Americans Are So Dumb
POV: You’re not from America and saw a video on social media where some drunk college kids on Spring Break got a seemingly simple American history question wrong. Now you think ALL Americans are dumb.
Ohhh you saw a video where drunk young people on a beach during Spring Break were asked historical trivia questions… Got it. You ever notice they don’t go to institutes of higher learning and ask those questions? Weird huh? It’s almost like they’re purposely perpetuating stereotypes for content and shock value, then editing the videos in such a way to highlight the ridiculous in order to increase views, comments, and overall engagement, because they get paid for it and that’s how they make money. 🧐 And you see one of these clips. Hell, even two of these clips or even a hundred clips and think that’s representative of an entire country with a population of 340 million.
Social media is for entertainment. Good news doesn’t sell the way bad and shocking news does. If they went to Harvard and asked that question, everyone would get it right and that video would be boring to all the people who want to see “Dumb Americans.” Then you would say,
“Of course people at Harvard would know, they’re smart. That’s not representative of your entire country.”
And you would be right. Neither are the drunk kids on spring break. Like every country in the world, we have smart people annnd not so smart people. Let’s not pretend like the United States doesn’t have the best and most prestigious universities in the world.
“The United States is widely considered to have the best and most prestigious universities in the world. Schools like Harvard, MIT, Stanford, and Princeton consistently rank at the top of global rankings such as QS World University Rankings, Times Higher Education (THE), and the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU).”
We just have our “bad” highlighted a lot more because, for better or for worse, when it comes to the world stage of so many things like; entertainment, pop culture, music, movies, politics and sports, Americans and the United States are the Star of the show. We set the trends. If something is “cool” in America, there’s a high likelihood it will become cool elsewhere in the world.
You can make a movie and win every award in your own country and yet the most prestigious award is an Oscar at the Academy Awards. Why? Why does ABBA make music in English? Who are they trying to appeal to? Why is going number 1 on American music charts the best thing you can achieve as a musician? Winning a Grammy and such. Why?
If Americans are so dumb, why does our opinion matter so much, to so many people, about so many things. I’m asking! 🤷🏾♂️ I think it’s all silly, mindless, brainrot entertainment not meant to be taken literally. As you watch it on YouTube, on your iPhones and MacBooks, Microsoft, listening with your AirPods, while wearing Nikes and New Balances… Americans weren’t so dumb when they created those things. 🤔
And when the world needed life saving vax’s,
“In Norway, the vax campaign primarily utilized the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines.”
And those were developed by who? Where? Riiight. 🇺🇸 But Americans are sooo dumb. If half of Americans were dumb, that would still leave 170 MILLION Americans that would not be dumb. That’s a lot of people isn’t it? I live in Norway, 170 million is 34x the population of the entire country of Norway.
It’s all silly. People are smart and people are dumb. Everywhere. Live life and enjoy the show.
Anyways… Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk. 😂 I love you all! ❤️❤️❤️