Things Americans Do That Confuses The Rest Of The World

Ah yes, Americans. The rest of the world loves to hate on us for our crazy antics, especially on the internet. Isn't it just so funny that Americans always refer to products by their brand names, like 'Kleenex' instead of tissues or 'Advil' instead of ibuprofen? Hilarious. And don't even get me started on all our crazy eating habits. Chicken and waffles? Ranch dressing? Biscuits and gravy?

Quite frankly, we Americans don't even fully understand some of these things (like those little paper water cooler cups, what's the deal with those?) but at least we can laugh at ourselves!

Summer Camp Gives Parents A Break During The Summer

Photo Credit: Twitter / @hollyelizaxo
Photo Credit: Twitter / @hollyelizaxo

It's not exactly a reenactment of Wet Hot American Summer, but summer camp is definitely a thing in North America. How else would parents get rid of their kids for an extended period of time when they need a break?

There's day camp for parents who want to be able to send their kid off to have fun and be someone else's responsibility but still be home for dinner, and then there's sleep-away camp where the only communication you have is via emails or letters. Some parents opt for a combination of both. It's all about balance!

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The Hype Around College Football

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Photo Credit: Twitter / @221Lauren
Photo Credit: Twitter / @221Lauren
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This is one case where the movies didn't lie. College football is serious business in the U.S. The University of Michigan football stadium, known as "The Big House" has a capacity of 107,000 - making it the second-largest football stadium in the world - and it's sold out for every game.

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Obviously, the movies exaggerate a bit. Students do attend events that aren't Friday night football games, but if you go to a school like Ohio State or Notre Dame, it's recommended you go to at least one game during your time at the school for the experience.

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Chicken And Waffles, It Aint Awful

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Photo Credit: Twitter / @danaokeke
Photo Credit: Twitter / @danaokeke
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"Do Americans really eat chicken and waffles?" Well yes, Dana, they do. And you should too. If you haven't tried it, you're seriously missing out and we recommend heading to your nearest IHOP as soon as you can. One Twitter user pointed out that it's fried chicken and waffles, not just regular old barbequed chicken or something.

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There's an entire restaurant dedicated to chicken and waffles (shout out to Roscoe's) so it's clearly something we're not messing around with.

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American Traditions

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We're still not convinced Spirit Week is a real thing but the rest of these definitely ring true. Everybody loves a good review game, especially when the game is in the format of Jeopardy. We'll take "Best of both worlds" for $200 Alex.

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Can someone confirm if spirit week is something schools actually do or is that a college thing? Do colleges even do this anymore? We can't confirm or deny.

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Built-In Blenders

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Photo Credit: Twitter
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Citizens of the world are really out there thinking that Americans have blenders built into their sinks. Blenders where you can't see what's inside of them once you've tossed all your food in, and you have no obvious way to get anything out of them... It seems like a sound choice.

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It took us a couple of re-reads to realize that these Tweeters were talking about garbage disposals, but we'd like to exclusively call them built-in blenders from now on.

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American Diets

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One thing everyone on the internet loves to question Americans about is their food choices. Biscuits and gravy, chicken and waffles, kraft singles, meatloaf, ranch dressing (more debate to come on that one), twinkies, tater tot casserole, or anything from Burger King.

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Twitter is very confused, concerned, and appalled about the dietary habits of U.S. citizens, but they clearly don't care because things like glazen donut bacon cheeseburgers exist. How can anyone be upset?

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Ranch Dressing

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Photo Credit: Twitter / @estellaan
Photo Credit: Twitter / @estellaan
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When will the rest of the world learn that ranch goes on everything? Does your food need some flavor? Ranch. Does your food have too much flavor? Ranch. Too spicy? Ranch. Does your kid hate vegetables? Ranch.

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You can't go wrong with a little ranch dressing or a lot of ranch dressing. Ranch dressing is the reason the phrase "don't knock it until you try it" exists. Give it a shot, it'll change your life.

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Wearing Shoes Inside

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Photo Credit: Twitter / @dryerlint
Photo Credit: Twitter / @dryerlint
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Much to the dismay of the rest of the world, it is an uncommon practice to take your shoes off when you enter a home in America, whether it's yours or someone else's.

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If you live in the Northeast states it's possible that you would because of poor weather conditions in the winter (no one wants to wear wet winter boots inside) but if you live in the south or the west, it's likely that you'd leave your shoes on when inside a home, so long as they're "clean."

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Clapping In Movie Theaters

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Despite it being socially frowned upon and widely mocked, a select few still clap at the end of the movies. Sometimes it happens at the end of large franchise movies like Harry Potter or The Avengers. The people who clap are probably the same people who clap when the plane touches down.

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This is one that Americans can't be solely targeted for though. There are weirdos in movie theaters around the world who clap when the film ends.

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The Movies Might Not Even Do The Fourth Of July Service

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Photo Credit: Twitter / @SamVH99
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Like college football, that Fourth of July is an event that actually wasn't wildly exaggerated for TV and movies. People really do throw giant parties.

