When my brother was with the Peace Corps in Togo, he had the hardest time convincing the people there that he grew up in a black neighborhood. To them, America and Europe seem to have been largely conflated as the “white” part of the world. They were blown away by the idea of my (white) brother coming from a working class black area.
I suppose I have seen guns in cops’ belts. Never paid much attention. I grew up in an upper middle class town with an average murder rate of 0. The cops are not a big presence. People mostly notice them only when they pull you over for going 32 in a 25.
As for the gun owners, I don’t care if it stretches your credulity, it’s true. My parents and their friends are college-educated hippie liberals living in the San Francisco Bay Area. Not exactly a major gun-owning demographic.
Europeans also tend to feel that Americans are overly into sentimental kitsch, glorifying (among other things) people whose lives are basically unenviable (as detailed in a previous topic) as “heroic” and whatnot.
In Europe, people mostly keep their problems to themselves, mainly because they are (understandably) embarrassed and don’t wish to open themselves up to gossip and pity. In the US, we have now reached a point where it is practically mandatory to have experienced some kind of adversity or struggle at some point in one’s life if one wants to be seen as a card-carrying member of the human race. On a related note, Europeans are beginning to adopt the pop psychology that runs rampant in the US, but they still pretty much take it with a grain of salt and even ridicule it.
Also, Europeans find it frightening and slightly schizophrenic how Americans are selectively paranoid about government interference in their lives. There seems to be something schizophrenic about how, for example, Americans scream about socialism and gun rights and all that shit on the one hand, but most see nothing wrong with how the government can kidnap people’s children legally, even are in favor of it.
This was nicely illustrated by the recent Michael Jackson fracas where Americans screamed that his kids should be “taken away” from him, how he should be “arrested” for dangling the kid out the window. By comparison, in Germany, where the whole thing took place, no one batted an eyelash. My European friends and relatives tell me that it’s getting worse over there with more intrusive child welfare “services”, etc., but they are obviously going by a different standard. The Michael Jackson thing has illustrated how big the gap in that respect still is, regardless.
I’m also not stretching the truth. I suppose I do know a police officer or two, as well, so they’re sorta-kinda gun owners. But other than that, I’m not stretching the truth. One gun owner, and then only for hunting.
My parents aren’t exactly hippies, but they have voted for Ted Kennedy in every election I’m aware of, and work (sort of) for our local Democrat’s campaign when he runs for Congress. So it’s certainly a liberal family, but we’re hardly commies, or anything :).
It’s difficult to answer, since it widely depends on the knowledge each indivudual has about american society. But I suspect the “basic” stereotype would hold the US as a white country, with quite a lot of immigrants, most probably poor and oppressed (like black people).
My parents are also liberals, in fact my mother is a pacifist so there was never any chance of there being guns in our house. I’m sure I have some relatives with guns and maybe some of my friends’ parents had them but we lived in a liberal area (suburban DC) and it just wasn’t discussed. Really don’t understand why that seems so incredible to some.
“All Americans own stereos.” 
Well, it wouldn’t be a stereotype then would it!
Gee, I guess I was wrong about that. :rolleyes:
People from Tampere probably have the same stereotype of Helsinki as everyone else - that Helsinkians are snooty bitches who think civilized Finland ends at Helsinki (“Ring 3 is the wolf border”, Ring 3 being a ring road going around Helsinki) and that their primary ice hockey team, Jokerit, sucks and is a money team (Jokeri-hatred was pretty visible in our school, although that might be at least partially because this one annoying guy was a big Jokerit fan and very easy to troll about it.)
As an American who has lived in Europe, I would agree with the perceived parochialism of Americans. My conclusion at the time was that often Americans see themselves as primarily citizens of their State first (Texas, California, New York, etc.) and the USA second. By contrast, the Europeans (the one’s I met at least) saw themselves as primarily citizens of their countries first and the world second. It’s kind of hard to explain, but it sort of shows up in your awareness of the “world” around you. For Americans, the awareness generally stops at the border of the US. For Europeans, that is not the case.
