The reason Europeans insist that the USA has no culture is rooted in deep belief that “true” Americans are only and can only white, fat, and trashy. And, because of that mindset, they don’t believe African-Americans and Natives and Latino immigrants are ‘real’ Americans, even though the USA’s culture is it’s diversity.

side note: when i say Americans in this situation, im referring to US citizens.

Let me give some examples:

Suede: That's literally leather.

Wave: Like waving hello at someone or the ocean waves??

Chicago: Babes thats a US State if I'm not wrong

Stormy: That's something you'd probably name a pet 💀

Techno Mechanicus: First off thats a disrespect to Techno, and second, WHY. JUST WHY!!

Trump: Enough said.

Imagine you grow up, end up in high school, they're calling attendance and they say one of these names. Like I'd personally be laughing my ass off.

What are other diabolical names you guys have heard? These are just a few I can remember right now.

Edit:

I did not expect this to get as much attraction as it did. So I would like to say a few things because I'm tired of replying.

Thank you to everyone who corrected my geographical error; I take full accountability for being uneducated. Given I'm not from USA, I've only ever heard of Chicago so I assumed it was a state.

And yes, I know what that makes me.

Yea sure go ahead and make fun of shitty ceos or leaders be my guest. But does the ordinary man really have more power than the ordinary women in day to day life? The average white person compared to the average minority person? I don’t really think so. So if you direct jokes at them and say “punching up punching up it’s fine”, imo you’re just trying to be mean and covering it with a cloak of social acceptability.

”Historical oppression” isn’t a good reason for that too. My country and people were occupied and massacred by the Japanese during WWII, does that make it ok for me to throw atomic bomb jokes at random Japanese people now? Of course not.

I’m a woman. I proposed to my (now) husband.

I do not understand why some women spend so much time on tradition. Especially when they claim to be feminist. If you are a feminist, you see men and women as truly equal. There is no hierarchy, no gender roles, no polite society. If you are a feminist and you want to marry the man you are with, stop waiting.

Just ask him. You’ll either get a “yes, omg!” or a “no”. Either way, you can move on with the next chapter of your life.

I see so many women claiming a man “wasted” their life… but you wasted your own damn life girl. One question would have saved you any time you thought was wasted.

Woman up. Ask your man to marry you.

Idk I just don’t understand why people find her so attractive? Can someone explain the hype over her? She looks like an average woman I wouldn’t even acknowledge in public..

Your partners past actually matters and you should know about it at least, before you get married or fully commit to each other.

Every time an age gap comes up, say a 46 yo guy and a 33 y o woman there's a ton of comments about "they're at different points in life!" and all the rest. I don't think it's a big deal what gap there is after a certain age (around 25) and if people are worried about power dynamics in relationships , then these dynamics can also shift at a certain point. Let's say a 74 yo guy and a 25 yo woman. Who actually holds the power on this situation? The guy almost certainly has something else to grt a young girlfriend (money, fame, power, etc.) but the girlfriend also likely has a lot of autonomy and control too. I don't buy the idea that just becuase he's older, he's in control.

Tangent alert but related!

Take a look at the Russian spy (Butina) who was sent to the us to infiltrate the nra. She got very close to many high ranking Republicans within the org, and was sleeping with one of the guys. There was like a 30 year age gap. But clearly, she was the one taking advantage of him. To act like age is an accurate representation of power dynamics is nonsense. Especially with old dudes and young women, all she had to do was rub up on the guy and he was done.

Anyway. I feel like the current views on age gaps in relationships is weird and inaccurate.

Recently, there seems to be this narrative taking hold that dating needs to be made more fair or that the playing field needs to be leveled. My question is… why? Dating has never been fair, mating as a practice by all animals really isn’t “fair,” because someone getting picked means someone else isn’t.

I get it, people want love and connection is a human need, I totally get that. But unfortunately this is just the way dating has always been. In fact it used to be that the playing field was not equal for women and so men had an easier time finding wives because being a low earning spinster wasn’t seen as a great thing.

But I just don’t know how you could make it more “fair.” I mean it’s all basically up to people’s subjective opinions.

White people have a color to their skin as well peach, beige, fair and the list goes on. People of color is just another term to make black and brown skin the “other” we’re so obsessed with skin color in America I can’t go five minutes without hearing the phrase “people of color” I’m proud of my heritage, and I’m proud of my culture, but why does my skin color define who I em.

