Best and worst of... America

[Offshore Toon]

This is the first of a new series of threads discussing the best and worst aspects of countries.

Best: hip hop, The Simpsons, destruction derbies
Worst: celebrity culture, 'patriots', American cheese

[Smiffy]

Nice idea.

Best - WWE. 4th July. Food portions. Statue of Liberty. Neil Armstrong.

Worst - Americans. TV adverts. NBA. NFL. Detroit.

[7om]

Best: Cost of living is pretty cheap. Large houses for comparitively low price. Sports fanatics. Good weather. Excellent job opportunities. Food portions are amazing. Some genuinely beautiful cities.

Worst: Gun culture needs to go. Justice system is lol. Political system is a joke. Healthcare is terrifying. New York is the worst place on the planet.

[Bartholomert]

I think we should be bound by maximum 5 in each category, otherwise I would go on forever. Also we should do other countries as well.

Best: Professional opportunities, quality of life per $ spent, the College Experience (tm) including college sports, Bill of Rights, American girls (particularly from the South / Midwest)

Worst: Intolerance of liberals / PC Culture, seemingly unstoppable Leftward shift of public sentiment, particular incompetence of the public sector to accomplish anything efficiently, California, celebrity culture (girl asked me who my celebrity crush was the other day, couldn't comprehend when I told her I didn't have one)

[Bartholomert]

When are we meeting up for that beer, I'll educate you on the beauty of our justice system (it's really not THAT bad) and explain to you why our health care system is still the best in the world (minus the shitty socialist parts) 7om

Also fuck New York.

[phonics]

Best: New York, fuck y'all. Generally really nice and outgoing people, always up for a conversation with a total stranger. The Philly Cheese Steak, the fact that every city you go to is like it's own country. College culture.

Worst: Their stubbornness/forthrightness that inevitably leads to arguments with the stranger they've struck up a convo with. That I have to feel bad about my tip because no one gets paid. Walmart/Target/Best Buy raping everywhere they go Walmart is truly terrible though.

[7om]

Mert, I didn't forget, bro. I am a little bit busy at the moment just trying to get everything sorted before I leave but I think we can sort something before I go.

I forgot to mention college sports in my best section. Genuinely amazing.

[Bartholomert]

Best: New York, fuck y'all. Generally really nice and outgoing people, always up for a conversation with a total stranger. The Philly Cheese Steak, the fact that every city you go to is like it's own country. College culture.

Worst: Their stubbornness/forthrightness that inevitably leads to arguments with the stranger they've struck up a convo with. That I have to feel bad about my tip because no one gets paid. Walmart/Target/Best Buy raping everywhere they go Walmart is truly terrible though.

If you think New Yorkers are nice, you need to visit other parts of America breh

[Bartholomert]

Mert, I didn't forget, bro. I am a little bit busy at the moment just trying to get everything sorted before I leave but I think we can sort something before I go.

I forgot to mention college sports in my best section. Genuinely amazing.

Alrighty, I leave for Nola on the 13th, so try and get everything sorted so we can make sure to take a selfie that will excite the other TTH posters before I leave

[Giggles]

:thbup: Food
:thbdn: Getting there.

[niko_cee]

I'm not sure any country that encourages the consumption of 'grits' can lay claim to an amazing food culture.

[Shindig]

America's justice system is a little iffy when you consider how their prison is an industry. School shootings being frequent is pretty obvious, when you look at it. You're at your most vulnerable mentally in your teenage years and now you have access to guns.

As for the left, you spend too much time with students, Mert. Although, on the whole, the left's lost a lot of spine.

[Queenslander]

Best- Wrestling, stand up comedy.

[niko_cee]

Also, aren't shootings the least of the American (public) school system's worries?

[wullie]

Worst - Labelled prices not including tax

[Jimmy Floyd]

Best: Good food (in places), golf courses, self-confidence, decent roads.

Worst: TERRIBLE coffee, cheese, chocolate and beer; the pretension to being the land of the free, when it was built entirely by slaves; the fact that they are loaded with money, and their shit therefore seeps out to the rest of us; law enforcement are racist, corrupt and brutal; the authoritarian crypto-fascist enforcement of nationhood; the complete lack of a safety net for its own citizens; and the general sense that it's not actually a civilised country at all once you dig any deeper than what Hollywood feeds into your brain.

