“We Do Not Own Stupidity”: 45 Bad Things People Think Only Apply To The USA But Are In Fact Happening Everywhere

Loud, obnoxious and rude tourists.

I’m from Australia and I’m pretty sure my countrymen have this reputation in Bali.

ripyourlungsdave:

I live and work at the Grand canyon and I can promise you, every single race and ethnicity is obnoxious, messy, selfish and rude as a tourist.

I have had to spend upwards of a thousand hours over the last 3 years cleaning up litter around this tiny little village just to keep it from actively feeding plastic and cardboard to the elk and deer. And the multibillion dollar corporations operating this village can't do it themselves.

Also, I cannot tell you how many times I've turned around to find some little Chinese woman filming me without my knowledge. From what I'm told, it's just because I happen to be tall and look like a mountain man. Apparently that's something they want to share with people and it seems really rude.

Trashy people. Oh, the US has some amazingly trashy folks but I have been on all continents except Antarctica, and let me tell you, I have yet to visit a country that doesn't have it's share of local trash.

Medical misogyny.

Racism. Lived in Japan for 3 years and got told to "go back to my country" more times than I ever did growing up in Alabama. That one still sits weird with me.

Traveler-Nomad:

I’ve been all over both Europe and the USA. Racism is way more prevalent in most European countries, they just downplay the hell out of it. Americans hang up their dirty laundry for the world to see.

Political polarization. Every country thinks their politics are uniquely broken these days.

It’s a niche one, but vaccine skepticism. If you measure the population and not the government, the US actually has fairly high levels of trust in science. The US is not even CLOSE to being the most anti-vax country in the developed world.

EDIT: the most vaccine-skeptical developed country is Japan, FWIW.

Unhealthy food.

Lilli_Puff:

Obsession with fast food. I've been to several countries in Asia and the Middle East who are obsessed with fast food just as much as Americans are.

Literacy rates. I’ve met adults who can’t form a proper sentence and kids who rely on AI to form every aspect of their lives so when it does end up running itself into the ground they’re going to be so very lost.

Not knowing geography or about other cultures in general. I live in Japan and imo the average person here knows less about the world outside of Japan than the average American. At least we often have roots in other cultures and know some context. I've met an alarming number of Japanese people who think English is the only language spoken in most European countries lol.

I feel like the world gives Japanese people a pass on things like this, for some reason.

Edit: If you want to see my exact point, look at all the replies here. Apparently when Japan is ignorant of outside cultures in the year 2026 its because they're a kawaii island nation and can't help it. When Americans are, they're just dumb. Lol.

Not knowing where countries are. I saw a clip on YouTube of an English woman on a podcast or show who said after a bad breakup she booked a trip for a yoga retreat in Costa Rica. She thought Costa Rica was an area in Spain and didn’t realize it wasn’t until she got on the plane and the flight tracker was showing it was going over the ocean. The fact it was a 14 hour flight somehow didn’t clue her in that she was in fact not going to Spain either…

You just know if it was an American saying this the comments would be how dumb Americans are, our schooling is terrible, and “lol of course she’s American!!”.

Housing affordability.

Being monolingual/refusing to learn another language.

Litter/trash/waste. Americans get lectured for the way they treat the earth but larger cities in Europe are quite dirty. Overflowing trash cans everywhere…the non removable caps are useless when the bottles still end up on the ground. The Coliseum is surrounded by paper and plastic trash on the ground.

Education.

corivscori:

Education is a big frustration for me, as a special education teacher. I've worked with teachers who came here from Germany, Australia, Afghanistan, and South Korea. They are all absolutely shocked by our education system. You mean everyone gets to go to school? Even if they're dumb? Literal question my South Korean coworker asked me, in a classroom with intellectually disabled students. People talk about test scores, but they don't talk about the fact that most countries do not let students continue in school if they do not pass, and will not even test some students. Once you get to higher grades, only the best of your students are being tested. Whereas in the US, every single student is being tested. Students who are still learning English, students who need accomodations to access the curriculum, students who are disadvantaged. Our education system needs a lot of work for sure, but I am very proud of our efforts to make it equitable and accessible.

Declining birth rates. Turns out when people have a lot of control over their own fertility, they tend to reproduce below the replacement rate. Any attempt to explain the American birth rate because of social programs it doesn't have (more maternity leave, free daycare, etc.) needs to account for why countries that do have those things also have a below replacement level birth rate.

Ignorance and apathy regarding politics/government.

I am American but lived in the UK for 6 years. I knew several people who's entire political philosophy was "don't get involved". I dated a guy while there who referred to Winston Churchill as "the fat guy on our money". And while I didn't expect people in the UK to be experts on American history, my ex mother in law asked me who Americans celebrated independence from on July 4th every year.

I think people like to believe that Americans are uniquely ignorant, but I met a lot of clueless people in the UK, too.

Obesity. Granted its a huge problem here, but also in North America as a whole (Mexico, Canada etc) we like food. [It] tastes good.

The US is bad for it cause junk is so easy to get and largely we don't travel by foot like other places. You pretty much need a car. We'd all be a lot thinner if we could reliable walk pre and post train/bus station.

Icy-Builder5892:

Some parts of Europe are catching up, too.

Work-life balance problems. Americans get blamed for it, but burnout culture exists almost everywhere now — just with different packaging.

Commercial-Egg-3615:

Overwork and hustle culture. Poland has the exact same problem. Everyone brags about 60-hour weeks like it is a personality trait. I automated my SaaS customer onboarding with n8n and AI. Now I work maybe 20 hours a week on it. The rest is gym, gaming, and actually living. Americans did not invent burnout, they just branded it better.

The US is not the only country that engages in/has engaged in foreign policy that disrupts other, “weaker,” countries. Yes, American imperialism is real, but so is/was British, French, Belgian, Japanese, Chinese, etc.

Conspiracy theories, far-right nationalist movements, dumb people.