Person of color sounds like regression to me because colored used to be a racial slur. Now even people on the left use “people of color” when I went to Europe the racists assumed I was African a unique way to otherize black skin, and the people who weren’t racist saw me as American.

Why don’t we get to be just “American” I was born in this country like anyone else. People of color is just another way to say not white, and my skin color tells you nothing meaningful about who I am. We need to move away from the hyperfocus on skin color.

Edit: we wouldn’t have had to make terms like POC if white racist didn’t dehumanize us by calling us “boy” and the n-word let’s not forget that part.

I constantly see Europeans (and sometimes even Americans) online talk about how stupid Americans are and how bad our education system is. But if you look at accomplishments in literally any field (mathematics, medicine, technology) the U.S laps everyone. Since WWII the U.S has more Nobel Laurates (390) than the rest of the world combined (335). We are quite literally at the forefront of nearly every field and no one else is even close. We are also home to 9 of the top 20 global universities and the number one global university MIT.

Are there stupid Americans? Yes, absolutely, but there are stupid people in every country. For some reason Europeans only like to talk about the stupid Americans and ignore our vast contributions to numerous fields.

I was thinking to myself--why is the reputation of feminism on Reddit so utterly bad? You ask some people on this subreddit what feminism is, and you never hear anything about bell hooks, or gender theory... you get "it literally hates all men," "they're insufferable," "I can't stand talking to them"... etc. And it's strange. In real life, everyone's usually pretty okay with the idea of feminism, no one's talking about literally hating all men, and it's kind of an okay time for everyone.

And then I realized.

These qualities... arguing for an extreme that maybe 0.000000000000000001% of the population believes in for no reason but to score internet points, being insufferable, constantly rage baiting, being extremely annoying to talk to... these are just the qualities of your average Redditor!

Now, sure, could it be that some Redditors are feminists? Sure. Unfortunately, though, on this website, they're Redditors first and foremost, so there is a pretty decent chance they're going to be pretty miserable to interact with anyway, even if they do cover their endlessly exhausting language under "feminism."

If you hate feminism, I would encourage you to take a sit in class at your local college that focuses on it. I think your mind will change.

Just don't talk to any Redditors about it. Or anything else. Honestly, you should probably stop visiting this site. Me too, to be honest.

This applies doubly to twitter.

And tiktok.

​

There’s an expectation that if a woman truly loves her child, she should enjoy every part of motherhood: pregnancy, sleepless nights, exhaustion, loss of freedom, routines, worries, and all the sacrifices involved.

I think that’s unrealistic.

You can deeply love your child while simultaneously hating some of the experiences that come with motherhood. You can find certain stages exhausting, stressful, and frustrating, and even miss the life you had before. That doesn’t mean you love your child any less.

Love and suffering can exist at the same time. Motherhood can be deeply meaningful and, at the same time, extremely difficult.

Being a good mother shouldn’t mean enjoying suffering. It should mean caring for, protecting, educating, and being present for your child, even when the process is difficult.

Taking kids on vacation before they can form memories is one of the most confidently stupid things parents do, and I am so goddamn tired of pretending otherwise.

The kid will not remember any of it. Not the beach, not the resort, not Mexico, not a single second. The memory formation is not there yet.

The child does not have experience. Parents are dragging a small screaming potato through three connecting flights to post a photo of them in a sombrero captioned "making memories." They are not making memories. The parents are the only ones making memories, and they are all of a screaming child on a plane. And let's be honest, half the reason it's happening is for the instagram post. The "first flight" onesie. The coordinated airport outfits. The grid. The kid is a prop, and everyone knows it.

The suffering gets distributed to every poor bastard in the vicinity except the baby, who has absolutely no idea what a vacation is. The people on the plane who just wanted to sleep. The couple at the next table who saved up for a nice goddamn dinner. The people at the hotel at 2am. Not one of them consented to this.

Nobody wants to talk about the safety angle either. Three cocktails deep at a swim-up bar in a country where nobody speaks the language, nobody has slept in two days, and somewhere nearby is a twenty pound person with no survival instincts in an unfamiliar place. Kids get lost with sober attentive parents in places they know.

