Before we start, we shouldn’t have to tell you that not all people in the United States
of America do the same things, like the same things or act the same way.
But sometimes we can generalize because certain cultures do seem to have certain traits.
The English for instance, for the most part do seem to go on about the weather quite a
lot.
Maybe they do that sometimes while sipping on tea.
Is that generalization true?
Yes, you can find data on how much tea is drunk in England and data about how much folks
there natter about the vagaries of the troposphere.
That said, feel free to scream at us in the comments if you think we got the good ‘ole
USA wrong.
First of all, let’s just recap a little on what we said in our first show about what
those Europeans find weird about the U.S.
We first mentioned the tipping culture, as Americans seem to tip more than most people
in Europe.
We also mentioned the very large meals often served in a restaurant, which might look like
meals for three for some Europeans.
On the Brightside, we also told you that Americans can be very friendly and smile a lot, but
Europeans might also express shock when they get IDed for trying to buy smokes or booze.
As for the rest: the block system, using credit cards everywhere, too many commercial breaks
on TV, dubious wrestling, 24 hour cities, hyper-devout Christians, flags everywhere,
guns everywhere, and the fact everything seems just…well…big.
We mention this show because we actually asked you in the comments what you, our European
viewers, found weird about the USA.
One of the top answers was the fact in the US you have to pay for your healthcare.
As we have said in other shows, the U.S. healthcare system costs the taxpayers an incredible amount
of money.
It’s the most expensive in the world, yet rated poorly.
If you can’t afford to get insured or have insurance that doesn’t cover the whole cost,
as has been reported time and time again in the U.S. media, getting sick here can and
does bankrupt many families.
It’s expensive because drugs are costly and you have defensive costs, meaning doctors
are afraid to get sued so do many tests.
Then you have ultra-expensive admin and ultra-expensive treatments.
But the real reason is why most European nations have less expensive healthcare is that governments
oversee healthcare while America is more focused on having healthcare as a business, not a
God Given right to each citizen.
As Forbes wrote in 2017, “It’s because, ultimately, the U.S. healthcare system wasn’t
designed with consumer needs in mind — it was built to maximize the insurance billing
process.”
This is what Europeans find weird, because most of them see healthcare as something everyone
should be entitled to.
We will stick with the negative for now, and something another of our European viewers
said he thought was weird.
He wrote, “An American thing that I find weird is that schools are sometimes confused
with shooting ranges.”
Does the U.S. really have so many more school shootings than countries in Europe?
You can find data on this, timelines of global school shootings, and indeed America doesn’t
just have more than European countries but it’s hard to find any instances of this
happening in Europe.
CNN published a piece in 2018 about school shootings around the world since 2009.
Here are the numbers: UK: 0.
Italy: 0.
Germany: 1.
Greece: 1.
Russia: 1.
Turkey: 1.
France: 2.
USA: 288.
The next country, not in Europe, but with the highest number was Mexico with 6.
If you find this weird, you might look to the USA’s Second Amendment and the right
to bear arms.
As we mentioned in the first show, there are a lot of guns around in the USA.
Americans cherish their freedom, and many people feel it is their God given right to
have a gun, but perhaps not free healthcare.
The reason, according to some, is not just a legal matter, but the idea that the USA
promotes something called “expressive individualism” and perhaps that’s one reason people might
feel they can take the law into their own hands.
But we can’t go into details about this as the debate is a long one.
What we can say is the fact that kids get shot up in classrooms so often in the USA
is a thing that Europeans find, well, crazy.
Another thing one of our viewers mentioned was the drinking laws in the USA.
Maybe you can get hold of a gun, but aren’t even allowed to drink.
Maybe you can risk your life in battle, but can’t get served a shot of Scotch in a bar.
As one person wrote, “21, WTF.”
Why does the U.S. have such strict drinking laws?
If you go over to Europe you’ll find youngsters downing beer and wine with abandon, but also
drinking responsibly at times.
As one writer in the U.S. says, isn’t it weird that you are considered at adult when
you’re 18 but can’t legally buy booze until you are 21.
“There’s a long and storied history about alcohol in America, and why the legal drinking
age is set at 21,” said that writer.
We are told certain states had different laws on when you could buy booze, and this kept
changing in the 20th century.
For a long time the legal age was 18.
One doctor writes, “None of this had any medical or psychological basis, but had to
do with rights and responsibilities afforded to people defined as ‘adults.”
He said it was generally considered that if at age 18 you could be sent to fight in a
war, you could darn well be responsible enough drink.
But that all changed when they put the age up to 21 in 1984.
It’s said while 18 year old people could fight a war, they were still doing things
like crashing cars while loaded.
It was also thought that if the drinking age was made higher, fewer 19-20 year olds would
drink.
And what happened when one state had a younger drinking age law than another is kids would
travel to drink, and this caused even more mayhem when they crashed cars.
Basically, much of the public said make a law of 21 for everyone.
Does it work?
