According to my mother, all the Europeans think that Americans are easy and if I go there I have to bring only conservative clothing (she’s not gonna know about the belly shirts I’m going to hide in my suitcase 
)
What I want to know is whether or not this is still thought by Europeans, or is this only something from many years ago?
I have a somewhat related question. We in America put a strong emphasis on our racial and ethnic diversity.
Do other countries? Or when they think of Americans, do they only think of white people?
These are the stereotypes that my two year participation in these boards have led me to believe are close to true:
Pretty much the loud, boorish, Hawaiian shirt thing, but with the proviso that Americans were essentially decent people who didn’t realise how they were seen by us foreigners, and would probably, in many cases, be mortified if they did. I saw Americans as articulate and confident, but also very parochial.
As galen said, Dopers might not be representative of broader US society, but the same could be said of The Jerry Springer Show. The latter having much more coverage in Australia, it was wonderful to discover the Dope and then to realise that, thinking about this objectively, any nation of close to three hundred million people is going to be bloody difficult to pigeonhole.
Good point, Hubzilla. I had a friend who was Italian-American and when she went back to the Old Country they said they thought the vast majority of Americans were blonde and lived on the beach. Weird.
So, how does the stereotype treat the ever-increasing numbers of “non-white” Americans?
BTW, I don’t like guns. Nobody who lived through the 70’s and the later crack epidemic here in the Bronx does. Chalk me up as another person who knows only two people with guns–both hunters, one my uncle and one my brother.
I seem to recall there were some opinions given about that in this thread:
Why do American men have such great reputations amoung foreign women?
HubZilla
I think that European countries that have plenty of ethnic diversity in the population place a certain emphasis on it, but to a lesser extent.
I’m very aware of Americans bracketing their ancestral or ethnic category with their present nationality more than people in other countries do. However, it does happen in European countries, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa (that last one not for the best reasons, of course).
I’m quite sure this stereotype applies to pretty much every brand of foreigner. I’ve been told that American girls were easy, that British girls were easy, that Dutch girls were easy, that German girls were easy, that Swede girls were easy, that German girls were easy, that Italian girls were easy, etc…
As for the OP, a relatively common stereotype here is that americans are “great childs”. That could mean naive, outspoken, easy to please , braggart, etc…In any case, not to take very seriously.
And of course, they have absolutely no concept of what real food is.
Sort of. It’s really polarized, probably split half and half or at the most 60/40. The people who like guns really like guns and the people who don’t like guns really don’t like guns. To be fair, if it wasn’t for the Second Amendment and disproportionate Senate representation, the gun laws would probably be much stricter, maybe even European-like.
Yes.
Again, sort of. Your problem is probably that you don’t get to see the ugly fights that go down about guns here.
I think that’s probably right. Although, both is best.
Compared to Europeans? Yes.
Compared to Latin Americans, Arabs, or South Asians? Not really.
I’d have to say we are moderately religious. A nation full of Sunday Christians, if you know what I mean.
Who doesn’t?
No more than any other nation.
Yes. But then, so does about 99% of the human race. Is this really so strange?
The first half is correct. The second half is bizarre. Brainwashed? Or maybe most Americans are pretty darn happy with where they are, and can’t imagine living in a different culture.
You got us on that one.
What the fuck is that supposed to mean, asshole? 
True, but aren’t most people?
Hahaha. I guess. Definitely the gregarious part.
I have to say, American TV exports don’t do much for our image abroad.
Ooh, I get to be the first to cite The Onion!!
Do you mean that you hear from Americans that these are true, or that you beleive the vast majority of Americans on this board promotes these views or possesses theses characteristics?
I would like to know why I find it to be such an intense thrill to read threads like this. It does not matter if it comes out positive or negative, I feel “giddy” when reading foreigners personal opinions about America. I wish I knew exactly why.
Also, is it true that in other nations you are not really considerd an American unless you are white-anglo-saxon?
The list I provided were stereotypes that were strengthened rather than dissipated by my participation on this board.
Emphatically not. Irish-Americans are considered here to be American, not Irish. Asian-Americans I know have said the same thing - when they go back to their country of ancestry, everybody there just treats them as an American.
Hey, have you ever looked at the Calgary.General newsgroup? Discussions about all the things you say are stereotypical of Americans. Peope are people as in all the same. What makes them different is their cultures. And the US and Canadian cultures are essentially the same no matter how many times my fellow Canadians protest otherwise.
I’ve come into contact with virtually all the sterotypes mentioned above. When I think of Americans in the abstract, the main thing I object to is their arrogance and parochialism (backed up by a very small sample of people I met while travelling in Europe).
However, I don’t expect to apply these sterotypes to Americans I meet, any more than I would expect all New Zealanders to be sheep-obsessed, or all Tasmanians to be inbred [sub]well, maybe that last bit about Tasmanians…[/sub] If I meet a nice, friendly, open-minded, intelligent American person, then, great! I’ve got a new friend! And every country has its fair share of arseholes.
The funniest thing I keep reading is how non-Americans feel that we are very parochial. It’s funny because it is so ridiculously true.
What I’m not sure that non-Americans realize is how deep that parochialism runs. It’s not just about America…that’s just for non-Americans. It’s about states, regions, cities, neighborhoods, whatever. Get a northern Californian and a southern Californian together and watch the fur fly. Or a New Yorker and a Bostonian. Or a New Yorker and anybody, really. It’s quite an amusing national characteristic, and it may have something to do with our loyalty to sports teams. At least that’s my half-assed theory I just made up.
I still don’t think Christmas in the States is as big as it is in Ireland and the UK. Over here Christmas lasts from December 25th till January 1st! It’s BIG.
Sure, because there are no intra-national rivalries in other nations. Everyone in a given, non-American nation is exactly similar, speaks with a similar accent, and lives in complete brotherhood with everyone else, no matter where they’re from, as long as they’re from the same nation.
Take Finland. There’s no rivalry between cities of Tampere and Turku, for example (no-one, and I mean no-one from Tampere has ever characterized Turku as “the asshole of Finland”), and no hard feelings between city of Helsinki and rest of Finland exist. Bothnians, Karelians, Savonians, Tavastians, Lapps - everyone is at one in being Finnish. And let’s not get to the warmest bond - the one between Swedish-speaking and Finnish-speaking Finns!
And Finns most surely AREN’T loyal to their sport teams!
:rolleyes:
But maybe there’s something there. Maybe Americans are so parochial they are only willing to assign the humanizing characteristic of parochialism to themselves.
Naah. I reckon every nationality’s similar, in the end.
Why Bostonians are so parochial, especially about sports: We have a HUGE inferiority complex, especially towards NY, mostly due to Babe Ruth and that Buckner Guy.