To wonder if the anti-Americanism on MN is typical of the broader UK population?

[NCforthisonetwothree]

MN regular, NC for this. I’m an American, been in the UK for 10+ years. DH is also American, moved here for his work. Most of the posts I see that bring up the US are pretty down on it (and I agree! Trump, guns, healthcare, etc.) but there’s also a sort of strong general anti-American-ness, a sort of disdain, I’d say, for things (names, attitudes, behaviours, styles, etc.) that are “too American.”

We have two kids (born here) and both work full time and have integrated (reasonably well, I think?), but most of our friends are other expats and immigrants. I wonder whether the anti-American sentiment that seems fairly widespread here on MN is representative of most of the UK?

Posting here obviously as I don’t think anyone IRL would give me a straight answer.

I know many Caitlins/Kaitlyns they are all Irish. Plenty of Logans here in Scotland.

I don't hate Americans at all . However my feelings about them ( bemusment mostly) are best explained by something that happened years ago on my first visit there

I have family there and many years ago I spent the day in Washington with family members including a cousin who was aged around 10 at the time ( I was in my early 20s).

On the way in the car he talked a lot about how proud he was to be American, how he was looking forward to the vist and explained to us about how he swore allegiance to the flag every day and how proud that made him. All.of which whilst not usually something a British child would say, I found very sweet and not at all annoying

When we were actually visiting the Washington monuments he got very excited about what a wonderful place America was which again was sweet ,( nothing wrong at all with being proud.of where you come from). My indulgent smile dropped somewhat however when he proceeded to exclaim ' 'This is the best country in the world' over and over and to ask ' Don't you wish you were American?' several times and to commiserate with me on my deep misfortune on not being American !!

His parents were not in embarrassed by this slightly misplaced 10 year old ' enthusiasm' . They saw it as very normal and healthy and not in any way rude. I obviously had to be very unhappy that I was not American. After all everyone wants to be don't they?.

Whilst it is only one example of that peculiar inward looking ' insularity' that some Americans have. I encountered other examples.of it on my visits.

This conviction that everyone wants to live on America and wants to be American, is somewhat bewildering and occasionally annoying but to be honest no more annoying that the Australian attitude to ' poms' or the British attitude to the French and Germans .

On the whole though, I have always enjoyed my trips to America and like many of.the people I meet there, including my family

I find the 'are you Jewish' vs 'are you Scottish' argument interesting because my (American) children have both Jewish and Scottish heritage.

They are 25% Scottish, and 12.5% Jewish. They are also 12.5% Russian.

I wonder whether they are allowed to refer to themselves as either Scottish or Jewish? Or Russian?

They've had very little exposure to Jewish or Russian culture, but a lot of exposure to Scottish culture.

OP I’ve reported anti American posts on here.

Actually I’ve reported anti British posts on here.

Apparently MN are fine with American and British people being dis used in a way that wouldn’t be acceptable for other nationalities. Though they’re not brilliant for those of us who aren’t white....anyway, I don’t think people are so anti American in real life, no. Some of the comments left to stand on here are bloody awful.

*dis used? I don’t know where that came from

Should say “insulted”.

I live in NZ. My mother lives in the UK and recently I was discussing (for we both love politics) about how Chinese government was increasing its influence around here and how I hoped the Americans didn't pull back. My mother was shocked and said that she didn't realise that NZ was between the devil and the deep blue sea.

Seriously? On the one hand, a government that massacres its citizens in public, arrests them without trial, "disappears" people into labour camps, is orchestrating genocide in various parts of its territory and generally denies people ordinary civil rights.

And on the other hand, America.

We don't even have to buy chlorinated chicken. In fact I don't even see it for sale.

By the way: it's not generally known that in the 1780s, there was much support in the UK for the American revolutionaries, some of whom were British-born. One of the big historical tragedies is that the UK government failed to reform and by doing so manage to keep all the American colonies onside (the ones to the north did of course remain).

