Americans, the dumb cowboys

From the minute I open my mouth, everyone knows.

I am American.

“Oh, you are from America – everything’s bigger in America,” is how I am often greeted by my European classmates. This generally leads into a fairly interesting discussion of the stereotypes we carry about our respective countries.

The University of Kent boasts an international student population making up 19 percent of its student body, meaning that I have many classmates from all over the world – Germany, France and Malaysia, to name a few.

And while it is fun to discuss the stereotypes of each different country, the conversation always leads back to the initial topic – Americans.

We are known as loud, self-centered, gas-guzzling consumers who eat McDonald’s all the time. And, while some people might take offense to this, there’s no arguing that this is at least partially true when you consider Americans as a whole.

However, I have particularly enjoyed hearing some of the stereotypes that my European friends have told me and have compiled a few of them here for your own personal amusement.

1: Every American has a car, it is a big car and he uses it to go everywhere, even if this means to drive 200 meters down the street or five minutes to the grocery store. Public transportation does not exist in America (with the exception of New York City, of course).

2: Everyone in America is religious. A German friend actually cited a “statistic” for me, saying most certainly that at least 90 percent of America is religious, meaning that they go to church every day and adhere strictly to religious codes.

3: Americans are terrible at geography. Inevitably, this conversation topic will lead to countless YouTube references, citing videos where “random” Americans on the street have been asked to point things out on a map of the world and have failed. My favorite is the video where Americans are asked to point to Iraq, and all but one of them point to Australia, which has been mislabeled as “Iraq” as a test.

4: All Americans who live outside of big cities – namely Los Angeles, Miami, Las Vegas, Chicago or New York – are cowboys. They wear checkered shirts, cowboy hats and boots. They live on ranches and have lots of cattle and horses. This is supposed to be especially true for people who live in the Midwest. Indiana, this means you.

5: Americans can’t cook. If they’re not eating fast food like McDonald’s or Burger King, they make a frozen pizza. And of course, every good American always has a jar of peanut butter on hand, because everyone knows that Americans eat peanut butter with every meal.

Before you get angry and pen a letter to the editor about my “un-American” attitude, I would like you to remember that these are only stereotypes – characterizations made based on the activities of the group as a whole. And while some may find these offensive, I find a few of them to be frighteningly true.

So, while I hope that you have had a few laughs while reading some of the more outrageous ones, I would encourage you, my fellow Americans, to perhaps use these stereotypes as a means of self-examination before you put your cowboy hat back on and finish your peanut butter sandwich.