[Byron]

Jim :cool:

[Mazuuurk]

Best:
- Louisiana & NOLA
- New York
- The food (- fast food) & Craft beer
- Service is generally better than Europe
- A lot of popular culture (music, films, TV series)

Worst:
- Their weird, creepy Patriotism
- Loud, brawly Americans
- Their Car culture - you can't walk anywhere
- Their Professional culture & norms are fucked
- The Fast food & Shit beer Miller light et al

[Offshore Toon]

Detroit.
Detroit has produced some amazing music, probably due to it being a shambles of a state.

New York is the worst place on the planet.
How come?

Also we should do other countries as well.
"This is the first of a new series of threads discussing the best and worst aspects of countries."

Worst - Labelled prices not including tax
The nutritional values on their food don't take fibre out of carbohydrates either.

[Pepe]

The food. :harold:

[Henry]

Best
Food, including the service.
Free speech rights
Natural landscapes
Film & TV output (not all)
Great roads

Worst
Gun culture
Bible belt scum
Patriotism
Cultural homogenity
Healthcare and lack of social services

[Jimmy Floyd]

All countries have patriotism, it's the top-down enforcement of it that makes America's crap.

[Reg]

Pepe I went when I was 6 and liked Denny's. :cool:

I'd mention jazz, funk, hip-hop, sitcoms, and sports journalism for best. Worst has been covered nicely so far.

[mikem]

Best; New Orleans (it is not NOLA, New Orleens, or N'awlins; it is Neworleans); Charleston; the South; the National Parks, the scope (if you want cheap beer - there is a corner store; good cheese - there are some dirty hippies in Vermont making goat cheese based on the methods of Stone Age Greek shepards) if you can't find what you want you are not putting forth the effort; the combination of naivety, ambition, willingness to try something new, and ability to put your hand up and say "I fucked up" without recrimination; the 82nd

The worst: New Orleans, the South - it is my home and all but fucking hell

[7om]

How come?


I've just never had a good experience there. I-95 from D.C. To New York is just pathetic. Early morning, afternoon, late night, it doesn't matter. It's fucked every time and costs $50 in tolls to travel on it. Take the train, you say? Lol at Amtrak who are a complete shambles. The less said about JFK and Newark airports, the better. I've avoided them like the plague since I connected there about 5 years ago.

New York itself is just crowded with tourist wankers and their oversized cameras, hotel prices are ridiculous. You can't walk the streets without dickheads trying to sell you fake tickets to go up the Empire State Building or knobheads trying to force their rap CDs into your hands. Everybody just get the fuck out of my way so I can go and pay $10 for a pretzel. Times Square makes me want to vomit.

[Henry]

Times Square is great.

I also should have mentioned the sports bars. About a hundred different TV's, showing twenty different sports. They don't got that over this side of the sea.

[wullie]

I remember going to some kind of ESPN branded sports bar in Seattle where they not only had screens all over the walls and behind the bar but in the table surfaces as well. Seemed a little excessive, but still great at the same time.

[7om]

Pepe will back me up on Times Square.

[Jimmy Floyd]

This didn't make my initial cut for the worst things, but US sport and its paraphernalia are just all wrong. There's almost no grass roots participation, it's all about selling beer and snacks.

As for 'college' sport, do me a favour. The only form of identity anyone has to cling to there is either that or THE FLAG because of the deliberate and complete lack of social cohesion.

[Pepe]

Times Square is famous for being a street full of advertisment. Only in the US can that be seen as a positive. Complete shithole.

[Magic]

Best; New Orleans (it is not NOLA, New Orleens, or N'awlins; it is Neworleans); Charleston; the South; the National Parks, the scope (if you want cheap beer - there is a corner store; good cheese - there are some dirty hippies in Vermont making goat cheese based on the methods of Stone Age Greek shepards) if you can't find what you want you are not putting forth the effort; the combination of naivety, ambition, willingness to try something new, and ability to put your hand up and say "I fucked up" without recrimination; the 82nd

The worst: New Orleans, the South - it is my home and all but fucking hell

I've only been once (to Florida lol) but it's my absolute dying ambition to go to N'Orlans and the South. I understand it may be a never meet your heroes especially in some parts but I'm desperate to go, the whole South East is just spectacular. :drool:

[Spikey M]

Pro's - some of their music and tv is good.

Con's - the amount of sad cunts obsessed with the place.

[7om]

I've only been once (to Florida lol) but it's my absolute dying ambition to go to N'Orlans and the South. I understand it may be a never meet your heroes especially in some parts but I'm desperate to go, the whole South East is just spectacular. :drool:

Do you like low budget horror films? Try rural Georgia and experience one for yourself.

[Magic]

Do you like low budget horror films? Try rural Georgia and experience one for yourself.

