Europe is not as different from the US as it likes to pretend, especially politically.

Racism is not a unique or exceptionally American phenomenon, and the things I've heard from otherwise progressive Europeans can fucking curdle milk equal or in excess to what people in my ultra-rural ultra-conservative home region of the US can say.

Europeans are just as susceptible to racism as Americans.

yall need to get off the high horse and take a joke sometimes. you terrorized the entire world via colonization for hundreds of years through modern day, if people harmlessly stereotype the german or french, make fun of british people, or tease the dutch language, yall can handle it

for context, im american. we get bullied all the time, and while not all americans are fat and stupid, the combination of that many are and that we've terrorized the world plenty make me think a lil teasing is fair

Based on the comments it looks like Europeans weren't ready to hear some of these things. 😉 Let me pile on...

Innovation in Europe is stiffled due to a risk-averse culture, complex regulatory environments, fragmented markets across different countries, limited access to venture capital, and a tendency for established companies to be less receptive to new ideas from startups, making it harder for innovative companies to scale up (compared to the US).

Too many people smoke in Europe and it's too widely accepted.

As someone who isn’t a European, most of these comments are yanks being loudly wrong about something and the saying “see the europeans weren’t ready to hear it” when someone points out how stupid the thing they said was.

Idolizing the past (and long gone) 'grandeur' of some European countries is not the best way to prepare for the future.

edit: as a disclaimer, I'm European from one of those once important countries.

You guys should start bulking up your militaries. At best, the US will completely abandon you, and I really don't want to think about worst-case scenario as I live in the US.

How would people who live outside of Europe know what Europeans are not ready to hear? As someone who lives in the U.S. I know only a couple of people IRL who live in Europe.

The thing my European friend was not ready to hear was that all his complaining about the social programs in his home country and the high taxes and so on comes across as entitled and spoiled. Because he's never lived without the benefits of a state that will provide healthcare and so on, he is free to complain about his privileges and glorify the U.S. as a place where individual citizens fill in the responsibilities that the government should fulfill. He sees this as an unmitigated good, because he thinks it means more civic engagement.

What he doesn't understand is that this results in most people falling through the cracks, and until he falls through one of those cracks himself it won't be real to him how bad it is to not be able to afford losing wages because you are sick or injured, or what it's like when you can't afford to see a doctor when you break a bone or get so sick you can't leave your house.

That said, I'm not sure every European needs to hear this, or that they're not ready to hear it - just this one person seemed to be a little delusional and to have idealized the U.S. as some kind of right-wing libertarian utopia.

I thought America was racist until I saw a member of UK Parliament tweeting about a boat of migrants sinking with "Good riddance".

Europe as a whole is swinging too far too the right. Y’all all are descending back into Fascism. The recent popularity of the AfD in Germany being a prime example. My own parents - who immigrated from Germany - are deeply disappointed in the direction the country is taking.

Smoking kills.

Europeans are really fucking racist. Asians and Jews are cool and yet yall are really weird about them. and don't get me started on how badly Islam is vilified...

It really does feel like online communities get more relentlessly xenophobic when they have more Europeans. It just seems like a lot of you can't get by without mentioning where someone's from. Like, no, someone not seeing the value in retro computing doesn't say anything about "the intelligence of the average Scot." And if you can't tell where they're from, American by default.

Europeans like to pretend they're innocent, but they are the benefactors of most the damaging empires to have ever existed. They colonized nearly the entire world, extracting value from other cultures while destroying them. They pulled out once it was financially wise, keeping the wealth they extracted and leaving behind the destruction they created. They then blame everyone else for their issues while bragging about how awesome the EU is while overlooking that the EU is only possible due to the wealth they stole from everyone else. Europe likes to discuss that they had their social hardship discussing WWII, but the origin and impact of WWII there was internal to Europe. Had Europe been subject to colonization from elsewhere, it would be just as much a mess as other places. Look at the situation in former Soviet Pact countries that were practically colonized by Russia for maybe half a century. Now imagine if instead of half a century, it was hundreds of years and 5 times as brutal.

Fun fact: The term "colony" comes from Christopher Colombus' name, which is Spanish is Cristobal Colon. Even the term colonization derives from a European. Apparently, that was incorrect.

tl;dr: Europe got to where it is by destroying the rest of the world while blaming the rest of the world for their issues. Their critique of USA is merely a distraction from their own responsibility.

European racism is out of control to the point of cringe. The new world cannot hold a candle to you.

Here is a quick example. Netflix released a Norwegian movie called "Christmas as Usual" (translated). It essentially takes the concept of the American 1967 film "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner", moves it to Norway and gives it a holiday twist. According to Netflix, this 2023 film was in the Top 10 in thirty countries. How? How is a movie concept from America's peak civil rights battles era working for you in 2023?

My wife is European and my largest clients are European with European staff and the abundance of casual racism is hard for myself and my staff to handle. Don't get me started on my family in-law.

EDIT: Europeans were definitely not ready to hear this one. LOL

That soccer is boring. I'm european and love playing soccer but it's boring to watch.

The US is not a mono-culture and most of us (unfortunately not all of them voted) are against most of the things we as a country are ridiculed over.

I swear, replace "US" or "Americans" in some of the stuff Europeans are posting/commenting with any other country, and those would sound xenophobic AF. But somehow, because 'Murica, it gets a pass.

Most Europeans still have a casual sense of arrogance and superiority over the rest of the world. It's not very heavy, but it's there, even among some of the best people I know

French food is wildly overrated, as is Paris.

European car manufacturers largely suck ass, I'd rather buy a Hyundai or a damn Nissan than some French or German piece of crap.

It's not just the US that has bland restaurants and/or is afraid of spice.

I've been to restaurants in the Czech Republic, Germany, Poland, Austria, and Bulgaria.

I'm sure there are places that spice things up more and some of the restaurants were really good, but some were also some of the most bland food I've had at a restaurant.

It's the same thing in the US; there are places that won't put any spice on and there are places that will leave you crying the food is so hot and everything in-between.

Also every "Mexican" food dish I've had in Europe has just been bad. Y'all are doing it wrong.

France, Germany, and Austria all have a military-industrial complex problem. MIL money might not dominate their politics the same way as the US, but there is a problem there.

Even with their post-WW2 defensive militaries, Germany and Austria are perfectly ready to sell military hardware to anyone with the cash. H&K, Glock, and Steyr all hail from those two.

France sold off the Exocet anti-ship missile to just about anyone. As far as I can tell, it has only been fired in anger at the boats of other NATO members. Thanks, France!

GDPR is great, but we all hate cookie banners

The sound from my portable bluetooth speaker. But that's mostly because it's a shitty speaker and you can barely hear it when it's sitting 3 feet away let alone when there's at minimum an ocean between you and it.

Your cops are bad too