And then somehow, it's a complete shock when the kid is an absolute disaster for the entire trip because their sleep schedule just got obliterated across four time zones. Every single time, this surprises people. Every single goddamn time.

The most infuriating part is that parents do this exclusively when the kid will lose their shit over a slightly wrong shade of yellow and can't enjoy a single thing, then stop taking them on trips the moment they're old enough to behave and actually remember it.

Leave the baby with someone you trust. Go on the trip. Get drunk without a toddler as a liability. The kid will not know the difference. The forty people on that flight absolutely will.

Edit: it will always amaze me how people will dog on the weakest argument and ignore the rest, read the entire thing, people.

I've seen this claim many times over the years both in real life and on Reddit / the Internet at large.

For starters, marriage is a legal contract which inherently makes it way more of a serious commitment than a relationship that doesn't have that.

Secondly, most marriages are successful and do not end in divorce, and even ones that do might be serious still and fail for other reasons.

So claiming being a long term girlfriend or boyfriend is somehow more serious than most marriages is a) not based on any reasonable evidence or definition and b) serious freaking cope.

You're welcome to be in whatever type of relationship you want, but you shouldn't act like your relationship is better than other people's. It's just lying to yourself to justify your lifestyle.

Edit: Sixty percent of first marriages don't end in divorce. The reality is most people have successful marriages but people only focus on people who get divorced or are loudly married and miserable. The reality is the majority of the time marriages work just fine. People just focus on the negative.

We dont live in the age of the Civil Rights movement. We dont live in the age of the Women's Suffrage movement. We don't live in the age of the Vietnam war. We don't live in the age of the abolition of slavery.

The only reason people latch on to stupid shit like the bullshit in Palestine (which they have done absolutely nothing to effect), and in the same vein do performative shit like putting BLM or ACAB in their tinder bios (never seen a racist cop see that and be like "Wow, maybe I shouldn't brutalized that black guy... 🤔" I'm black, please show me where they doing that at) is because they're desperate to feel as important as the figures from days gone by.

I feel it's a sign of good times that people latch on to stupid shit that literally wouldn't effect them if they just put their phone down or changed the channel.

As long as there is a beef industry there will be cow hides and less of the animals that are already being slaughtered going to waste is a good thing as long as the industry exists. It also biodegrades after a while.

Plastic leather on the other hand is mass produced from fossil fuel and doesn’t biodegrade for 500+ years

I’ve seen people act like it’s a better option because its vegan and more accessible for low income people to purchase.

Edit: Since this needs to be said obviously plant based leather and other natural fabrics are better. I’m not saying the cattle industry in its entirety has less environmental impact than plastic leather nor am I saying it’s ethical.

Girls are taught from a very young age to keep their head on a swivel. Maybe not all I’m sure, but I know I certainly was and I’d say most of my friends in middle/high school had these things pretty much drilled into our heads.

Don’t walk alone at night. Watch your drink. Text me when you get home. Don’t get into a man’s car. Don’t be too trusting. Pay attention to your surroundings. Dads especially seem to love to throw out the “you know what boys want.”

The message is essentially: most men may be perfectly safe, but you won’t know which ones aren’t until it’s too late, so take precautions.

And then those girls become adults and suddenly people are baffled or angry that women cross the street at night, hesitate to be alone with unfamiliar men, feel nervous when a stranger approaches them, or are generally more guarded around men they don’t know.

What outcome were people expecting?

You cant simultaneously tell women that theyre responsible for anticipating danger and avoiding risky situations, then criticize them for treating unfamiliar men as potential risks until they have enough information to feel safe.

I just fell down a rabbit hole of influencers talking about how they homeschool their kids with ChatGPT. Some even talk about this bull called “unschooling” which just looks like repackaged neglect.

All of these people seem like nut jobs and should have their kids taken away from them. They only want to teach their kids what they think is correct and don’t care that their kids can’t read or do math. It’s honestly depressing and abuse.

This coming from someone who’s been homeschooled. It’s hard for kids who aren’t proficient in every area of study. It kills your social skills and makes things overall harder than it needs to be. Kids need structure and they need to be able to socialize with their peers.

