Abe, you are so correct. Envy is a terrible thing. Not that this has anything to do with Europeans per se, but back in my partying days my cousin and I spent summers in Alexandria Bay, on the St. Lawrence River in New York just over the Canadian bridge. We’d go to a club and the difference between the fat, sloppy, dirty jeans and T shirt American guys and the totally opposite stylish well dressed Canadian guys was so, so obvious. When it came time to move the party, we often left with the good looking Canadians, and you should have seen the bitter, envious shit fit our American friends pitched. Much ugly name calling followed all of us out. What jerks!
Envy, again, is a terrible thing.
Abe, I think you missed the point. Not all Europeans are Eurotrash. Many Europeans undoubtedly like Americans, many undoubtedly hate Americans, and many undoubtedly have no particular opinion either way. But there are some Europeans who despite their professed dislike for anything American will go out of their way to find any American they can, so they can spend several hours telling them how inferior they are and how much they despise their way of life. My response is “Hey buddy, you want to hate me? Fine, but do it another room.”
To me, the term brings to mind the nihilists from The Big Lebowski
There is a pathetic sort of European showbiz personality, be he/she minor nobility, has-been singer, mediocre actor, clapped-out TV host, minor-league “supermodel”, fashion-world hanger-on, or some attractive nobody once romantically linked with one or more of them. A whole slew of lame European magazines deal largely with their comings and goings, such as France’s Paris-Match, Germany’s Stern, and Spain’s ¡Hola! They are referred to as “the jet set” or “the beautiful people”, though (except for the minor nobility, most of whose titles are made up anyway) they are mostly nouveaux riches or not even rich at all. The income of some of these people consists entirely of being paparrazzi fodder and selling exclusive interviews to the above-mentioned trashy magazines. Classic examples are Julio Iglesias, Claudia Schiffer, and the royal family of Monaco, as well as anyone who ever went to Studio 54, though such less-internationally-known examples as Isabel Preysler, Johnny Hallyday, Isabel Pantoja, and Cilla Black also abound. Most of these people spend a good bit of time in the States and make a big deal out of how supposedly important they are there (every time a used-up Spanish singer like Raphael, Rocío Jurado, or Camilo Sesto sells out a Miami nightclub, it’s a cover story in ¡Hola!). America has its share of folks like this, including all those who went to Studio 54 and such horrors as Jackie Onassis and Andy Warhol. They normally tried to prove to everyone what a big deal they were in Europe.
This is what I understand by “Eurotrash” or, even more pathetically, “Eurotrash wannabees”.
–Lawrence, your Barcelona correspondent
Time to end the stereotypes. There are annoying and less annoying people everywhere.
I think the original question of this thread, i.e. what does Eurotrash mean, has been amply answered. It is a stereotype.
I always thought “EuroTrash” meant, simply, Canadian.
Wrong, Thill. Eurotrash refers to a specific type of European (probably 0.001% of the European poplulation) who live high on the hog and usually hand-to-mouth off their celebrity. This is no stereotype. These people exist. Come on over here to Spain and I’ll show you a few (at a distance, of course).
Ursa Major:
If the “grammar police” come after you, this will get you off:
http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/?date=19991013
“The dawn of a new era is felt and not measured.” Walter Lord