but
apparently putting it in a brown bag while you drink it makes it OK).
I don’t even drink, and I find these laws nonsensical.
11. Religious Americans
Look – I grew up in a religious town in Ireland, went to an all boys
Catholic school, and some of my friends in Europe are religious. Even if
I’m not religious myself, it’s up to everyone to decide what they
believe in. I find religious people in Europe to be NORMAL – it’s a
spiritual thing, or something they tend to keep to themselves, and are
very modern people with a great balance of religion and modernism.
But I can’t stand certain Christian affiliations of religious
Americans. It’s Jesus this and Jesus that all the bloody time. You
really can’t have a normal conversation with them. It’s in your face
religion, and they replace hard science with scripture in the classroom.
They really need to
tone it down.
12. Corporations win all the time, not small businesses
While there are many arguments against everything working towards
there simply being a bunch of large corporations competing with one
another, my biggest problem is in terms of availability.
When you get your food from Walmart or Wholefoods, and nowhere else,
these places grow and will be separated by a reasonable driving distance
for greatest scope. But between them? It’s a wasteland.
I was in downtown Chicago one day and wanted to simply get a bite to
eat, but after walking around for an hour the only affordable option I
could find was Dunkin Donuts. There are plenty of excellent cheap places
to eat in Chicago, but you need to
drive to them, or be in a
specific part of the city with lots of restaurants. There’s too much
competition between the big guys for a large number of little guys to
sprinkle themselves conveniently throughout cities.
If you plonk me in any major city in Europe, I’ll find food in
minutes. If you do the same in America, even downtown and presuming it
isn’t a
specific restaurant district, and don’t give me a cell phone or a car, I could starve to death.
And this is a major contributor to what I feel is one of the biggest problems in America:
13. A country designed for cars, not humans
One of my biggest issues in the states has been how terrible a place
it is for pedestrians. It’s the worst place in the entire world to live
in if you don’t own a car.
On previous trips to the states I’ve had it rough – relying on
sub-par public transport (which is at least workable in certain major
cities, but almost never first world standard in my opinion), or relying
on a friend the entire time. You can’t do
anything without a
car in most cases. With rare exceptions (like San Francisco), all shops,
affordable restaurants, supermarkets, electronics etc. are miles away.
You rarely have corner shops (and if you do they are way more expensive
than supermarkets).
I find it laughable that Austin is rated as among the most “walkable” cities in the states. Living
just outside
the centre, but within walking distance, meant that I had a stretch of
my path with no pavement, and a little further out I had to walk on
grass to get to a bus stop.
What struck me as the most eerie thing of all is that I felt very much
alone when
walking in any American city. In many cases I’d be the only pedestrian
in the entire block, even if it was in the middle of the week downtown!
The country is really designed to get in your car, drive to your
destination and get out there. No walk-abouts.
Going for a walk to find food serendipitously (as I would in any
European city) was a terrible idea every time without checking Yelp.com
in advance.
For this last trip, I did actually rent a car for most of my stay (I
didn’t even have a driving license before this trip, which most
Americans find hard to grasp), and everything was so much more
convenient, but I really did feel like I was only ever using my feet to
work the gas pedal, and I will not miss it at all.
14. Always in a hurry
So many things in America are rushed far too much my liking. Fast
food is something we have all around the world now (thanks America…) but
even in a posh sit-down restaurant your food will usually come out in
less than five minutes after ordering! There are also obsessions with
get-rich-quick and lose-fat-quick schemes, pills that solve all your
problems after a single swallow, people cutting to the chase in casual
conversations far too quickly (after the customary empty “How are you?
Great!”)
People don’t seem to have the patience to invest time to slowly
improve things, unless it involves some kind of monetary investment.
Americans are also very punctual, because of course
time is money. So many of them could do with stopping to smell the roses, and arriving late because they took their time.
Despite all the false positivity, I find Americans to be generally
the most stressed out and unhappiest people on the planet. Despite all
the resources, and all the money they have, they are sadder than people I
know who can barely make ends meet in other countries, but still know
how to live in the moment.
This rush to the finish line, to have your book published, or to have
a million dollars in your bank account or to get that promotion, and to
have that consume your life is something I find really sad.
15. Obsession with money
I met far too many people who were more interested in their bank
balance than their quality of life. People richer than I can possibly
imagine, who are depressed. More money seems to be the only way they
understand of solving problems. They don’t travel because they think
they need tens of thousands of dollars, and they don’t enjoy their day
because they may miss out on a business opportunity.
16. Unhealthy portions
Apart from people not being frank with those who are overweight, the
biggest problem is that portions in restaurants are grossly
overgenerous. Any time I ordered even a
small portion I’d be
totally full. Small means something completely different to me than it
does to Americans. If you sit down in most places and order
anything but an appetiser or a salad, you
will eat more than you should.
I was brought up being reminded of starving children in Africa, so I
feel guilty if I don’t clear my plate. This has been disastrous over the
last few months and I’ve put on weight because of it! I should have
asked for a “doggy bag” nearly all the time.
I’ve learned to stop ordering a soda entirely, because when places give you free refills, I feel like I
should drink more… it’s free after all! Ugh.
17. Thinking America is the best
Finally, one thing I find annoying is the warped view of America’s situation in the world.
Americans ask me all the time if I’m scared to be travelling in South
America. I found it way scarier to walk around certain parts of
downtown San Francisco or Chicago at night than I did even in downtown
Recife (apparently one of the most dangerous cities in South America) –
because at least there are people there. And I find it pretty scary to
be in a country where pretty much anyone can legally buy a revolver.
I also keep hearing about America being the land of the free – it
certainly was… 200 years ago. Most of western Europe is as free or more
free, with opportunities for people at all levels. America is indeed a
better place with a higher standard of living than most of the world,
but free speech and tolerance for all is the norm in the western world
as a rule, not just in America.
There is no best country. But those who go on about how America is
number one, tend to be those who have never travelled or lightly
travelled.
How about saying America is great or “awesome”? I think
patriotism is an excellent quality to have, and we should all be proud of where we were born. But
nationalism (believing other countries are inferior) is a terrible quality.
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