Before we start, we shouldn’t have to tell
you that not all people in the United States of America do the same things, like the same
things or act the same way. But sometimes we can generalize because certain
cultures do seem to have certain traits. The English for instance, for the most part
do seem to go on about the weather quite a lot. Maybe they do that sometimes while sipping
on tea. Is that generalization true? Yes, you can find data on how much tea is
drunk in England and data about how much folks there natter about the vagaries of the troposphere. That said, feel free to scream at us in the
comments if you think we got the good ‘ole USA wrong. First of all, let’s just recap a little
on what we said in our first show about what those Europeans find weird about the U.S. We first mentioned the tipping culture, as
Americans seem to tip more than most people in Europe. We also mentioned the very large meals often
served in a restaurant, which might look like meals for three for some Europeans. On the Brightside, we also told you that Americans
can be very friendly and smile a lot, but Europeans might also express shock when they
get IDed for trying to buy smokes or booze. As for the rest: the block system, using credit
cards everywhere, too many commercial breaks on TV, dubious wrestling, 24 hour cities,
hyper-devout Christians, flags everywhere, guns everywhere, and the fact everything seems
just…well…big. We mention this show because we actually asked
you in the comments what you, our European viewers, found weird about the USA. One of the top answers was the fact in the
US you have to pay for your healthcare. As we have said in other shows, the U.S. healthcare
system costs the taxpayers an incredible amount of money. It’s the most expensive in the world, yet
rated poorly. If you can’t afford to get insured or have
insurance that doesn’t cover the whole cost, as has been reported time and time again in
the U.S. media, getting sick here can and does bankrupt many families. It’s expensive because drugs are costly
and you have defensive costs, meaning doctors are afraid to get sued so do many tests. Then you have ultra-expensive admin and ultra-expensive
treatments. But the real reason is why most European nations
have less expensive healthcare is that governments oversee healthcare while America is more focused
on having healthcare as a business, not a God Given right to each citizen. As Forbes wrote in 2017, “It’s because,
ultimately, the U.S. healthcare system wasn’t designed with consumer needs in mind — it
was built to maximize the insurance billing process.” This is what Europeans find weird, because
most of them see healthcare as something everyone should be entitled to. We will stick with the negative for now, and
something another of our European viewers said he thought was weird. He wrote, “An American thing that I find
weird is that schools are sometimes confused with shooting ranges.” Does the U.S. really have so many more school
shootings than countries in Europe? You can find data on this, timelines of global
school shootings, and indeed America doesn’t just have more than European countries but
it’s hard to find any instances of this happening in Europe. CNN published a piece in 2018 about school
shootings around the world since 2009. Here are the numbers: UK: 0. Italy: 0. Germany: 1. Greece: 1. Russia: 1. Turkey: 1. France: 2. USA: 288. The next country, not in Europe, but with
the highest number was Mexico with 6. If you find this weird, you might look to
the USA’s Second Amendment and the right to bear arms. As we mentioned in the first show, there are
a lot of guns around in the USA. Americans cherish their freedom, and many
people feel it is their God given right to have a gun, but perhaps not free healthcare. The reason, according to some, is not just
a legal matter, but the idea that the USA promotes something called “expressive individualism”
and perhaps that’s one reason people might feel they can take the law into their own
hands. But we can’t go into details about this
as the debate is a long one. What we can say is the fact that kids get
shot up in classrooms so often in the USA is a thing that Europeans find, well, crazy. Another thing one of our viewers mentioned
was the drinking laws in the USA. Maybe you can get hold of a gun, but aren’t
even allowed to drink. Maybe you can risk your life in battle, but
can’t get served a shot of Scotch in a bar. As one person wrote, “21, WTF.” Why does the U.S. have such strict drinking
laws? If you go over to Europe you’ll find youngsters
downing beer and wine with abandon, but also drinking responsibly at times. As one writer in the U.S. says, isn’t it
weird that you are considered at adult when you’re 18 but can’t legally buy booze
until you are 21. “There’s a long and storied history about
alcohol in America, and why the legal drinking age is set at 21,” said that writer. We are told certain states had different laws
on when you could buy booze, and this kept changing in the 20th century. For a long time the legal age was 18. One doctor writes, “None of this had any
medical or psychological basis, but had to do with rights and responsibilities afforded
to people defined as ‘adults.” He said it was generally considered that if
at age 18 you could be sent to fight in a war, you could darn well be responsible enough
drink. But that all changed when they put the age
up to 21 in 1984. It’s said while 18 year old people could
fight a war, they were still doing things like crashing cars while loaded. It was also thought that if the drinking age
was made higher, fewer 19-20 year olds would drink. And what happened when one state had a younger
drinking age law than another is kids would travel to drink, and this caused even more
mayhem when they crashed cars. Basically, much of the public said make a
