1. All Flag Everything
Do you have your red, white and blue socks? Hat? Shirt? Bandana? How about your three-dollar American Flag from Amazon.com? These are all necessities if you want to be a real American. Nowadays, people have become obsessed with the American Flag. Call it “country pride” or whatever, but the flag is EVERYWHERE. During every high school spirit week, there’s an America Day. In college, there are several America themed parties every semester. Our nation has become enthralled in the image of the flag. I have flag socks, bandanas, shirts, and I have the flag on my wall. Clearly, I just cannot live without looking at this flag.
2. Drown Ourselves In Pop Culture
Pop culture, celebrities, money, fame, red carpet…and so on and so on. Some of the most enticing things on this planet can be found in a small section of the country, located in southern California. We watch celebrities' every move, every divorce, every public embarrassment, every leaked nude photo *cough cough* Justin Bieber, every baby bump, every scandal. We Eat It Up! Some Americans can claim to hate it, they can claim to be disgusted and annoyed, but honey, we know you love it too. Why do we love it? Who knows!? It’s entertaining to watch celebrities in their daily life. It was wonderful watching Ryan Gosling in "The Notebook," but I want to see pictures of him getting face palmed by some chick.
3. Variety. Variety. Variety.
Whether we are talking about the amount of TV shows out there or we are talking about the 12 different types of peanut butter on Kroger’s shelf…we adore variety.
Actually, we need it. When I’m watching "Lost" on Netflix and get annoyed with the weird plot, I want to be able to switch over to "Once Upon A Time." When Peter Pan peanut butter got that disease and recalled everything, no one cared because they just stepped half a foot to their right and grabbed Jif. Think about something you want, think about all the places you can get it, and now think about how many different types of it exist; it should be a lot. If not, then you’re doing it wrong.
4. Get Upset About Things We Don’t Understand
Get upset, get passionate, get loud! Let people hear your empty words and ignorant arguments. OK, maybe that was harsh. However, now that social media has become such a prevalent thing in our society, everyone and their mother thinks they are an expert. Name a topic and I am sure you can find a rant, conflict, or cry from a “listen to me, I’m right” person on Twitter or Facebook. Everyone thinks their opinions are right and that makes everyone feel entitled. My generation grew up believing that we are all right, all winners, all friends and we got what we wanted. Having the mindset of “our opinion is right” was handed to us by the previous generations. So now, pointless arguments are made about topics that we know very little about. But, we believe we are right.
5. Yay Sports
We love sports! We LOVE sports! WE LOVE SPORTS! Do we play them? No. Do we watch them? Yes. Do we force our 6-year-old to play football? Yes. Do we give athletes special privileges just because they are athletes? Yes. Now don’t get me wrong, I love sports. I enjoy attending football games and watching the dudes run around. It definitely adds to the whole college experience. But we idolize sports so much! People cry over teams losing. Like, you aren’t on the team, you watched the game on your couch at home, you wore a knockoff jersey, but you’re a grown man crying over a lost game. The worst is when the team wins, and they still cry. Don’t even get me started. Anyway, love sports and praise the athletes like they’re Jesus.
6. Speak English
This isn’t rude. This is true. We believe everyone should learn our language. Sure, it’s fun taking Spanish in high school, or German in college, but in all honestly, we aren’t going to use it, we aren’t going to become fluent. We collectively know one language, English, and we collectively need everyone else to learn it so we can all communicate. A German exchange student once told me that other countries view Americans as dumb because we only know one language. However, when she came over here she realized why we only have one type of vocabulary…we are so big. We have states the size of European countries, but all of our states speak the same language so there is no need for us to become fluent in French, Spanish, German, Norwegian, Russian, etc. She realized the only other languages near us is Spanish and (kind of) French, so having basic knowledge of those two languages are all that should be expected of Americans. But even then, we believe they should know English.
7. Supersize It
Big meals. Big cars. Big houses. Big wallets. Big phones. I just purchased the iPhone 6 Plus. I live in a house with 33 fraternity men, when I get Chick-fil-A I make the meal a large, and if I had a car it would definitely not be a mini cooper. We all want it big and flashy whether we admit it or not. We like to have large things. Why do I need a phone screen that is 5.5 inches? Other than allowing the people around me to eavesdrop on my texting conversations and having more screen space to play Temple Run (I know…that’s so 2011), I don’t need that big of a screen. But, I feel powerful with all that extra glass in my hand.
I hope everyone now has a better understanding of what makes us Americans. To those who claim to be American, keep up the good work. To those who do not, I'm sorry.