I'm Australian so can't speak to the British perception, but I can say that my impression of Americans improved vastly after I visited the USA many years ago. The people I met were interesting, fun, welcoming and kind. I had the time of my life. The country itself is beautiful, complicated and so varied.

My negative opinions were based on travelling Americans I had met in Australia and elsewhere. I had found those people loud and somewhat obnoxious and often oblivious to the social customs of the places they were visiting. But then I consider the yobbo Australians you see getting drunk in London for example and think how they are just so not representative of most Australians.

I do think Trump, the devastatingly frequent mass shootings and attitudes to gun ownership, and recent separation of children and parents at the border are hard to look past and put me off the USA. And we also feel some desire to push back so that our culture is not swallowed up by US culture (much of our TV, film and music comes from the USA). We don't want to lose what fragile sense of culture we have.

I think there's always been a slight amount of resentment, mainly because Americans used to be p erceived as richer and more glamorous than Brits, bigger cars, bigger houses, kind of thing. Things like trying aspects of American life (eg black Friday) aren't always very popular either.

@TomPinch

And on the other hand, America.

We don't even have to buy chlorinated chicken. In fact I don't even see it for sale.

Thanks for the reminder that there are more oppressive, hegemonistic and expansionist large powers in the world and that the US is a welcome stabilizing influence in some areas.

You all seem a bit obsessed with the antimicrobial treatment techniques used in American poultry production. American poultry farms also raise organic chicken that doesn't use a cholorine rinse, it's just a bit more expensive. But it's available in every supermarket and for export.

For example going to Scotland and telling everyone you are scottish too as your gran was born there, is very offensive. And yet it happens all the time.

To this and similar comments, I think it's important to understand that when Americans say "I'm Irish" or 'I'm Scottish," it's short for Irish-American, etc. We are all hyphenated or double-barelled Americans. It's a deeply imbedded part of American culture to have some knowledge of your national and ethnic origins. The question is often asked on informational forms, etc.

I know I'm not Scottish, but I do have a Scottish surname and I know the name of the ship my 6-times great-grandfather sailed on when he left the Hebridean island that had been his family's home for generations. Many of us Americans have this level of knowledge or greater of our ethnic origins and it is part of our identity.

By the way: it's not generally known that in the 1780s, there was much support in the UK for the American revolutionaries, some of whom were British-born. One of the big historical tragedies is that the UK government failed to reform and by doing so manage to keep all the American colonies onside

There was much support in America for finding an accommodation that would have left us under the crown but with more independence and rights. But the nutter George III would have none of it so wound up with nothing.

And the die hard Tories sold off their houses and land and moved back to Blighty.

British tourists who misbehave wind up in A&E in New York because they've gotten massively drunk and injure in a fight or a fall. The vast majority and lovely and polite and we delight in having you visit.

Drsausage I find that way of looking at things very alien. We may say my great grandparent was Russian, we don't say therefore I am Russian.

amandacarnet

I still find your view on this extreme. It might be comical for an American to claim to be Scottish so many generations later, but there's nothing wrong or offensive for learning your heritage and discussing it. That heritage might be divided in to portions. I just think we need to remember that there are a lot of refugees in Europe and those people have every right to teach their children that they are Yazidi, Syrian, or whatever they have left even if they live in Germany, Sweden, UK, etc. It's wrong to silence people on this and you can't make exceptions for one group without applying it equally.

@amandacarnet if an American has an heritage from a particular nation, no matter how far back, they are suddenly Russian, Irish, Scottish etc

You are ignoring that Americans are usually a more powerful group claiming they belong to a less powerful group.

I hope not. In my and my parents' book the Americans saved us during WWII and we will always be grateful. We also share a lot of culture and background in common. I feel very close to Americans and admire them.

Migjht be nice if it were still our colony but there you go - we lost it.... only joking. I can just about live with having lost the war of independence.

tldr, but I will give you an honest answer.