I enjoyed Get Out. Is it like that? I think I would enjoy it.

[Lewis]

My friend out there went to New Orleans, and he said it would be alright if it wasn't for the billions of hipsters Instagramming their crawfish.

[Mellberg]

Irish bars in New York, Central Park, Washington, Lincoln Memorial, I-76 through Pennsylvania, views from the John Hancock in Chicago, Springfield (Illinois), motels, the unrelenting friendliness of those in small towns, Route 66 (when it veers away from the interstates) TEXAS, I-40 (which is an incredible, astounding road), Flagstaff and the road down to the Grand Canyon via Kaibab Forest, the unreal, constantly changing, chaotic scenery, Santa Monica and the Pacific ocean at night, San Diego and its relaxed vibe.

New York in general, petrol stations in the hood, I-90, Tulsa, roads in Oaklahoma (third world), blizzards in the mountains, Vegas, the gap between the rich and the poor, coming home.

[Spoonsky]

Best:
- the nature and wilderness (smh at all of you except Henry)
- California
- jazz and rap
- great standard of living
- Chicago, but generally the sort of 'big city' that feels uniquely American (the cities are too old in Europe, too new/insane in Asia)
- average friendliness of the population
- the size and the diversity of everything; what Mikem said, you can almost always find what you want somewhere
- it can be dumb but our sports culture is fun too
- the individuality and mobility of people; for better or worse we're not rooted in tradition at all
- our self-acceptance (outside of people like me), compared to pretty much everyone else in the world, with the possible exception of the British, secretly wanting to be American

Worst:
- the entire country is designed for cars
- the country itself is just too big west of the Mississippi, and this had led to everything being too big: the cars, the food, the people. Overabundance and overconsumption.
- the supreme dominance of capitalism/consumerism and its effects on our mental and spiritual wellbeing
- the isolation caused by the above 3 points
- the near-complete geopolitical division of the country
- our pop culture and the way it wraps (raps?) like a spider web of largely shit across the whole world
- a certain anti-intellectualism and lack of culture compared to Europe
- college culture

[Offshore Toon]

It doesn't seem to contribute much these days, but house and techno are easily up there for best.

[Bartholomert]

This didn't make my initial cut for the worst things, but US sport and its paraphernalia are just all wrong. There's almost no grass roots participation, it's all about selling beer and snacks.

As for 'college' sport, do me a favour. The only form of identity anyone has to cling to there is either that or THE FLAG because of the deliberate and complete lack of social cohesion.

Wut. Everybody in the US plays sports, most private schools worth their salt make it mandatory to compete as an athlete for 4 years in high school. Our sports related facilities are easy to access, plentiful and among the best in the world. Literally every neighborhood has it's own community center or YMCA with indoor basketball courts, weights, baseball/soccer fields, etc.

[Jimmy Floyd]

In schools and college, yeah. Not as adults. In Europe you have football, rugby clubs, basketball, whatever the local sports are everywhere for everyone. In America the closest you get to that is golf and even that is just designed to suck money from overworked fat men.

[Raoul Duke]

The whole 'franchise' bullshit denies you the ability to form lifelong/generational bonds with teams. Everything is temporary, rather than innate in the fabric of a city/town. The equivalent of Portsmouth/Charlton in the US would have just relocated to COLORADO, M8 and died a death

[Jimmy Floyd]

Which is why when everyone talks about American sports being 'socialist' they are talking bullshit. It's a big dirty cartel.

[Lewis]

I always admire how teams hold local government to ransom whenever they want a new stadium.

[Bartholomert]

The whole 'franchise' bullshit denies you the ability to form lifelong/generational bonds with teams. Everything is temporary, rather than innate in the fabric of a city/town. The equivalent of Portsmouth/Charlton in the US would have just relocated to COLORADO, M8 and died a death

Which is why college sports are way better.

[John]

While also being a huge racket.

[Raoul Duke]

Which is why college sports are way better.

Agreed - that's probably the upper level when you can stop giving a shit.

The US states should just create some kinda Champion's League 50-team tournament. That'd be awesome.

[Pepe]

Old people wearing college sweatshirts is one of the most cringe-worthy thing anyone will ever see.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Agreed - that's probably the upper level when you can stop giving a shit.

The US states should just create some kinda Champion's League 50-team tournament. That'd be awesome.

There's a reason that doesn't happen in anything (that I'm aware of) which is it would show up about 35 of the states as being what they are, a complete waste of time.

'Remember that year Vermont got to the semis?'
'That never happened.'

[niko_cee]

*Final four.