The CDC reported that one survey that interviewed high schoolers in the USA found, “30% drank
some amount of alcohol.
14% binge drank.
6% drove after drinking alcohol.
17% rode with a driver who had been drinking alcohol.”
Still, you can find data on teen drinking around the world and it seems Europe has more
problems with it than the USA, well certainly in Eastern Europe.
Other studies show us U.S. teens binge drink at a similar rate to western European teens.
Whatever the case, most people think the 21 age limit is pretty weird.
Ok, so what about the fact the U.S. uses the metric system.
It’s doesn’t even seem like a rational way of measuring things.
Why does the U.S. not change?
We found a good answer in Time magazine that wrote a piece called, “Why Won’t America
Go Metric?”
Time writes, “The popular narrative holds that this 1970s conversion movement failed,
and that Americans have never gone metric because we are too obstinate or patriotic
or just plain stupid to do so.
This tale is wrong.”
The article says that America is metric, but only in the background.
It uses the system for many measurements, but the fact is the public doesn’t want
to change fully because people know the other system well.
When the metric system was developed in France in the 18th century it just seemed too radical,
and Thomas Jefferson said take your system and shove up your European nether regions.
Changing would mean having to change many things about the infrastructure of the country.
Most of Europe didn’t agree, though, and they adopted this system.
Even what Time calls the “world’s most anti-metric nation”, Great Britain, finally
ditched the Imperial system in the 1970s for better access to European markets.
The world then caught on for the same reason, the global economy.
Time proudly exclaims that the USA learned both systems.
“That ours is a dual-measurement country is part of our great diversity,” the article
concludes.
Ok, so what about this Fahrenheit thing?
Surely Celsius just makes more sense?
As one source writes, “Celsius is a reasonable scale that assigns freezing and boiling points
of water with round numbers, zero and 100.”
Then you have Fahrenheit, with 32 to 212.
Very, very few countries use this measurement, although some older folks might still use
it in places like the UK and Canada.
If you read the news now, though, it’s mostly in Celsius.
So why does the USA stay with Fahrenheit?
It’s a long story, but most countries saw the metric system and Celsius as simple and
useful.
That’s why most countries flipped.
But the British, and it’s colonies and former colonies, held on for a long time as you know.
The systems were not only intuitive, but it seemed only right to have the same global
system as that would make cooperation much easier.
But even though Congress in the US passed the 1975 Metric Conversion Act, it just didn’t
go down well in this proud country.
The problem was, the law was voluntary, and many people just didn’t want to learn the
metric system and figure out Celsius at the same time.
Fahrenheit stuck, even though there are many critics in the USA that say it’s time to
change.
Critics on the other side say the Fahrenheit scale is better because a one degree change
is what a person naturally feels.
As AccuWeather points out, though, many Americans misjudge weather conditions in other countries
because they can’t understand Celsius.
Maybe this is just down to pride again, but this time it’s perhaps weirder and you Europeans
might have a point.
Ok, down to money matters.
You might have heard of Europeans travelling to the USA and not being able to get on top
of the bill situation.
They say all the bills look the same.
Most of the rest of the world has really pretty, colorful bills, and bills you can easily tell
apart.
So, what’s up with the monochrome cash?
Well, first of all, it’s still the world’s dominant currency, so we don’t expect it
to change from that green-grey color scheme.
The origin of green boils down to a patent of the ink and the American Bank Note Company
being formed in 1858.
This green ink printing method was hard, virtually impossible, to counterfeit, and it stuck.
It is also said the green symbolized stability and growth, and that’s a good thing for
money.
Greenbacks have become iconic, so we doubt fancy bills will be coming anytime soon.
Let’s finish on something much lighter, and that is American sports games replete
with those people called cheerleaders.
Yes, cheerleading at a serious sports game is a bit weird for Europeans.
Imagine beginning the next Champions League final with dancing girls and pom-poms?
The fans would only find it an irritating aside to the match.
But in the U.S. cheerleading is accepted, enjoyed, and as one journalist says, it’s
down to Americans wanting their sports game to be fun and friendly, a day out, unlike
those soccer games that are sometimes less than pleasant – for the fans at least.
You’ll find cheerleading of course in other nations, but it’s said all-star cheerleaders
in the US number around 1.5 million.
It all started in the late 1800s, but then it was just a bunch of men shouting, “Hoo-rah,
hoo-rah.”
Someone had the idea to form teams of these cheering people, but it wasn’t until men
were drafted to war in the 1940s and more women turned up at sports games that they
took over the cheering.
They made it more feminine, too, adding the dancing spirit to the shouting.
It got serious in the 50s and has been since.
Like many other things in the USA, it never took off around the globe, those Europeans
just watch and wonder what is actually going on.
Do you agree with this?
Tell us in the comments.
Also, be sure to check out our other video American Things Europeans Find Weird #1.
Thanks for watching, and as always, don’t forget to like, share and subscribe.
See you next time.