[Unknown Target]

As I am traveling in the United Kingdom, I have realized the full extent of the US's influence on the world- as an American, isolated from the rest of the world, it is difficult to fathom how much we penetrate the every day lives of everyone else in the world, and honestly, we take it for granted. What are your thoughts on this?

Also, I am completely ****faced from drinking at pubs, so I may not remember this thread in the morning. I can only type with one eye closed because if I have both open my brain doesn't mix the two inputs; it ends up just viewing each eye temperately.

[Knight Templar]

Freedom Fries, Coca-Cola, The Simpsons and Baseball.

[Mongoose]

You get quite philosophical when you're plastered.

[haloboy100]

Stupidity.

PS: And obesity.

[Klaustrophobia]

hey now, we didn't force mcdonalds on anyone.  they welcomed it with open arms.


i do, however, wholeheartedly apologize for reality TV. 

[Goober5000]

I can only type with one eye closed because if I have both open my brain doesn't mix the two inputs; it ends up just viewing each eye temperately.

You suddenly become sober with both eyes open?

I can see how that would be disorienting.

[SpardaSon21]

You gotta watch how much you drink in the U.K.; I think their pints are 20 fluid oz.

[Black Wolf]

i do, however, wholeheartedly apologize for reality TV. 

That's dutch.

[Klaustrophobia]

but we have american idol.  there's just no excuse for that.

[Admiral LSD]

It all started with Big Brother afaicr, and that was Dutch

edit: Just remembered that American Idol grew out of Pop Idol, which started in the UK I believe.

[Klaustrophobia]

i don't know which one was first, but they both need to die.  Daughtry has the fastest selling rock album ever ONLY because of that show.  it's not even a very good album. 

[Bobboau]

it started with the real world.

[QuantumDelta]

Brits and Yanks share a lot of culture, both ways, depends on where you visit as to how much you see the influence from over the pond, but honestly, it's not that systemically important even for british culture.
It's simply that the american companies have rather a lot more money simply due to scale, and that gives them a fairly big advantage in a country where they are in an almost-domestic market.

It's not so much that America has permeated the UKs every day, but more that the two nations are extremely similar.
You will however NEVER see people calling a politician a nazi for backing/boosting the National Health Service.
Quite the opposite in fact.

We're also far less religious, thankfully.

[Grizzly]

There are far to few conservatives over here to make me believe that the US has a big influence on us .

But anyway, we all know the US has a big influence on the wordl economics, bassicly because the are so big. However, the cultural influence is greatly overrated. I think one of the major fails in US's foreign policy is that they appear to think that all the stuf that works for them works for everybody. But then again, everyone appears to do so. I hear a lot of dutch people saying that the US should do things more like we (The dutch) do, but I am quite sure that would not work out either.

[QuantumDelta]

Every country could do with looking at how both Sweden and The Netherlands run their nations.

[TopAce]

A myriad of movies.

You can't browse a DVD shelf without finding that the great majority of them are American.

[QuantumDelta]

That's just economics again though really.

[Snail]

One observation: When I went back to Singapore recently, most of the sexy lingerie ads had Caucasian models.

[Kosh]

That's what happens when you're on top, others want to emulate you to some degree or another.

[Nemesis6]

Well, I personally speak English because of the amount of American-made video-games and TV I used to watch.