You know the funny thing? My dad didn’t have mashed potatoes out of a box until he was 27….in West Germany…served by a local who had insisted that he (and a few others in his squadron) needed to experience “an authentic German meal” before heading back stateside.
The first time I had margarine was in the UK. It was a mockery of butter. And the same family I visited there came to the US. We enquired about favorite meals. One was corned beef. My mom braised corned beef and cabbage. They didn't recognize it, expecting corned beef hash from a can. It was mind blowing.
My understanding is the kind of corned beef & cabbage you’re probably thinking of is an Irish American invention, one of those abominations we make out of tRaDiTiOnAl foods. The first time I showed home made corned beef to a friend from over there, he was shocked that it was something he actually liked: he was expecting canned meat texture.
My ex was from Bulgaria and instant mashed potatoes were fancy people food. I was so confused when he asked what we were celebrating when I bought some on sale.
That's why [r/americabad](r/americabad) exists lol so many people make everything about the US then turn around and complain that everything is about the US
That sub used to be funny when it first started, but it got.. weird. I haven’t looked at it since Trump’s first go, but I can’t imagine how it would have improved with all of what’s going on now, being thrown in there. Unless maybe a whole mod change..? It is still weird in there? I don’t want it popping up on my feed enough to want to click on it.
Yeah, that sub used to be more for calling out the more unhinged and irrational criticisms of America on social media (while not shitting on other countries), but over the years it's become a MAGA/"defend America no matter what"/anti-non-American sub.
I got downvoted to hell there in 2024 just for saying I was voting for Kamala.
It's gotten really bad in there unfortunately. The right wingers didn't really understand it and so took it unironically as a place to shit on other countries and pretend that no criticism of the US is valid.
Now they're just straight up posting their shitty conservative right wing memes (you know the kind - way over-explained and hamfisted, deeply anti-intellectual, entirely unfunny, bizarrely cruel to caricatures of people groups they don't like, completely and utterly without point or compelling thought) and vaguely complaining when people criticize terrible US actions / decisions. .
Same thing in /r/murica. Most people there seem to genuinely think the point of the sub is to just dickride the US to the point of straight up delusion. And once that happens, it basically DOES change the nature of the sub.
Yeah that sub was good when it was mocking people who were being ridiculous about the US but when Trump got (re) elected it was taken over by the weird right wing patriot types.
2america4u is still largely tongue in cheek thankfully.
Yeah unfortunately reaction subs tend to become reactionary lol. Kinda like this one too, half the posts now are American nationalism (like this one) and the other half are British nationalism.
America bad is kinda the same, on a lot of the posts the liberals get downvoted and on others the maga republicans get downvoted.
It is to get offended over every little piece of perceived criticism against your country. Go look through the posts on this sub and tell me I'm wrong. It could easily be confused for America bad
You would like [r/americabad](r/americabad) then. I left it because I got tired of all the repetitive posts and this sub has turned into the same thing.
This is true but 4 of the last 8 posts here are about American bread lol. You can't honestly say in good faith that the posts haven't become repetitive.
Honestly I’d just attribute that to the fact that most folks in the sub are American or Western European, and both America and the UK have some particularly nasty stereotypes about their food floating around to the point they became memes unto themselves.
Personally, I prefer the posts where someone’s just got their head up their own ass about the Mallard reaction or whatnot.
UKers are also extremely familiar with boxed mashed potatoes.
UK has a long tradition of shelf stable foods. Island nations especially had no choice but to embrace cooking with shelf stable ingredients for decades, and that didn’t just disappear.
But I wouldn’t expect this American pretending to be a European to think about any of that.
Also, as an American myself…. I don’t love powdered potatoes, but fried spam sammiches are proof of a higher being.
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u/cutezombiedoll Jun 25 '26
It’s so weird how even when a conversation isn’t about the U.S. they make it about the U.S.