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It's a national holiday, so why wouldn't Americans want to use that opportunity to their advantage? Depending on the company you work for, if the 4th falls on a weekend you might even get a day off work during the week to compensate. Any excuse for a day off right? I guess celebrating the day America became an independent country is a relatively good excuse...

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Celebrating Their Birthday Week

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Photo Credit: Twitter / @plattenpoesie
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This girl has clearly never seen My Super Sweet 16 if she thinks that Americans don't go hard for their birthday, birthday week, even birth-month. There is no greater force than a girl whose birthday is occurring within the next 30 days. She is all-powerful, you can't hold her back.

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You may consider it to be "extra" or "annoying" but that doesn't matter because it's the week of my birthday so your opinion doesn't matter!!

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Water Cooler Cups

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Photo Credit: Twitter / @coolmega
Photo Credit: Twitter / @coolmega
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Quite frankly, Americans don't even know what the deal is with these teeny tiny pointy cups. They came with the water cooler so we drink out of them. That's all there is to it.

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They don't seem to be that good for the environment because they're the epitome of a single-use product, they're definitely not economically sound because, again, single-use products and they're really not that effective because they're paper cups holding water. We don't know why they exist.

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Cafeteria Confusion

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Photo Credit: Twitter / @iluvkjd
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Turns out other countries don't use cafeterias? We also learned from this thread that a lot of American students were also confused about this concept.

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If you live on the West Coast or in the South, you might be used to eating outside in the 'quad' - at least having the option to - but if you live on the East Coast where it gets to be -40, a cafeteria is a blessing. No one wants to sit and eat outside in a blizzard.

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Pledge Of Allegiance

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Isn't this kind of the same thing as the national anthem? Everyone stands up and recites something at the same time to honor their country, it's not that weird.

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Upon further research we've learned that a lot of schools seem to be shying away from the daily recitation and lean more towards 'every once in a while' but some schools have nixed it altogether. Guess it just depends on how American your state is.

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Visiting "Europe" But Not Saying Where

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Photo Credit: Twiter / @RummHammm
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Maybe it's because you could fit multiple European countries into the state of Texas alone? But also none of us know where Longford or Fermanagh is so it's easier to just say we went to Europe. Sorry to all the tiny towns we've unintentionally excluded.

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The internet was feeling a little spicy about this tweet though, with many quick to turn the blame onto Europeans (typical of us) claiming they do the same thing by saying they visited "America" on holiday even though that could technically be anywhere on two different continents. So take that Europe!

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Spontaneous Dance Numbers

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Photo Credit: Twitter / @nicoleroganx
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The obvious answer to this question is yes. Americans really do break out in dance battles like you see in Step-Up. We perform large choreographed dance numbers every day at lunch like in High School Musical or basically every Disney Channel Original Movie.

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If you're planning on making a visit to the United States any time soon, make sure you have your dancing shoes on because you'll almost definitely be involved in some sort of spontaneous flash mob-esque dance number.

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Wait, No One Else Has Detention?

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Photo Credit: Twitter / @CataclysmalLife
Photo Credit: Twitter / @CataclysmalLife
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Does the rest of the world really not have detentions? Other countries don't make their students come in early to school or stay later and sit silently in a room with other children who have misbehaved?

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Twitter was very fired up about this one, with many users from other countries shocked at the fact that this was a practice that didn't just exist in movies and television but that schools actually kept kids for detention. Does this seem that bad to you?

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Maybe We Just Have No Self-Control

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Photo Credit: Twitter / @sadness_tweets
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"Someone needs to take these things away from me, they're addicting!" exclaims Karen or Suzanne or Jen at the office holiday party. She's probably talking about some dessert a co-worker's husband made or that new limited edition chip flavor someone brought for everyone to try.

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Okay Karen, we get it. They're delicious, but save some for the rest of us! No one really knows why we love to use addicting as an adjective but this Twitter user is definitely not wrong. You could say it's ... addicting.

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Ordering In Restaurants

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Photo Credit: Twitter / @trash_loser
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Any person who's ever worked as a waiter or bartender has seen customers do this when they can't decide what to order. They're also probably the people who when you went to start with them they said "wait no I'm not ready, circle back to me last!" and then when you circle back they pull the "I'm going to do theeee" for what feels like an eternity.

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At that point, you could jump in with a helpful suggestion/recommendation to attempt to speed the process along, but you risk giving them too many options and you're stuck there longer.

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Asking The Tough Questions

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Photo Credit: Twitter / @psychoikawa
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Americans just want to be appreciated for being unique, okay? All they want is a little love and recognition for their differences.

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Sure, they use a different measurement of temperature than the rest of the world. And yes, maybe they put ketchup and/or ranch dressing on everything and they use the imperial system unlike literally every other country, but that's beside the point! They just want you to be nice to them and value their differences.