America from a European perspective
America from a European perspective
America from a European perspective
European here, these are what different states or areas of the USA remind me of (like what's the first think I think of when I hear it's name):
Washington: why the hell is the city of Washington not in Washington?
There's also Washington Island. It's nowhere near Washington state or DC. It's in Lake Michigan, and is part of Wisconsin, not Michigan.
Aside from the island, Wisconsin has 7 different towns named Washington, though most of them have a population in the hundreds.
Of course they have nothing on Indiana, which has 46 towns named Washington, or Iowa, which has 49.
And both University of Washington, in the state, and wash U, in St. Louis. Both are major medical centers.
On that last point, George Washington is still considered the most popular president of the USA. In his own time he would come to cities and people (all of them) would swarm the streets. When the Constitution was signed Washington was in retirement, but the writers of the Constitution assumed Washington would be the first President. There were roughly 8 candidates running for the position, Washington wasn't one of them, and when Washington announced he would come out of retirement the other candidates dropped out of the running. Washington won the first election unanimously.
A lot of Europeans don't realize this, but the Constitution wasn't the first government of the new USA. First there was the Articles of Confederation which went from 1777-1789 so Washington had been gone for quite some time and was still so popular.
It's not at all surprising that it's one of the most popular landmark names in the US (street and city names).
Some other popular names include Lafayette, MLK, Lincoln, and Jackson, Jefferson, and Madison.
Similar to the names Elizabeth and Victoria in the UK. The first being mostly named after Elizabeth I (daughter of Henry VIII) and the second being Queen Vic. Although we don't tend to name towns after people since most of our town names stretch back to Roman/Saxon/Celtic/Norman times. But train stations, schools, pubs, etc commonly incorporate these names.
The confederation of states is the American version of people in Russia who think the USSR still exists. They go around trying to act like the Articles of Confederation still exist.
Washington's name is everywhere because there was this guy named Washington and he did some cool things a couple hundred years ago.
Hey, if you ever do anything memorable, something might get named after you.
I heard that guy had like 30 god damn dicks
Alaska: cold, that one goldrush
Hawaii: warm, colonialism
I think you know more about our history than we do
I just read a ton of Don Rosa when I was 8-11.
You're mostly on the nail with these but it's worth mentioning that political leanings are split a lot closer to "rural vs urban" differences than they are regional. For example, the city of Austin, Texas, is a lot closer politically to somewhere like Seattle, Washington, than it is to Odessa, Texas. Similarly, somewhere like Redding, California, is closer politically to Decatur, Alabama than it is to Los Angeles. This is a pretty recent development.
I grew up in Odessa. I left and I never want to go back. Ever. Last time I was there was to take the dog, my father's ashes, and any remaining belongings back to a saner part of the country. I have seen and heard it has only gotten worse since and nobody should live there. Ever. Just leave. Run away. Scorched earth. Fuck Texas. Fuck Wasps. Fuck all of the hateful, bigoted, racist, sexist pieces of shit that live there and anywhere else.
Sorry. I may have been a little triggered...I am going to smoke a bowl and chill out now.
Hawaii: warm, colonialism
But it's all colonialism.
California: That other goldrush
Hawaii: Funny you pick that state out of 50 for "colonialism."
Ohio: Home of the buckeye, a useless nut.
Washington: The federal capitol city, Washington D.C. is on a small bit of land along the Potomac river sandwiched between Virginia and Maryland. It was founded in the late 1700s early in the nation's history before we laid any claim to the West coast. The state of Washington--the top-left most of the lower 48--was one of the last settled and named. There were several plans drawn up to create several states in the region, and name them Washington, Jefferson, and possibly one or two other founding fathers. Washington was the only one that went through with it.
Texas used to be a huge fudd state until very recently, at least I assume that things changed.
They required a permit for carrying hand guns but not long guns.
The blue one just needs to be switched to alcoholism and drugs. Then it's perfect.
Robocop and Seattle for Frasier.
