“Americans are dumb”

[annataleen]

Thank you, Kacie! I am an American who has lived in Asia for 14 years. I completely agree with you!
Over here, it isn't just Americans or North Americans who are clueless about the culture, it's many Westerners!
I have often observed Europeans behaving in ways that they say Americans do; being loud, expecting things to be the same as they are at home, rudeness to locals, etc.
Traveling is a privilege and a luxury. It is also humbling. I wish that I had the courage that you have to share my experiences online.

Keep up the good work!

[mimmiblu]

"Knowledge is also a privilege"... that's so so true. I teach English in Italy and I can tell you that when I used to teach privileged students in a private school most of them became really fluent since they used it in their many journeys abroad. Now I teach in a State school and I'm trying to organise a day-trip to Switzerland just to show my underpriviledged students a different state, because they've never ever been abroad. Guess who has to study much much harder to learn a foreign language?

[annafirnen]

I definitely think some Europeans are way too harsh on American people. I especially see it with people from my country, for which I would like to apologise. But I also want to explain where it comes from in this particular case. I'm from a former 'Eastern Block' country. For YEARS we heard how backwards we are and how the West and US are so superior. We especially heard much about the so called 'American Dream'. But now thanks to the internet and globalisation era we can see how even US has many problems and some things in 'Eastern Block' are now better than in US. But we still encounter Americans (Western Europeans too) having very stereotypical negative opinions about us, confusing us with Russia etc. It's mostly not even out of malice, just pure ignorance or lack of access to the knowledge like you mentioned. And that still rubs people here the wrong way hence they lash out on poor Americans online. I even found myself sometimes do it and I try to thoroughly fix it. Ignorance exists everywhere in the world and NO country/place is perfect. I just wish we had a lot more understanding with each other and shared our cultures with love ❤

[bexfisch]

"I was gratified to be able to answer promptly and I did. I said I didn't know." -Mark Twain

So well said! Thank you for this!

[NsTheName]

Great video. As an American who grew up in Europe, it has been rather frustrating to hear all the judgements on people in America from people who've never even met an American. If you're being taught to hate someone different than you that you've never even met... you've gotta step back and ask yourself why. I have found that I have liked the vast majority of the people I've met in this world. We all just want to be loved, accepted, and learn new things. Be kind.

[VelvetJazz]

In the US, WELL OVER HALF of ALL bankruptcies are due to Healthcare costs. We’re not all well off, we don’t all have the same opportunities. Travel is a privilege, not an entitlement.

[TheOnlyNyxErebus]

As a Canadian, I would say to people from across the pond to consider us travelling through our provinces or Americans travelling through other states as them travelling to a neighbouring country. The distances are VAST here. Most of Western Europe fits into the province of Quebec only! You can drive for a whole day and barely make it to the next province in some places.

[SakuraiAoi]

As an American who has never been able to afford to travel internationally (and honestly, hardly even nationally), thank you so much for this. 🙏 It's crazy to think that in the 10 years my fiance and I have been together, we have NEVER had a proper vacation. We've been able to do a few weekend trips here and there to his home state and maybe some destinations a few hours away by car, but that's it. We both DESPERATELY want to travel abroad and experience other cultures but simply have never been able to afford it.

I'm hoping with the job I have now, soon they will be able to help me financially to pursue higher education so I might be able to get a higher paying job and therefore maybe someday be able to afford those things. But until then, just as you said, I can only live vicariously through content creators like you. Thank you for your videos and introducing me to cultures I may not be able to experience otherwise. 🤗

[pandoravex]

Yeah google is a great resource if you know what question to ask. I’ve had tinnitus since I was a very small child and didn’t even realize it and neither did my parents. I thought the sound of silence was that constant whistle I hear. It wasn’t until one day I was sitting down with my mother watching a movie about a war veteran who survived an explosion but his ear drums ruptured, and he developed a severe tinnitus, they replicated the sound I hear constantly perfectly though louder, and I asked her “that’s not normal?” She looked at me like I was crazy. Got diagnosed with it a little later. It takes the right situation sometimes to create the question so you can get the knowledge, it’s not given to you. There’s a journey to even getting to the right question. I would have probably never googled tinnitus or gotten a diagnosis if it weren’t for that movie, since I’ve been living with that my whole life. So if you’ve been kept in a bubble educationally, then it makes sense they wouldn’t even know how to start or what to ask to get the knowledges in the first place.