Hey everyone. I’ve been thinking about a common criticism given by usually hardline Atheist/Anti-Theist to Christianity/Religion at large; which is where people say it’s "made up," "just mythology," or "a fairy tale." I understand what people usually mean by this. Essentially, they are saying they don't believe the supernatural claims are true and think religions are human created rather than divinely revealed. However, my issue is that I'm not sure that calling a religion "made up" is, by itself, a particularly strong argument against it's existence as a social phenomenon or people engaging with it.

I think there's an important distinction between whether a religion is true and whether it has value to the people who practice it. Especially, if we are defining "religion" as a "social phenomenon" (Emile Durkheim definition).

The fact of the matter is that humans create art, music, traditions, moral frameworks, rituals, and communities, and those things can still carry real meaning and shape people deeply. I believe that Religion can function in similar ways. Someone might attend liturgy simply because they find the ritual meaningful, appreciate sacred music, enjoy communal practice, or feel shaped by the symbolism, even while remaining uncertain, or not caring much about the metaphysical "truth claims" associated with that religion. Those experiences don't establish that Christianity's or Religion's theological claims are true, but neither does asserting that the religion is "made up" automatically make the experiences themselves meaningless, or even necessarily harmful.

To be clear, I'm not arguing that Christianity or religion in general is "true" because it may help some of its adherents. My general point is that I think the criticism "religion is made up" by itself, isn't inherently a great argument. With all of this being said, it seems to me that stronger critiques of Christianity/religion should focus on specific harms, authoritarianism, abuse, hypocrisy, sectarianism, etc; while also recognizing the nuances and realizing real progressive movements exist in these religion (eg "Liberation Theology", The American Civil Rights Movement led by Dr MLK Jr.).

So, to the atheists, who are not "religious pluralist", who may use this argument , I'd like to ask:

1. Do you agree or disagree with my point? If yes, or no, why?
2. If you use "religion is made up," as an argument against it, what exactly are you arguing? That its supernatural claims are false, that its historical origins are human, or that the religion itself has no legitimate value?
3. Lastly, for those who do use this argument, do you think its at all possible for a religion to be "false" in its supernatural claims yet still have genuine cultural, psychological, or philosophical value?

You’re not a bad person for losing attraction to your husband after he got fat.

You can still love, respect, and care about someone without being physically attracted to them. Attraction isn’t something you can simply force or switch back on because you’re married. Nobody is morally obligated to remain in a relationship they no longer desire just because their partner’s body has changed. You can acknowledge that weight gain happens while also being honest about how it affects your attraction.

I say this as a person who is not a parent. I want kids. And I will expect my kids to behave in public.

Putting that aside. We are WAY too harsh on kids. ESPECIALLY super young kids that have abolutely no bearing on right and wrong.

There's zero reason people should be so hostile to BABIES who are crying on planes. Or year and a half year old's who are throwing a tantrum because they are tired.

Going past babies, ZERO reason to be intolerant of children being loud in public when they talk sometimes. That's just what kids do. Kids make mistakes.

I have seen a general hostility towards children in general grow in the last 10 years and it's weird. Idk what my childhood would have been like if every adult acted like my existence was unwelcome.

Like making Disney characters black, I didn't ask for it, I can bet that like 60% or more people like me didn't ask for it. Y'all can't even shame me for this one, I'm black too. Well brown but still, not the light brown where I literally look white, just normal light brown. But back to the point, I literally hate it, it's pathetic too. Another thing, I hate forced LGBTQIA representation in Disney, when they make a character like that, they make their sexuality their whole thing, I don't see them doing that for a straight character. Like, being gay is just what type of person your attracted to irl, but no, Disney has to exaggerate it and make them hold hands 24/7, no sane irl person holds hands with someone that often. It's like they're trying to force us viewers to know that they support the LGBTQIA. I dunno how to describe this off feeling where they're just making a character for their attraction towards a specific gender. Example, the little mermaid 2023, they removed scenes to make Ariel look like the brave hero, something just seems off. It wasn't even the right hair color. Strange world, 2022. In the film, Ethan’s crush on Diazo is completely, unconditionally celebrated by every adult around him. While intended to portray a supportive family, critics and audiences noted that treating a teenage romance as entirely flawless and without any typical teen awkwardness or friction makes it feel hollow and unrealistic. Luz and Amity went from a brilliant, complex "enemies-to-friends" dynamic in Season 1 to a couple that felt like they were perpetually locked in a honeymoon phase.