Why do non-americans assume all americans are idiots?

[superlarz]

There are dumb people everywhere.

But the dummies in the states are louder and prouder, not to mention completely unrepentant.

We celebrate your dummies and try to give them hope, instead of hiding them in our basements or worse..

[Gamerforlife]

After living here for thirty years, I have to say it's true. Most people in America are idiots. Many of the reasons why have already been state in this topic. And I've personally always hated the arrogant assumption many Americans have that we are the best country in the world and that everyone envies us and looks to us for leadership. And yes, Bush was an idiot and we gave him two terms. Doesn't say much for us Americans.

[nateup2]

After living here for thirty years, I have to say it's true. Most people in America are idiots. Many of the reasons why have already been state in this topic. And I've personally always hated the arrogant assumption many Americans have that we are the best country in the world and that everyone envies us and looks to us for leadership. And yes, Bush was an idiot and we gave him two terms. Doesn't say much for us Americans.

exactly

The older I get, the more people I meet... the less patriotic I become.

In general, people just don't care to know... much of anything.

I have not lived anywhere else for any extended time period, so objectively speaking, it very well could be that people everywhere are dumb... but you can't just ignore the stats, either.

[ZeroAX]

Wow talk about a flame topic.

Listen, as a European who lived for 2 years in the USA I can say that americans are NOT idiots.
There were of course the @$$holes as in any country, but I remember a lot of great people.

Now the reason the rest of the world thinks americans are idiots, I believe has to do with your low quality
entertainment, and by that I mostly mean american television.

You have to understand that to most of the world, you are what they see on TV cause they don't have contact with the real place.
And what do they see? Hollywood making movies with no intelligence, and making big stars of talentless people (btw I hate you for
making Hanna Montana (or Hanna Πουτάνα (Poutana) as I like calling her. google it)), and of course all the propaganda, that for some
"strange" reason the rest of the world just doesn't like that much (it's ok for you to be told that your country is great, but you have to
understand how we feel every time we have to go through another patriot speech).

Or how we see, the cliche, that in schools, the hot stupid chicks and the athletic guys, get to rule the school (which actually is quite the
opposite of what happens here, in my school we sucked up to the smart kids so they'd help us, during exams and stuff).

And many other stupid tv senarios, that have been pulled by the hair, that usually plauge tv.

So when people think of america they'll naturally think it's like they show it in tv.

It's like those idiots who love japan, because of anime. Do
you honestly think that all japanese people, when they hear the word, relationship, they'll blush and lose their word?

The USA's culture has had a global impact through tv, cause most of the world's tv media is made in the USA. Unfortunetly though,
like most tv programs (i'll get to this at the end) it's really low quality, which makes a lot of people, specialy the French who I think are right on this one, mad that their kids are being brainwashed from low quality foreign tv.

Now of course ,all of the worlds tv is low quality in my opinion. I don't even watch any of Greece's low inteliggence tv shows, and I can say that Italy's is even worse, but the fact is, Greek and Italian tv stays in Greece and Italy. The usa's does not.

Of course we shouldn't forget the good stuff America has given to global culture, like the jean pants (thank you) video games ect ect.


Also I'm sorry to say this but Bush was quite an idiot. I don't care if he was friendly and ect ect. They guy seamed like an asshole to the rest of the world, and his foreign policy was a disaster (I loved how Angela Merkel was at a lost of words, when the press asked her to comment on Bush as a president when he was retiring).

But you have redeemed yourselfs with Barrack Obama who managed to turn the feelings of Europe for the american president, from hate to love. (heck I even joined his facebook page, and so did a lot of europeans)

[Ack]

Thank you Zero. Many of us over here know the majority of our television shows are terrible. Truthfully, I can't think of too many worth watching, but I hardly ever watch television and when I do it's to watch the news.

As for President Bush, his bad wrap started with his speech issues. The media enjoyed portraying Bush as an idiot, so any time he screwed up a phrase or said the word nuclear we heard about it, and our news channels are aired throughout the world, so everybody else heard about it. Thing is, President Obama does it too, it just doesn't go as widely reported. According to President Obama, the US has 57 states, and presidential terms run from 5-10 years. Also, he apparently sees dead people. He's not so good when he doesn't have a teleprompter or a written copy of his speech in front of him. But hey, it's a stressful job, and I know my speech gets mangled from time to time when I'm thinking about too many things, so I'll give them both a pass on it. My biggest problem comes down to bias in the media.

We already know that Hollywood is a haven for more left-wingers that despised Bush, and were happy to vent their frustration through those movies and all that television that was aired all over the world. The problem we're having is that it's also in our news media. Take a look at these two pdfs: (McCain) (Obama). These are the campaign contributions to both campaigns from the staff at ABC. Do you notice a slight difference? ABC runs news programs on a nightly basis, yet we can clearly see that quite a few of their producers, executive producers, actors and actresses, writers, and even quite a handful of executives donate to one party. Meanwhile, one actor, one writer, one television show host, one executive, and one engineer donated to the opposition. Which side do you think they're going to spin for? And which president do you think they're more willing to portray as an idiot? And when the rest of the world sees this and doesn't realize what's going on in our production studios, how will this change their perceptions? Just something to think about.

And for the record, Merkel doesn't like Obama much either.

[General Chaos]

I grew up and lived in the US until about a year ago, when my wife and I moved to Toronto. While we are both politically and socially liberal, and thus find more people like ourselves here (especially considering we lived in Texas), I wouldn't necessarily go so far as to say the people here are comparatively more intelligent.

Having taught at three different college/universities, I can also speak from that perspective. I find my students here are more open to new and critical ways of viewing the world, but they are not more intelligent than students I have had in the past. In fact, some of the most intelligent students I have had the pleasure of engaging with have been those in Texas whose political positions stood in stark contrast to my own.

My wife's grandmother likes to say "every place is the same," and when it comes to people's potential (or lack thereof), I wholeheartedly agree.

[Arbitern1]

Americans do tend to wallow in their own filth and excess.I am an american and I hate it when people think im stupid just because of what nationality i am.But let's face it americans are generally a very spoiled and wasteful people.

[ZeroAX]

Americans do tend to wallow in their own filth and excess.I am an american and I hate it when people think im stupid just because of what nationality i am.But let's face it americans are generally a very spoiled and wasteful people.

you should see the japanese

although I do have a problem with you americans. you are oversensitive about bad things done to you, and completely insensitive to things done to other people.


For example when postal the movie came out a lot of people were offended from this scene

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt_tv7t79WY

which I think is kind of funny, and is more of an insult to the terrorists themselfs, who are idiots to believe that they will actually get rewarded in the afterlife. Yet I kept reading on the internet, that people hated that scene, and when they saw it they just got up and left offended.

BUT when it comes to other people's tragedy's like WW2 in Europe, and the atomic bombs in japan, you don't care and make infinite movies,games,jokes about them. One of the funniest things in the Red Alert series for many is the nuke.

So if you want to be sensitive, you have every right to be, but you have to be both ways.
Not only when it's Vietnam, or 11/9, but every other time someone other than america was hurt.

And if you are going to try and humorise a tragedy, which I also think is ok, be prepared for when people humorise your own tragedies.

[synapse]

One of my teachers at University once said "One dead american is worth more than one thousand dead africans". Of course, this was the "journalism I" class and he was talking about movies and media.

So yeah, I sort of agree xD

[Ack]

For example when postal the movie came out a lot of people were offended from this scene

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt_tv7t79WY

Hey now, I was more offended that somebody let Uwe Boll make another movie.