26 Europeans Wonder If The America They See On Television Is The Same In Real Life (And The Questions Are Hilarious)
1. The yellow school buses. I couldn’t believe they were actually a thing when I first went to the US.
– raketooy
2. Can you really turn right at a crossroads even if the traffic light is red?
3. It looks as though in all the american TV/movies i have seen that all Americans have to file their own taxes, is this true? In the UK this is done automatically by your employer
4. Until this afternoon, the gun shops. My mate is in Vegas at the moment and he just posted a pic of him in a shop that looks almost identical to the ones in GTA. I had just assumed that GTA was exaggerating.
– mrOsteel
5. Are prices in stores marked tax free and they tell you the full price at the checkout?
– Kuevb
6. Are house parties common and are they like in the movies ? With +30 drunk people and sex everywhere ?
7. Can you really end up at an elite university when you’re dumb as a brick but good at sports?
– Arkaron
8. Is New York City really as busy as it looks in movies? On TV it looks like there’s a billion people jammed in there, with everyone moving shoulder to shoulder in one huge angry mass and you could lose a child if you blink. Is that just put on for the cameras to look busy? None of the cities here are anywhere like that.
– pedazzle
9. Is it really that risky to walk into a ‘ghetto’ neighborhood in a big city, or is it more something people just ‘say’? Always wondering as we have ‘bad’ neighborhoods here as well, but if you walk through them at night, you really aren’t that much more unsafe than in other parts of cities. In short are there really ‘no go’ area’s?
10. I had a couple from Seattle stay at my flat for a couple days as couchsurfers and I was quite surprised to hear them call each other “honey” or “hon” just like in the movies.
11. Do people really have air conditioners just hanging out of windows, only held in place by the window itself? It seems crazy unsafe!
12. Jaywalking; how likely are you to get in trouble for it and what are the punishments like?
13. Is there really such a strict attitude towards teenagers drinking alcohol? In the UK zero fucks are given.
14. Are the portions of food as big as everyone makes out?
I’ve had a lot of people come back from the states and tell me that the amount of food you get on a plate is insane. (I’m not talking about fine dining here).
– NeoCoN7
15. Do the police really come to parties where people under the age of 21 are drinking and arrest everyone?
– titykaka
16. Do you guys seriously use those red cups at parties? Why not just drink straight out of the bottle or can?
17. Do you really tip everyone for everything, even if the service was terrible?
– _Maui_
18. Is it really flat, dry and arid in some places? I’ve seen pictures or shows of colleges and towns that look like they are in the middle of no where and there are no hills or mountains for miles.
Also, what is a Klondike bar?!
19. Caucasian. Is that just a term for white people?
20. Do you guys really pay everything when having dinner with a girl?
21. Have you really had that Teevo? T-vo? telly on demand thing for like 15 years? It came out in the UK like 3 years ago. Whats going on?
22. Why does everyone live in dormitories on campus at University? In Australia, that is pretty much completely unheard of. You either stay living at home, or live in a share house off campus.
23. The depiction of your high schools fascinates me.
Do you really split yourselves up into clear groups like nerds/freaks/jocks/coolkids/stoners and all that? Do you really walk around dressed up in those identikit costumes from the tv shows and only sit with and talk to the others of that group?
Do bullies in your schools really have an entourage of yes men who act that sycophantically and be in the background like “yeah” when the bully says something? Do bullies really do overt stuff like trip kids up in lunch hall and spill their food trays or give them wedgies and how on earth does this not end up in dozens of fistfights? We didn’t have “geeks” as such when I was in school, people were slightly more well rounded lol… but I would say even the dorkiest goofiest kid wouldn’t just stand there and take that.
Do you really have events where you gather the whole school in the gym and yell and sing songs about how great the school is with speeches and stuff… for the sports team?
Do the alphabetti government organisations whose acronyms nobody can keep track of really just wave a magic badge at people and get instant compliance and deference straight away?
24. Is there really that many obese people?
25. Is everyone in California a surfer or lifeguard?
– 0——————0
26. Why are Americans obsessed with saying ‘ass’ all the time? Everything was ‘bad-ass’ this or ‘big-ass’ that and every insult seems to include ‘ass’ eg. ‘asshole’, ‘jackass’ etc.