I love that the world's idea of Seattle could be mostly based on Frasier, a show not filmed in Seattle, starring no one from the state nor written or created by anyone from Seattle, with hardly any plot line that has anything to do with the area. Basically the only thing Seattle in that show is the Space Needle, and they way they show it isn't even possible in real life.
Possibly my favorite Lewis Black sketch is about drinking in Wisconsin.
"You are not alcoholics - you are professionals
They put Detroit in the wrong spot
And yet there's nothing else in the UP, besides cold, and you will note it is a dark blue.
The Incest area is way too small. The Cowboy area is way too big.
I've always had this criticism of pornhub
Honestly seems too small to me. I've driven to every state in the US and I've met self-identified cowboys from western NY state to Montana and New Mexico to north Florida. Shit, Kid Rock called himself a cowboy while he was living in Detroit lol.
Conclusion: most American men identify as cowboys
The incest region needs to be way larger and be labeled incest/religious nutcases. Rest is pretty much spot on.
Honestly, Religious Nutcases literally run the House of Representatives rn so maybe a little more widespread than we're giving credit for.
TBH probably more accurate than an American perspective.
Pretty bad comparison
Germany might be the worst European country for your example. I'm sure most Americans could name at least a few German provinces just from German prevalence in Western culture. France or Italy? No way.
US states also have considerably more autonomy than most of their European counterparts. It's not at all an exaggeration to say US states operate as their own nations while the federal government mostly just handles international matters.
identifying states when most of them are just rectangles is damn annoying
This is true. Even as an American I doubt I could properly name all the Midwest and New England states on my first try.
It's a fairly reasonable comparison.
Just trying to throw away the concept of size is probably the most unfair thing here. You are trying to change the conversation so your argument appears valuable. Then you kind of piss that attempt at goal post moving by claiming that while size is irrelevant, somehow shape is. What a strange move.
You make a good point on the US state vs Country comparison, I think that certainly plays a much larger part than size or even population. But if you wanted to argue that point, rather than dismiss relevant concepts or inserting ridiculous ones - you could rebut with a question like "can you name the subjects of the Russian Federation?" Or, if you are in a fighting mood (which...clearly), you could just respond that American exceptionalism has them overvaluing the relevance of US States on the global scale.
yeah, but for example: Luxembourg - the last grand duchy in the world, one of four institutional seats of the european union, capital city is an UNESCO world heritage site, has a 1000 years of history.
Idaho - potatoes. wait... maybe it's Iowa? or Ohio?
edit: really seems like people can't take a joke, lmao
Idaho - potatoes. wait... maybe it's Iowa? or Ohio?
Idaho and Iowa and Ohio all had rich histories going back tens of thousands of years before Europeans destroyed them lmao. You're just upset they don't have 1,000s of years of white history.
Also it's funny you mentioned Ohio in your comment because the Ohio Mounds became a UNESCO heritage site like a month ago
No one under a monarchy has actual pride in their people and country, why should we care that the city was founded from a royal whorehouse by people we're also descended from anyways?
Poland - borscht and poverty. wait... Maybe it's Ukraine? or Belarus?
Sweden - vikings? wait... Maybe it's Norway? or Denmark?
Germany - Fascists? wait... Maybe it's Italy? or Hungary?
France - bread? wait... Maybe it's Netherlands? or Germany?
Yes, it's easy to trivialize something you know nothing about. Now maybe it's not interesting to you, but to the horror of history YouTubers- everywhere has history, and the history of some random inbred monarchs isn't exactly relevant or interesting to everyone.
What comparison is that lmao
Sadly, Cowboy and New York are much smaller and incest is much larger.
As a European who doesn't know much about the states: This is pretty accurate. I would exchange gators for florida man and I don't know what the cars and crime one is but otherwise it's spot on.
Detroit Michigan, "motor city", is home to a lot of car manufacturers and also much crime.
Give about 3/4 of the New York section to Incest, and it's closer to reality. New York doesn't make it across the Appalachian mountains, but Incest extends north at least to the Ohio river.
I'm surprised anyone there knows that the UP of Michigan exists. It's a sparcely populated area with low crime. Hunting, fishing, snowmobiling and drinking.
