Do you dislike Americans?

[Kismett]

I feel like I often read posts online that are insulting American people, culture, food, etc. In person people are generally nice to me in the UK, although I do get unsolicited comments about how our chocolate is shit or they'd never want to live in the US. It's not a great feeling, to be honest. But is this how most people really feel?

Stimmyplip whereabouts are you? Nothing processed at all? No breakfast cereals? No chocolate? No baked beans??? Unless you can eat it straight off the plant/tree/bush or out of the ground then most things are processed to some extent. Does everyone make their own bread and milk their own cows? I'm not being goady, I just don't see how nothing at all can be processed and everything organic so am interested in what foods you have. I'm trying to reduce the amount of processed things I eat but find it difficult as am vegetarian and don't eat eggs or much dairy.

Someone reading this thread may say British people seem self satisfied, smug and superior but then hey, it's terrible to generalise huh? 

My old boss is American, we’re still friends 14 years later.

Your chocolate is shit and your president is a liability, but I wouldn’t hold that against you.

Stimmyplip

If I were to stereotype British people based on MN threads

They are entitled socialists who hate dogs

I am married to one. I do dislike him sometimes

I find MN very anti-american (see for reference every single thread about baby showers) but MN is a weird place anyway!

Perverse have you visited America? As with any country and city and town and neighbourhood, you just go to a supermarket and buy stuff and make it yourself.

You can avail yourself of 250 types of cereal, but equally you can buy strawberries and bread for toast.

@PerverseConverse I'm in Maine.

I'm sure others will come along to back me up on this soon.

We don't eat processed breakfast cereal no. Never.

We eat porridge, pancakes, omelettes, bacon, yogurt etc. There are a million things you can eat for breakfast that aren't processed. I don't know many of my friends here that eat cereal.

When people are saying processed in this thread I'm taking it to mean processed with lots of potentially unnecessary and unpleasant ingredients.

But yes, we do make our own bread, have our own chickens and our dairy is raw milk, butter, yogurt etc from a local farm. It's quite common to do that here.

Some of the anti-American sentiment I’ve seen on MN is staggering. Moaning about using Americans phrases/grammar, Halloween/baby showers/proms being “yet another American import”. It’s utterly ridiculous!
There’s no such thing as “American culture/food”. The US is a huge melting pot, many different cuisines/music genres/etc etc. It’s not all burgers and fries.

I’m part of a forum which is mostly American, and guess what? Not all of them love guns, in fact many hate them/don’t own one. Many are atheists too.

The food I've had in America has been outstanding. Sometimes a bit large but that's where the doggy bag culture comes from, right?

Stimmy I lived in the US for several months and didn’t eat cereal once.

The fruit and veg section and the meat in the supermarkets were amazing! Didn’t have a car to get out further, but friends spoke of farmers markets and the food they made was superb.

That said, you just can’t beat a slice of yellow cheese in a burger. Awesome.

I think it's easy to get a warped view depending on who you meet.
I must admit that although I have American friends from a past career I struggled to work with American colleagues who's attitude was just get it done despite the fact that UK or European law wouldn't allow that. They generally wouldn't listen until we sent a letter legal department to legal department.

I also live in Scotland in a small town which gets tourists and it can get pretty annoying being asked by Americans do we know Jim McDougall etc as they are their relative from 4 generations ago as their great grandparents emigrated and despite seeming American they are Scottish too...... Also hear quite a lot how our town is quaint but how can be possibly live in such small cottages.... (most are 3 bed houses over 100 sq m)

So like anything I don't hate all Americans but do come into contact mostly with quite a few annoying people!

All tourists are annoying, including British ones.

Americans (like the British) are not a homogeneous mass. They are extremely diverse, so how could anyone announce that they dislike Americans?

I’ve met some that I’ve liked, some that I haven’t, but I never assumed my feelings for them were influenced in any way by their being American, but rather that they are just different people. There are warm/friendly/interesting/self-obsessed/cold/manipulative/weird people in every country.

toffee1000 yes the infamous American import. Don't like American imports? Stop using them. As if British language and culture are pristine thus not open to influences from all over the former Empire world.

People are people. Some are nice, some not so, whichever country they were born in.

Having said that I was blown away by how much I liked Americans when I made my first trip there in 2016 (and two subsequent) - never met so many friendly, kind, courteous people - we were travelling by train coast to coast East to West - met many lovely fellow travellers, had some wonderful, interesting conversations, made a couple of good friends! People's manners impressed me - young men calling me Ma'am and offering to carry my case up stairs - the friendly homely atmosphere on the train. ..

I could go on but in short, I didn't just not dislike Americans, I spent a while after getting back home wondering if I could actually move to America and live in a small town in the Rockies or mid-West with a nice day centre for the over 60s (sadly not possible. I'd need to invest more money than I have to be considered for a Green Card as an 'Immigrant Investor'. )

*If I were to stereotype British people based on MN threads

They are entitled socialists who hate dogs*

If I were to stereotype British people based on MN threads, I would say they are obsessed with class and chocolate, and very whiny.

I was born in the US, but lived in Ireland and the UK until my mid 20s. In my previous job, we had a London office, the Sales Team used to visit about once a year. The head of sales from London used to come into my office and whine about how awful the US team were, and he "knew he could say this to you as you are not American."

What I like best about living and working in the US is the positivity, friendliness and openmindedness. This is my experience. Most of my coworkers and friends here are very well travelled. They do tend to get the travelling out of the way before they have kids, and after the kids leave home.

The variety and quality of the food where I live is excellent, but I do realize that not everyone lives within shopping distance of a Whole Foods.

However, when I have to go on business to the Mid West, I really don't enjoy it.

I would kill to live nearer a Whole Paycheck.

So why is it ok to generalise and be rude about the british

I'd want to live in a town with a Trader Joe's

I generally like Americans. In many ways more than the Brits. I like the open enthusiasm, the can-do, positive attitude to life, the pursuit of happiness and dreams. I've worked with a lot of Americans in two different companies and find they are far more integrated than UK. I'll get a group of Hispanic, white Irish descent, Native Indian descent, African Americans, American Chinese and Asian all happil;y mixing together and wokring together with no sense of cultural divide. I may be missing the subtleties but I think we have a lot to learn from everyday US culture (not media driven Trump-style culture.)

I view the US as in a sense being four different countries- the eastern section (including DC and New York), the west coast, the deep south and the states in the middle. It's only really the states in the middle that I feel no affinity with and have the traits I dislike.

I haven't read the whole thread.

I love Americans, the ones I met are lovely people. I like some accents.

Chocolate truly is shit, I think everybody else tries saying this so that the Americans try some real chocolate ;)

I’m married to one, so no

I live in shopping distance of a Whole Foods (in London) but never go there

No, we get lots of American visitors here and they all seem very pleasant