[Ian]

The whole 'franchise' bullshit denies you the ability to form lifelong/generational bonds with teams. Everything is temporary, rather than innate in the fabric of a city/town. The equivalent of Portsmouth/Charlton in the US would have just relocated to COLORADO, M8 and died a death

There are two teams have moved/ moved back to LA in two years. And Oakland are fucking off to Vegas soon. Some of them moves are because, as referenced by Lewis, their cities wouldn't by a stadium for them. It's a proper disgrace.


Which is why when everyone talks about American sports being 'socialist' they are talking bullshit. It's a big dirty cartel.

It is, but then that's not the reason socialism/parity doesn't work. It's just there isn't enough competence to go around. Giving a shit team their share of the dough and the pick of the college players isn't worth a thruppeny bit if the guys spending the money and making the decisions are fucking morons.

[mikem]

@jimmy
Huh? This is weird. I am in an endurance running club and used to play grassroots lacrosse until my third kid came along. I live in Phoenix now and know adults that are in kickball, ice hockey, 7 a side touch rugby, roller derby, tennis, or sand volleyball leagues, and every Saturday the four area high school baseball diamonds turn into cricket pitches and the bike clubs crowd you off the streets.

Sure it is less than before because a significant number of active people do yoga or cross fit for the same active / social experience. But it is all here, you just don't see it because it doesn't make the papers.

[7om]

Old people wearing college sweatshirts is one of the most cringe-worthy thing anyone will ever see.

Really weird, that, yeah. You'll see 70 year-old men walking down the road in OHIO STATE t-shirts. You graduated 50 years ago, mate. Fucking let go.

[ItalAussie]

I'm in San Francisco at the moment. I'm having a lot of fun here.

The wilderness and wildlife is a massively underrated aspect of the US. Absolutely fantastic. My friends saw a mountain lion on a hike in the mountains not that long ago.

[Shindig]

Saw an old bloke in a flat cap and a Sri Lanka cricket top yesterday. You can't top that life.

[Mazuuurk]

I'm in San Francisco at the moment. I'm having a lot of fun here.

The wilderness and wildlife is a massively underrated aspect of the US. Absolutely fantastic. My friends saw a mountain lion on a hike in the mountains not that long ago.


I dunno that it's underrated. It's just if you haven't ever been to a cool nature environment in the US (or any country, because most countries have them), you don't realize how cool it can be because all you ever see in films etc are stories from the cities.

Saying that, I've only ever seen swamps. But swamps are so fucking cool :drool:

[Jimmy Floyd]

It is, but then that's not the reason socialism/parity doesn't work. It's just there isn't enough competence to go around. Giving a shit team their share of the dough and the pick of the college players isn't worth a thruppeny bit if the guys spending the money and making the decisions are fucking morons.
That's the good thing about European sport, you largely get rewarded for competence and penalised for incompetence. Regimes like Venky's who have no idea what they're doing quickly find themselves heading southwards, whereas the Jacksonville Jaguars can apparently keep doing what they like forever.

The nature/wilderness in the US is great. The Rockies especially. But then in a country that big there is going to be nice stuff.

[-james-]

Is there anything nice in Russia?

[Offshore Toon]

That can be our next installment! Anybody can feel free to make a thread for a new country whenever they feel like it btw. I gift this idea to the board.

[Henry]

We should do this for other countries.

I have to add that I share the views expressed that the US is an atomised society with little sense of local identity. (Although I'm sure there are exceptions to this.)
I spent some time in California and you have fairly large cities of up to half a million people which serve as little more than dormitories for Los Angeles and the Bay Area. A typical one might have drive throughs and 7-Elevens, about three bars in the whole place, and nothing going on in terms of local events other than probably a serious Crystal Meth epidemic.

[Offshore Toon]

That's Mert and Henry in the retarded corner of this thread.

[Spoonsky]

There's a reason that doesn't happen in anything (that I'm aware of) which is it would show up about 35 of the states as being what they are, a complete waste of time.

'Remember that year Vermont got to the semis?'
'That never happened.'

Reminded me, I forgot Vermont from my list. Best state in the nation. The autumn in New England is just incredible.

[Magic]

Hey guys can we do one on portugal? :rave:

[Offshore Toon]

Just make the thread if you want one.

[ItalAussie]

I'd forgotten how weird the TV advertising is over here in the US. So many advertisements for lawyers and pharmaceuticals.

[Giggles]

There's always loads for mickey stiffeners when I watch NFL games.

[Lewis]

Mickey Stiffener (or Mick E. Stiffener) would be a great alias.