In my experience, people who are pretty insulting to Americans tend to be those who don't know any. And have based their disdain on TV and the media in general.

There are aspects of the US that are "dodgy" like the guns, fundamental Christians, and erosion of womens rights, but all countries have issues.

My own experience is that my american friends are all wonderful (why else would I be friends with them) and all different.

The US has it's fair share of idiots, but I don't think it's better or worse that we are. Just different.

I hope you're enjoying living in the UK - I'd miss the baseball to be honest!!!

I think the problem is more the americanisation of things than disliking American people. A lot of European countries are being introduced to american customs and since we are not used to it, they don't necessarily fit into our culture (yet) and therefore it doesn't feel 'right'.

I'm a non native English speaker and I use whatever English comes out (American, English, canadian etc. As long as it is a word in english) and I get corrected if I don't use the British word.

I think a lot of the uk is anti-American but I think many people in the uk are quite small minded about pretty much everything an the current political climate is making it worse.

Move about anywhere in the uk and you can find people there who'll hate you. I got a load of shit just for being northern when I lived on the south coast for a brief period. I came from the same country as them, was the same race as them (only white people made any comments about my northern-ness), I just pronounced a few things differently to them.

If they went up to yorkshire where I am from they would probably receive similar levels of hatred. Plus the stereotypes everyone has about geordies, brummies scousers, people from the west country, etc. Then if you add in the Scottish, Welsh, Northern Irish into the mix, with all the weight of history between those countries and England; then you've already got a simmering hot bed of prejudice before we even consider xenophobia and racism.

In summation OP there a lot of stupid and ignorant people in the UK, try not to take it too personally.

Many of the gripes about language are based on gross ignorance. Things like 'gotten' about which people get apoplectic are simply words which went over with the founders of America and have been lost here but kept in the US. we still use it in forgotten, begotten.
When you talk about 'America' you're talking about a vast area populated by very different people, many of whom don't even like each other! One of the best parts of our trips is simply sitting chatting with 'normal' people and they're generally lovely, we've had some amazing conversations about all sorts of stuff. Of course we've also met some we disliked, usually rednecks who had never travelled outside the US but considered it to be the fount wonder envied the world over.

Cultural imperialism, I mean the erosion of British words and phrases and the adoption of American ones because of the influence of the media, and the same with traditions. This is something some other European countries take seriously.

Isn't it inevitable that we should absorb more 'Americanisms' because we share a language?
I know that the French tried to ring-fence their language once but I'm not sure how successful it was, as global communication has become easier. When I taught A level Maths to a group that was bi-lingual it was common to hear them talking in their own language but to hear 'differential equations' in there. I think we all speak what's easier, the British children in the school in Germany would talk about playing 'down our Strasse', my daughter had her teacher of German, in UK, in stitches because she said she'd left her homework on the Schrank.

I've always found the Americans that I have met to be lovely and for the most part I do really like America.

There are parts I do dislike (Trump being one, the lack of gun control) and parts I do not like and would complain about for America, but equally could complain about here (issues of corruption, like the poisoning of the water in Flint and the racism issues).

Sometimes America does end up with the blame for things that are not its fault - a common one is that baby showers came over from America, but the way they were meant to be back there has been completely commercialised here.

Like many I think some aspects of America are deeply worrying. As I do about other countries. I don’t so much think there is a deep anti American feeling everywhere but more there isn’t a positive feeling and that comes across as negative to Americans. I can’t imagine what it’s like to live in a country where children are regularly killed by gun men, or where separating babies from their parents is used as a deterrent at borders. I’m baffled by the racism and frankly creepy religious communities. It seems such an unkind country.

British people love a moan about everything and everyone.

I work with loads of Americans and tbh they drive me mad sometimes with their optimism and enforced cheeriness. I'm sure I drive them mad when I complain or am generally a bit churlish.

And that's fine! We don't have to pretend there are no differences between cultures to get along fine with each other.