I think that the fact that we Americans only share borders with 2 other countries is a factor. Also, we do not get frequent direct exosure to people and issues from even our direct neighbors, let alone overseas countries. Whereas in Europe you are aware of the news from your neighbors. Your sports teams play against teams from other countries on a regular basis, etc. This contributes to a more worldly world view than in the US.
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These are the stereotypes that my two year participation in these boards have led me to believe are close to true:
- Americans really like guns.
- Americans get into really long, heated debates over guns.
- Americans don’t even see how much they like guns.
- Americans would rather see violence in entertainment than sex.
- Americans are very religious.
- Americans get into really long, heated debates over religion.
- Americans are intolerant about the subject of religion.
- Americans think humans are more special than any other organisms on the planet.
- Americans really do think America is the best place on Earth to live, and have no real concept of how brainwashed to believe that they are.
- Americans wholly endorse Capitalism/Commercialism.
- Americans are confrontational.
- Americans are very quick to protect their perceived rights and freedoms.
- Americans are generous and gregarious.
As a Dutch girl I can totally agree with Clairobscur in paris and Featherlou.
Also, I can add that Americans seem very moralistic. Always busy with ethics, (modern non religious form of religion) . The combination of ethics and violence is typically American (think movies!): “well, I didn’t start this, because I’m Good, but now that you ve’started, I won’t hold back and you’re really going to get hurt”.
Also, to the Dutch mind, Americans make ethical issues out of things we just approach practically, which seems to me a better way. Like teenage pregnacy or prostitution or drugs.
And that they have a strange emphasis on beliefs. An American will say, : well, i believe that…An European would say: “well, i think that…” Seems to me more of a difference then just language-use.
And that so many years of Ophrah has left the overal American speaking in a therapeutic way. Some travellers talk amongst themselves like Tourists Anonymous, or something.
And, strangely enough, it is always something special for a Dutch person to have an US-ser visiting. Because they are friendly, extravert, polite, understandabel, funny (or maybe English just seems wittier to us) enthousiastic, open and just similar enough to be curious about the differences.
I am the epitome of the stereotypical American when it comes to guns. I have guns, brother has guns, dad has guns, neighbors have guns, friends have guns… hell, I think even my dog has a gun ;).
We’re drowning in guns. I love it. 
I have been lurking on this board for over a month now, just waiting for a topic to surface that I felt particularly impassioned about; affronts to my culture suffice.
I’m not sure that “like” is the right word. Do we take for granted the purpose of our right to bear arms? Yes. Are we too cavalier with this right? I think so. Do we recognize the awesome destructive power of guns? Again, yes. We have both a familiarity with and reverence for these weapons unlike anywhere else in the world.
Get enough mail from special-interest groups like the NRA and you would be inclined to argue about guns, too.
I openly admit that, though I have never held a functional gun before, it is my lifetime goal to do so. Then again, this may be inspired by my new Sunday night obsession with “Alias”. 
I’m going to have to go with Neurotik here. Both is best.
Not particularly suprising for a country built by immigrants seeking religious freedom. Religion is a huge part of our heritage, though I think that, these days, it increasingly of cultural importance and less and less a veritable basis for for most people’s beliefs.
With all of the material opulence we live in, really, what else is there to do but sit around eating McDonald’s and waxing philosophic during halftime of a football game?
Most people who adhere strongly to a set of religious beliefs don’t leave a whole lot of room to manuever and please everyone else. That would be contrary to the very notion of belief itself. The main pitfall of this statement is that it characterizes all religious people as close-minded, with the implication that Americans in general are religious, and therefore Americans are a close-minded people.
We humans have such a superiority complex. After all, we are only the third most intelligent creatures on the planet, after lab mice and dolphins, of course.
