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Recently, the r/AskReddit community brought up (again) the question of the weirdest things about American culture. The post garnered 1,800 upvotes and generated a discussion consisting of 3,200 comments before being taken down by the moderators.
These days, it’s become quite a common question to discuss online. In fact, it’s so common that Bored Panda has covered it on a number of occasions, mostly from the perspective of what folks from outside the US find weird about the global superpower.
And that last term is key here—global superpower. Some speculate it to be the key as to why there are so many discussions revolving around America out there. And it doesn’t seem to matter what aspect of it is: culture, psychology, sociology, political or religious climate. Anything goes.
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General curiosity and human flaws aside, the idea behind America being a point of discussion in a lot of places can be traced back to just how influential its culture is on the rest of the world. Following World War II, the US promised “to build a new world,” one that functions as a huge global village of organizations that would unite nations and thus push back any ideas of conflict. This in turn meant that any idea of kicking your neighbor in the shins would essentially mean you’re shooting yourself in the foot. And nobody likes that.
A lot of the world thus agreed to it—who would be against things like freedom and free flow of information and culture? Soon after everything from news agencies to Hollywood studios to the rock and roll scene started seeping to the rest of the world. Some call it coca-colonization or Americanization.
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But it came with a drawback of sorts. The US has led the world into creating a kind of Western culture on an economic, cultural, and even political level. However, while it exported so much, it imported very little, creating a one-way street without reciprocity. Think visa regulations, educational exchanges and the like. Becoming the center of the world naturally started drawing discussions about the elephant in the room.
The weirdness factor is another point of attraction. As mentioned previously, being weird ain’t a bad thing—being weird makes you unique, helps you stand out and, in the words of Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall, “sameness is not worth following”. Weirdness brings out creativity and authenticity in humans, and it also triggers something in others that makes them come closer.
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It’s akin to the allure of scary and disgusting things: disgusting things capture and retain people’s attention more effectively. It’s one of many of evolution’s tricks to help us stay away from harmful stuff. But it’s one that folks can enjoy, despite the very obvious deterrent that is ew, that’s disgusting, kill it with fire. But you’d watch that fire with awe. Humans are weird.
And so it all perpetuates itself: we talk about the elephant in the room and we talk about weird things because we can’t but talk about it. If anything, it provides insight into the other. And from an educational standpoint, understanding the other only increases our chances of understand the world. Oh, and surviving. Can’t forget about that.
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