Being exposed to so many countries I've never heard of before during the Olympics made me realize that there are a lot of people in this world that aren't Americans. Somebody once said that to understand someone you have to walk a mile in their moccasins (or however the saying goes). You've probably never thought about this before you read this thread, so be prepared to have your mind blown.
Before we continue, let's clear a few things up.
- This thread isn't about the fact that non-Americans are weird, but that the state of not being an American is, in itself, weird
- A reminder that this thread isn't about Americans; it's about people who aren't Americans and how the enormous influence of the USA dominates their everyday lives. It's about how foreigners live in a strange world that Americans are utterly unable to relate to.
- Please don't be offended if you know someone who's not an American
What I imagine it probably feels like to be a non-American. On the outside looking in, in a world so culturally dominated by a single country. Americans can never truly comprehend what it feels like to have such an existence.
Language
Because of America's huge cultural influence on the world, English is the most widely used language when combining native and secondary speakers. People all over the world such as Asia, Africa, and Europe are forced to learn English in school as a second language. It's actually very flattering. In school usually we have to pick a second language to learn, but we just learn the basics and instantly forget everything about it the moment we stop taking that class. English is the default language of the world because of the United States. Yes, there are some other countries that also speak English primarily, and I wonder if they feel super lucky for coincidentally speaking the same language that Americans do so they don't have to learn another one.
The Internet
The internet is by default American. The internet itself is pretty much the USA in digital form. Almost all of the sites we visit on a daily basis were made by Americans. Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, Reddit, YouTube, Wikipedia, Amazon, Google, Apple, Microsoft, etc. are all American. And even if they're not American, you still assume they are until they point out that they're not. Did you know that while our domains are .com, other countries usually have their websites with the domain ".co.whatever"? When was the last time you visited a .co.whatever website? Probably never.
Internet communities (Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, etc.) all tend to be made of primarily Americans, and almost all of them are English. People connect all over the world to American websites (GAF for example) to communicate with us. To do so, they learn English. Imagine learning a different language (like, German or something) just to be able to talk to people on the internet, almost all of who are from a single country on the other side of the world. Isn't the thought of that weird as fuck?
Media
Imagine that you're not an American and you're driving to a movie theater to see a movie. While you're in your car, all the songs on the radio are from...a foreign country singing in a foreign language. Isn't that super weird? That's how I think life is on a daily basis in the rest of the world. American artists like Kelly Clarkson, Katy Perry, Linkin Park, Jay-Z, Lady Gaga, Eminem, etc. However, I do think that they will sometimes play songs from local artists that nobody other than that specific country has ever heard of. Someone once told me that Canadians are super obsessed with Canadian people that make it in America, such as Avril Lavigne and Celine Dion (who, btw, subsequently ditch their country and move to the US). Everyone's life dream is to be acknowledged by Americans.
Ok, so you've arrived at your movie theater. All the movies there are American, with subtitles for whatever language you speak. I don't know if other countries even make movies or if they're all direct to DVD or TV.
Immigration
Being born as an American is like winning the life lottery. More people immigrate to the United States than all other countries in the world combined. I think the image people have of the United States of America is paradise. It's flattering that so many people in the world would give up everything just to become an American. Billions of people would die to get a taste of our lives. As an American, it's never occurred to me to want to live anywhere else, so this isn't something I can really understand necessarily, just think about.
Sports
I had a conversation with my friends the other day about how football will never work in the Olympics. As it happens, the United States is the best at every single major sport since they were almost all invented here. This led to us thinking how it's weird that all of our sports teams are known by people across the world, but we can't name a single foreign team. For example, Kobe Bryan is apparently the biggest athlete in Asia and has millions of fans there. Everyone knows who the Lakers are.
Someone mentioned that baseball is really big in Japan too, but we couldn't name any teams there other than that one had a tiger in it. Who are all those people we played against in Olympic basketball? Some of them are foreigners who play in the NBA, but what do they do when it's not the Olympics? Do other countries even have professional leagues of their own? It was funny seeing that one player get Kobe's autograph at the end of their Olympics match.
Politics
Is it weird that everyone in the world knows who our political figures are but not the other way around? Is it weird to other countries that we keep flying across the world to random countries to install democracy and our values of liberty and freedom in their government like a cable company? After our election, there's always videos of showing other country's reactions. I think that's weird since we would never gather in a bar to watch someone from say, the Netherlands, get elected and cheer for him/her.
Space Exploration
There have only been twelve humans in the history of mankind and the universe that have set foot on another world (the Moon). All of them were Americans. The United States also has like three or four car-sized machines exploring Mars at the moment. As someone who is not an American, I would think that this is weird. That only Americans have been on a planet other than Earth.
Conclusion
I'm sure you can think of a bunch of other ways it's weird to not be an American. We are on the inside, and everyone else is on the outside looking in. To be a foreigner is a perspective we'll never be able have, until China potentially usurps us someday to become the dominant world culture, but I don't think this will happen in our lifetimes
Feel free to share some viewpoints of why it's weird (or not weird) to not be an American, and I'll post the good ones here.