So it's basically Canada?
Yeah but with pasties
Pretty sure the UP is catching a stray bullet fired at the rest of Michigan lol
So...Michigan as usual.
Yeah they don't deserve this shade lol. Smoked fish, nature tourism, and yooper sensibility.
Mackinac Island!
They think Seattle is full of cowboys?
The dancing kind, but yeah.
Maybe not two step, but the Sturgill Simpson kind
For me Seattle will always mean grunge and I'm stuck in the 90s.
Seattle: Jimi Hendrix, grunge, rain
Coffee and more rain. Although it's beautiful and warm right now, shockingly.
Seattle sounds cowboy-like
To be fair, the incest is probably a bit more widespread than that. Also, potentially more popular in Appalachia than around that area. I think eastern Kentucky/West Virginia has the highest rates of inbreeding than any other part of the country, at least that's what some other guy on the internet commented, so that's a fairly trustworthy source.
You should look up Kentucky Blue People.
You forgot the "Country roads, take me home, to the place, I belong!" part.
Isn't that the incest part? From my european point of view at least half of the "new york" part should probably be either "cowboy" and or "incest".
Sometimes, there are a lot of small rural communities and the family tree branches sometimes touched tips a bit.
I'd change Florida to Disney World because that's the main reason anyone would get a passport to go to Florida.
Not to see Gator World?
Sad gator noises
Eh, not far off
And where do the religious nuts go?
Yes.
Cowboy, incest, and gator.
On this map, they're all over New York too
They bring the incest, of course
I'd just like to point out that some European countries have higher rates of incest than the US.
Cousin marriage is also illegal in much of the US while it is legal in much of Europe.
In fact, if this is to be believed (not a clue how accurate this is), Spain, Portugal, and Italy (as well as Canada and Mexico) have higher rates of incest than any single state in the United States.
This is totally believable, but Europeans don't think that America is more incestuous than Europe. They think that that part of America is more incestuous than the rest of America.
I like this kind of statistics, but it is counting only investigated cases? In this cases is common that developed countries with more women's freedom would appear higher in statistics. If you see only official cases you will see that Sweden has a higher rape by inhabitant than India, Bangladesh, Yemen and Brazil. This is probably not true, and is possible to happen because women are more prone to report rape in Sweden than in these other countries.
Being Portuguese, I can assure you that we're not doing it with our sisters, though I can't really say how much marrying with cousins is going on (whilst I don't know a single person who has done it, I haven't exactly researched the matter).
It's mostly cousins and mostly in villages. It was somewhat common (as in, it wouldn't be seen as completely out of left field) to marry your cousin some decades ago. I know a few seniors who either married their cousin or know someone who did. However it's definitely an older generation thing, I've never heard of someone younger than 40 doing it, and I doubt it's that common these days.
I'm surprised it's criminalized in Texas and Kansas...
where can I find the notion about Italy, Portugal etc in the link you provided?
I knew there was something funny about those Canadians.
Nah, Cowboys are South.
Middle are "Religious Nutcases"
Interesting that your perspective includes less incest than mine... And I live in Alabama!
Hawaii and Alaska are just ???
We forgot to tell Europe about those 2.
hawaii is "wait that's part of the US?" and alaska is "discovery channel"
Hawaii is hula dancers and Alaska is Eskimos.
Not entirely inaccurate...
That's more what an American thinks a European perspective is.
As a European with a higher than average interest in North America, I can say with some confidence that Europeans don't think about the Upper Peninsula at all.
Yoopers in shambles
Their loss, it's a rather tastefully done Peninsula
Boston is very disappointed
My partner is Turkish. She said that this is how America looks in her brain.
As a Canadian, this is largely my perspective.
I think this map was made by an American cos it's referencing cultural things that I don't know or care about.
I thought Texas was a place of Beers, Steers + Qveers.
"Only steers and queers come from Texas Private Cowboy and you don't look much like a steer to me so that kinda narrows it down don't it?" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GPBbIFQuI0
We don't talk about Alaska
North California is way more "cowboy" than "movie", by the way.