[irenepervez]

Thanks for pointing this out! Traveling is indeed a privelege and not the norm. I am an Asian living in Germany and it's not uncommon to find people complaining about how bad the situation is in America (healthcare, dumb people etc.). I had never been to the US until two months ago when I got the chance to go to Utah and my goodness! I experienced more cultural diversity in 6 weeks in America vs 6 years in Germany. Food, people, so friendly and so curious, loved it! Now when someone comes with their "knowledge" about how things are in the US, I give them an earful of my wonderful experience :D

[AL-xgvx]

THANK You have no idea how frustrating these perceptions are as an American. Ignorance knows no boundaries.

[MissCrazygirlie]

Thank you for this! I am sometimes too judgemental about Americans. And here I am sitting knowing nothing about life in Burkina Faso or Malawi for example. Thank you for reminding me for that. I mean I don‘t expect myself to know something about life in every single country. How can I expect Americans or other people from outside of Europe to know about my life in Germany?

[otorisama]

"Help each other. Educate each other with respect and lead with kindness". I love these words so much <3 I absolutely agree that we should keep making spaces for people to feel like they can ask questions without being insulted for not knowing something new :( Asking questions simply means one is curious and that's a wonderful thing especially when it comes to cultural exchange! Thank you for sharing such kindness through your videos, its one of the reasons I enjoy them alot <3

[ginaC]

I feel thoroughly chastened. Thank you for showing us different aspects of Italian and American culture. I don't know if other Europeans would agree with me, but I think I thought I knew Italy before channels like this one showed me that there's a lot of things I didn't know, and were great to find out. I like American pharmacies as a one-stop shop.

[apricotforest]

I spent a year living in the UK (I'm Canadian) and so often heard Brits moaning about how Americans have no clue how to differentiate accents. They honestly believed that because Americans couldn't differentiate between an Oxford and Manchester accent that they couldn't differentiate any accents at all. Yet none of the ones who complained about this knew how to differentiate between a Boston or Missouri accent despite how insanely different they are. Forget Canadian accents. Everyone just assumes all Canadians speak like hosers. I'm not trying to bash the Brits here. It was one of those moments that made me realize our local bubble affects our prejudices way more than we may realize. I think everyone has these kinds of blind spots and sometimes you have no way of knowing what your blindspot is unless someone says something that exposes it.

[chantellehugo]

Thank you for pointing this out. It breaks my heart seeing people getting slammed just for not knowing “the normal” in other cultures. As A Filipino raised in the US, I still get shamed by family and other Filipinos for not being able to speak Tagalog (parents were too lazy to teach me) but I swear I’m trying to learn haha. I love seeing your content because I probably will never be able to afford traveling outside of the US. I can’t wait to see your next video

[Bornahorse]

THANK YOU!!! I'm so sick of the judgemental and hypocritical attitudes towards "America/Americans" as if we're all the same exact person.

[mickeyhighsmith]

How ironic that it’s non Americans slamming Americans for wanting to learn about cultures when out of the other side of their mouths they say Americans only care about themselves. I very much enjoy your posts Kacie & hope you keep making them. I’m American.

[Tam-tenh]

As a middle class American, I absolutely love YT channels, like yours! It is probably the closest thing I will ever get to seeing Europe. I am one of those people that lives 250 miles from a mid-size international airport. Travel is definitely a luxury, not only because of finances, but time & health.

Thankfully I have not run into the kind of rude comments you are talking about.

I really do enjoy watching about people’s lives around the world. It’s a really big world full of amazing people & sights & being able to see those things on here is wonderful for me.

[labeaxyz]

As an Italian I love your videos because they give me a different perspective on my very own culture!
And you're so funny!