#there's also subtler American things like how loudly you speak | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

nimblermortal · 11 months ago

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Have you ridden in one of these?

Do you know what this is usually used for?

If you were in a group of a dozen people from Illinois and you had to all sing a song together to save your life, could you find one that you all knew? What if it were December, or Sunday, or July 4?

'White Americans don't have any culture, they're just [normal/boring/generic/empty]. 'Culture' is when you're quaint and exotic and have interesting ethnic foods and holidays." is such a grating bit of nonsense to have somehow become progressive commonsense in a lot of places.

#etc etc but for real the school bus and the solo cup are American(TM) culture in other countries #there are American parties where people get solo cups for the occasion #I threw in the song thing because one of my fond memories from college #was all of these people from all over the country getting together and singing Disney songs #because we missed a lot of localized social cues but everyone knew the words to Make a Man Out of You #(I missed a LOT of pop culture growing up and I learned a lot of Disney lyrics in this context - but I still knew some)#there's also subtler American things like how loudly you speak #how far you stand from someone #how quickly you offer to help someone you don't know with a small task #this last is one of my favorite American things #I have a lot of gripes about Americans but we're very good at Being the Hero when it costs us nothing

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