For sure more than Seattle
Just going to put all of the deep south in New York huh.
I wondered about that.
I grew up in New England. To me, the American South is anything south of Newark.
I'll have you know Louisiana has nearly double the alligators of Florida, and Florida legally allows marriage between first cousins. So boom.
I always assumed that the cowboy area was bigger!
Everything's bigger in cowboy area
I'm surprised it's not just one color called "Opioids"
And guns
Come on, you mean to tell me the United States of America were a real country? How ludicrous!
Used to be. We won WWII
That's all a conspiracy theory made up by Vancouver, the real Hollywood. There's no such thing as a landmass between Canada and Mexico. The "States" are made up to scare European countries so they won't privatise healthcare and deregulate gun control. Are you that naïve? Geeesh!
I dunno man, every time I was in Europe and told people I was from Seattle they were like, Nirvana!!! Even like decades after Cobain killed himself.
ny is only on the east coast. flyover states are between movie and ny. the incest states should be bigger. gator should be renamed to florida man.
Agreed... Much bigger incest states!
From a US-American perspective, pretty much, yeah
And here I thought the whole orange part was the incest part <_<
Them's fightin' words. You've just yeed your last haw, pardner.
Washington doesn't deserve to be part of the cowboy. No one cares about the east side of it
incest needs to span further upward i think, but other than that it's a surprisingly accurate depiction of the US lolol
can confirm
More like:
Canada
USA
Mexico
Why would anyone care about second level government zones?
I also know where Vermont (or rather home in the USA) is thanks to Bernie Sanders. But otherwise, pretty accurate.
As a Vermonter I can tell you all you need to know about Vermont is it's a uninhabited forest pepperd with weirdos who are obsessed with maple syrup and farming who also don't like outsiders non Vermont stuff
From a south american perspective, one color, "hates me"
I'll say that it's more like one political party, not the whole group. I honestly don't think most USA Americans (trying to be specific) think much about South America generally. In general the average person here doesn't know much about South America, they may know about a certain dictator or problem. They might think of certain areas like Buenos Aires, Rio De Janeiro, or Bogato because these places appear in the media (like Fast and the Furious or the Rundown). In general the average person will never go to one of these places but sees it as mysterious, potentially exciting, but also potentially dangerous place (to be fair they also look at places like NYC and Las Angeles the same way).
Disdain for South Americans mostly comes from the idea that you might want to immigrate and
https://ih1.redbubble.net/image.5059047051.8318/st,small,507x507-pad,600x600,f8f8f8.jpg
It's entirely grounded in racism, fear of change and fear of the unknown. The other group really doesn't care too much and would be open to immigration as long as you're not a bad person. Unfortunately our politics have made it so that the smaller group has too much say in these things.
Many areas in the US are plurality Hispanic
Two areas then.
Can't believe you'd do New England dirty like that
Only the UK and people who have seen the Departed know about us. And I dont think they would be able to point it out on the map.
The bottom half of New York should be incest, and then New York should be extended to include Canada's big cities
Lemons, oranges, incest, lesbian incest and grapefruits
Not even wrong
And pasta
Food
Add a bubble for "backwoods removed" from Georgia (minus Atlanta), the Carolinas, Tennessee, and the Virginias and you're dead on.
You mean USA.
This probably gives Europeans too much credit.
You have no idea how offensive this is to literally all of us.
Nah, not all. I thought it was pretty funny.
I don't know about you but having Michigan being represented by the UP is extremely funny to me.
I'm just glad Florida is "gator" and not "Florida man".
I mean thats what happens when you murder or drive out all the original inhabitants. Then you get to start your own history, that was the point, right guys?
Surprisingly accurate.
Other than the upper peninsula lol
Yea not sure what's up with the upper peninsula. I feel like it's someone who actually knows Michigan and just wants to irritate Michiganders
Right? More like "pasties and trees."
I think they think that’s where Chicago is
Nope! Incest should be bigger
Oh no, I'd rather not
Modt of New York should actually say “cheese”
I think “squawk !” would be more appropriate.