As I was doing research about American stereotypes, I found that most of the American stereotypes were negative views. Although I agree with a lot of the views, I also believe the same assumptions could be made about people all over the world, not just in America. The most common assumption about Americans is that we're materialistic. We are viewed as people that only care about money and judge those who do not live up to our status. Another major negative stereotype is that Americans are obese. It is viewed that we consume an absurd amount of food, including a lot of fast food. Unfortunately it is true that we have almost a 36% obesity rate. It is also assumed that we have a gun-loving and violent society. This might be because we have one of the highest death rates caused by fire-arms and the media portrays us this way. We are also viewed as arrogant and that we do not care about the environment. It will be interesting to see how American stereotypes follow us to Spain and see how strangers react to us.
I feel like you pretty much predicted what was said to us at European Parliament about our guns in America! The guy we talked to was so in shock when he heard how many guns some of us had in our homes. Maybe it's because we're from the south or maybe we really do just love guns?!
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