law of 21 for everyone. Does it work? The CDC reported that one survey that interviewed
high schoolers in the USA found, “30% drank some amount of alcohol. 14% binge drank. 6% drove after drinking alcohol. 17% rode with a driver who had been drinking
alcohol.” Still, you can find data on teen drinking
around the world and it seems Europe has more problems with it than the USA, well certainly
in Eastern Europe. Other studies show us U.S. teens binge drink
at a similar rate to western European teens. Whatever the case, most people think the 21
age limit is pretty weird. Ok, so what about the fact the U.S. uses the
metric system. It’s doesn’t even seem like a rational
way of measuring things. Why does the U.S. not change? We found a good answer in Time magazine that
wrote a piece called, “Why Won’t America Go Metric?” Time writes, “The popular narrative holds
that this 1970s conversion movement failed, and that Americans have never gone metric
because we are too obstinate or patriotic or just plain stupid to do so. This tale is wrong.” The article says that America is metric, but
only in the background. It uses the system for many measurements,
but the fact is the public doesn’t want to change fully because people know the other
system well. When the metric system was developed in France
in the 18th century it just seemed too radical, and Thomas Jefferson said take your system
and shove up your European nether regions. Changing would mean having to change many
things about the infrastructure of the country. Most of Europe didn’t agree, though, and
they adopted this system. Even what Time calls the “world’s most
anti-metric nation”, Great Britain, finally ditched the Imperial system in the 1970s for
better access to European markets. The world then caught on for the same reason,
the global economy. Time proudly exclaims that the USA learned
both systems. “That ours is a dual-measurement country
is part of our great diversity,” the article concludes. Ok, so what about this Fahrenheit thing? Surely Celsius just makes more sense? As one source writes, “Celsius is a reasonable
scale that assigns freezing and boiling points of water with round numbers, zero and 100.” Then you have Fahrenheit, with 32 to 212. Very, very few countries use this measurement,
although some older folks might still use it in places like the UK and Canada. If you read the news now, though, it’s mostly
in Celsius. So why does the USA stay with Fahrenheit? It’s a long story, but most countries saw
the metric system and Celsius as simple and useful. That’s why most countries flipped. But the British, and it’s colonies and former
colonies, held on for a long time as you know. The systems were not only intuitive, but it
seemed only right to have the same global system as that would make cooperation much
easier. But even though Congress in the US passed
the 1975 Metric Conversion Act, it just didn’t go down well in this proud country. The problem was, the law was voluntary, and
many people just didn’t want to learn the metric system and figure out Celsius at the
same time. Fahrenheit stuck, even though there are many
critics in the USA that say it’s time to change. Critics on the other side say the Fahrenheit
scale is better because a one degree change is what a person naturally feels. As AccuWeather points out, though, many Americans
misjudge weather conditions in other countries because they can’t understand Celsius. Maybe this is just down to pride again, but
this time it’s perhaps weirder and you Europeans might have a point. Ok, down to money matters. You might have heard of Europeans travelling
to the USA and not being able to get on top of the bill situation. They say all the bills look the same. Most of the rest of the world has really pretty,
colorful bills, and bills you can easily tell apart. So, what’s up with the monochrome cash? Well, first of all, it’s still the world’s
dominant currency, so we don’t expect it to change from that green-grey color scheme. The origin of green boils down to a patent
of the ink and the American Bank Note Company being formed in 1858. This green ink printing method was hard, virtually
impossible, to counterfeit, and it stuck. It is also said the green symbolized stability
and growth, and that’s a good thing for money. Greenbacks have become iconic, so we doubt
fancy bills will be coming anytime soon. Let’s finish on something much lighter,
and that is American sports games replete with those people called cheerleaders. Yes, cheerleading at a serious sports game
is a bit weird for Europeans. Imagine beginning the next Champions League
final with dancing girls and pom-poms? The fans would only find it an irritating
aside to the match. But in the U.S. cheerleading is accepted,
enjoyed, and as one journalist says, it’s down to Americans wanting their sports game
to be fun and friendly, a day out, unlike those soccer games that are sometimes less
than pleasant – for the fans at least. You’ll find cheerleading of course in other
nations, but it’s said all-star cheerleaders in the US number around 1.5 million. It all started in the late 1800s, but then
it was just a bunch of men shouting, “Hoo-rah, hoo-rah.” Someone had the idea to form teams of these
cheering people, but it wasn’t until men were drafted to war in the 1940s and more
women turned up at sports games that they took over the cheering. They made it more feminine, too, adding the
dancing spirit to the shouting. It got serious in the 50s and has been since. Like many other things in the USA, it never
took off around the globe, those Europeans just watch and wonder what is actually going
on. Do you agree with this? Tell us in the comments. Also, be sure to check out our other video
American Things Europeans Find Weird #1. Thanks for watching, and as always, don’t
forget to like, share and subscribe. See you next time.
