How Others See Us

Almost as soon as I arrived in England I began asking people how they viewed Americans, and what the major American stereotypes were, mostly out of a sense of morbib curiousity. Honestly these are stereotypes you hear about a lot so none of their answers particularly surprised me. My friend Will told me that Americans are loud, and we’re friendly, really friendly. He also said that we talk a lot and aren’t afraid to tell people what we think of them. But all of that was okay. He conclued by saying that overall he really liked American’s, that he thought the were fun and that, most importantly, we liked his accent. The stereotype that American’s are loud was one I was well familiar. Generally when you watch those cartoons that feature representations of Americans they are blonde, blue-eyed, Texans speak loudly and touch the people around them more than they’re comfortable with. I consider myself to a relatively quiet person so I wasn’t expecting to be the loud stereotype, however, considering how quiet and reserved the people I’ve met are it’s not actually hard to be the loud one. In general though it’s one stereotype I don’t actually mind living up to.

My flatmate Adam, when I asked him the same question, focused on the physical as he told me that American’s were generally thought of as unattractive and fat—he was quick to tell me I didn’t fit the stereotype but that may have been because I started throwing chips at him and he was eager to backtrack. When I asked him for more he said that he had this kind of polarizing view of American were everyone from California and other warm places were thin and healthy but the rest of the country were fat and lazy. He also told me that in general Americans were thought of as being mostly conservative, and that even our liberals were thought of as being conservative by English standards. Another stereotype he ended up deciding I didn’t fit after a night spent on the floor of our hallway yelling about feminism, racism, homophobia, intersectionality, and any other issue we could think of. He did however agree that I fit the stereotype of being loud, and hugging people too often. Honestly I never thought ‘loud’ would be the stereotype most applied to me. The hugging thing I was less surprised about.

Overall what Will and Adam told me were pretty consistent across the board—loud, unattractive, fat, lazy, homophobic, and racist being the negative stereotypes, and friendly being the only positive one. However, everyone also agrees that despire the stereotypes they’d love to visit the USA sometime soon, so I’ll take my small victories where I can get them.