In my experience, almost everyone has a particular affinity for their home. I love living in the US (this is not to say that I don’t fully intend to live in other countries as well), but that is because this is where I grew up. This applies not only to countries but to regions as well. As a transplanted Midwesterner, I am staunch advocate of fighting the country bumpkin stereotype as well as enlightening those poor souls who use the hopelessly incorrect word “soda” for carbonated beverages. The real question, though, is where is the best place NOT on Earth to live?
In a recent survey of the general populous of bourgeoisie US citizens about role models, Adam Smith was cited second only to Jesus Christ himself.
The opposite is far more true. Americans are constantly apologizing for their wrongdoings, perceived or true, against other people. I’m sorry for forcing my food, television shows, clothes, etc. onto your country. I’m sorry we still use the ridiculously outmoded English measuring system (foot-pounds, anyone?). I’m sorry for being bigoted, intolerant, selfish, fat, ignorant, spoiled, violent, and loud. I’m sorry for sucking the world’s oil wells dry. You get the point.
Perceived? The Bill of Rights is some massive illusion that we’ve conjured up, and, silly Americans, all think applies to us?
I can live with that.
I also think that Americans are also held against the impossibly unfair double-standard that we can’t be proud of our culture because that is just so imperialistic, isolationist, and ignorant of us. Ah, the difficulties of living in a country of nearly 300 million whose culture is so pervasive (and resented) throughout the world.
But this rant has gone on long enough. I am a disaffected college student, and finals are looming over my head like the smoggy Los Angeles basin air.
What you seem to have done there, Ikoiko, is to take one set of crude generalisations, sieve them to keep the ones you liked, discard the rest and replace them with another set of crude generalisations that are complimentary. If you have been lurking for a while as you say, you must have noticed plenty of contributions that contradict the characteristics you’ve offered for what “Americans are like”.
Personally, for instance, I’ve met Americans that are self-effacing and apologetic as you’ve suggested, but others that are aggressively boastful and unapologetic about anything. Consequently I don’t have any stereotypes of Americans – it’s far too big and complex a sample of people to be able to say anything reliable about them.
The problem with generalisations is that unless they’re so general as to apply to everyone, they’re completely unreliable. So replacing one set of stereotypes with another just makes the same mistakes. Generalisations are not incorrect because they’re an “affront to your culture”, they’re incorrect because they’re generalisations – just as your own are.
The same mistakes are made about the image of every other nationality that contributes to the SDMB.
Surely it makes more sense to accept people as you find them, not to pretend that they’re all as you imagine (or would prefer) them to be? That remark could be directed at everyone here who has offered stereotypes of Americans, of course, not just you personally.
I hate guns. I stay out of gun debates because the gun lovers really don’t listen to me. I also hate violence, however sex is just fine . I don’t go to church. I don’t really debate religion. I am very open to other peoples religous beliefs, I think it is great to have something to believe in if it makes your life better. Actually I side with the greenpeace guys , I love animals and am in favor of preserving wild habitats, like the rainforests. I also am in very very strong favor of further development on free energy sources like solar, tidal, wind. I would really like to live in Canada actually :D. I just moved to Las Vegas, from NW Indiana. It’s so hot here! I think I was definately built for the cold. Many so-called rights I do not agree with. Free Speach is ok in some instances, but when you let Neo-Nazi’s demonstrate that is just way over the line. I realize that if you exclude one group from free speach you are defeating the purpose of the right, but come on that is just going too far. In conclusion I would like to say that CSI makes me sick… and Bill O’Reilly is a jackass
Feh!
Here we have our Christmas trees on by October 31st and take it down after Jan 6th… or later.
On the OP: For us the stereotypical American is like everything the others have said. Funny thing is that when we meet an American we think “well, he’s different”, then we meet another and think the same thing… sooner or later we have to recognize that we may have been mistaken.
And you guys think Bush is dumb?! I have bad news for you, there aren’t that many smart people in power. We call our president “His Dumbness”, he can beat Bush any day.
Keep in mind, this is on a message board. There’s much less discussion in real life. The ~10 times I’ve had such a talk IRL it was respectful and thoughtful. It’s not that different from what you describe.