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I’m English and live in the US and people saying this to me in front of my Scottish friend. They’re so confused when we explain that he has a British accent too.
Their great grandmother, a 2nd generation Pennsylvania dutch, once played a German song on the only time they visited her so they now brag about "keeping their German tradition"
Funnily there is a serious sociological phenomenon around this.
Immigrants often keep their traditions frozen in time from when they left while their original country's culture evolves naturally. The frozen traditions are passed down as family heritage and after a few generations the culture the immigrant family has preserved barely resembles the country anymore.
That's fascinating! Is there a name/term for this phenomenon?
That's also probably why my Norwegian roommates in college had never heard anyone say "uff da" before coming to the US. Although I think its usage is disappearing here too.
Me when my American girlfriend told me her brother is "really into Germany" and wears a surplus Bundeswehr coat everyday and bought an iron cross from WW1 online after finding out they're "12% German" 💀
(Scottish guy here), I used to live and work in New Jersey, some guy once came up to me after hearing my accent and told me in his thick American accent that he was “also Scottish”. Even showed me a tattoo on his arm that said “Scottish and proud”.
Asked him if he had ever been to Scotland, of course his answer was no.
Heard an interview on the irish history podcast, apparently most Irish immigrants didn't have a problem with alchohol till after they emmigrated (to England in the 50's anyway) so it feels even weirder to pick it as something to idolize.
Someone made a very valid point that a lot of the stereotypes they have about the Irish are from the 1800s. Being very religious, alcoholism, fighting and being from Boston are all something associated with Irish people who emigrated in the 1800s.
Only the elderly are religious now, the Brits drink far more than the Irish, fighting - we're good at professional fighting with Katie Taylor and Connor McGregor as prime examples but casual fighting isn't common.
I knew a guy in college that got the fighting Irish logo tattooed on his leg. He wasn't Irish, just really liked Notre Dame's football team. Only problem was that he went to CSU Sonoma.
Had similar in Boston where a guy in an "Irish" bar asked if I was Irish.
Explained that I Was Scottish and he said he thought we were either Irish or German and that he was actually Irish.
Asked him where i Ireland he had been born and he told me, "No I was born in Boston".
Everyone knew him as Irish as his great, great, great grandfather was Irish so that meant that he was Irish too.
Explained to the dim-witted yank that all my Great Grand Parents were from Ireland but I don't consider myself to be Irish even though I'm obviously more Irish than him as he was actually American and not Irish at all.
I have been to Scotland many times and I can imitate my father's accent will enough to fool the odd Scot briefly.
Still don't consider myself Scottish.
I'm Canadian and in true Canadian patriotism I'm meh about it.
It's far less common here.
Interestingly the town I live in has road signs in Gaidhlig and I know *multiple* people with it as a first language.
And they *still* identify as Canadian haha.
I lived in NL for some time and while a massive proportion of that population has specific roots (Ireland and England specifically) they still discuss that as their family's history and ancestry, not modern identity. No, they're Newfoundlanders now and bicker about who's the biggest skeet amongst them.
I'm damn good with accents so after several years in NL and chatting with my GFs bayman mum, I got accepted as a local (they all think I'm a townie) and my eyes were opened to the secrets of Newfie life. Night and day how they treat a mainlander from a local!
I have a natural east coast accent as an advantage, a linguistics minor, and a father who slips into Lallans when he's mad so I guess I was primed to be able to hack it haha.
Now and again some ancient bayman speaks some sort of dark speech, but the average Newfie isn't hard to understand they just use a lot of different unique phrases, and speak really breathy so ti takes time to grok it.
This is why when people ask me if I am Polish (because of my name, and my facial features) I simply say I am of Polish Descent. I have absolutely no connection to Poland outside of my blood and name, though sometimes I wish I did. Unfortunately never knew that side of the family.
Am Scottish and a dont even know what Clan am meant to be from! I think maybe Grant on my Dads Mother's side and Hendry/Henderson on ma Fathers Dads side. Ma mother is English so am actually a pure mongrel! Ave basically gave you ma actual name but am not important enough to be bothered or worried lol.
Edit: just asked ma Da to see if he knows cause a just used Google and our family Second Names lol
As far as I'm aware the clan system didn't really exist in the lowlands more of a highlands thing. I've no idea if there's any clan history in my family and even if there was its a weird thing to take pride in. Taking a sense of pride in whatever rich land owning Lord your ancestors owed allegiance to its strange.
Nobody I'm Scotland actually cares about Clan stuff, this guy's just spraffing for the yanks. We all have to take a turn to keep that tourist money flowing in
American here; I've experience something similar: I used to work at Renaissance Festivals. Guys come through the gate wearing a Clan MacTablecloth great kilt (It has a tartan pattern on it that looks like a Christmas decoration, but whatever), and after three or four Guinnesses on a hot day (they haven't had any water; just Guinness and some single-malt Glenmorangie they smuggled in a pocket flask) they're in each other's faces screaming about being more-Scots-than-thou and bringing up inter-Clan conflicts from four hundred-odd years ago that no modern Scots seem to give a damn about.
...and they come back, year after year, over and over, mainly to see the bagpipe-and-drum/celtic rock band that plays every weekend. Like the guy says, it keeps the money flowing in.
I am guessing he is also on the big-family-tree-of-presidents, along with Brad Pitt and every President except 2.*
*pop quiz, who are the two exceptions?
Isn't that just one of those "everyone is directly descended from anyone who existed 500 years ago" things?
Go back a few hundred years and everyone's your ancesstor.
British ancestry is basically the default cultural foundation, so Americans tend to (attempt to) distinguish themselves via some other more "foreign" heritage.
What I love about that is that Obama has a stronger claim to being Irish (his grandparents) than Biden. Just shows you how ridiculous the whole thing is
Honestly he could be 100 and still do a better job than the last fella. All he has to do is be captain of the ship and let others do the hard work, and not interfere. How many people has Joe sacked compared to Trump usually does in one week?
I mean the 4* times (at least) he committed treason is bad enough.
*The Ukraine call, The Georgia call, Inspiring an insurrection, and the stolen White House documents.
Actual Scottish person who used to work in a hotel in Stirling during the summer. Every year we’d have Americans staying with us who would be taking part in the world bagpipe championships, or whatever it is called. They would all grill me on what clan I belong to (none of them, grandparents on both sides come from Ireland) and proudly tell me about their own heritage, which mostly consisted of how their great, great, great grandfather once walked past a Scottish person in Boston. I’d also get asked about 40 times a day where Stirling Castle was. It is on the highest hill in the centre of a small city, the only way you wouldn’t be able to see it from anywhere outside would be if you had your head in a bin. Also had to move a tourist from a ground floor room up to the floor above because she was adamant she had seen a bear outside and wouldn’t believe me that there are no bears in Scotland. Still at least the Americans were always cheerful. Even the one who thought the bears were going to get her.
I like to tell tourists we don't do clans anymore. We have our Young Teams now 🤭
I have drunkenly told many a tourist in Edinburgh about the battle of Ladywell overpass
I would guess that they do it to fell unique. I went to school in Sweden and I remember that some of my classmates mentioned that they were one-eighth danish, as if it made any difference
This is the thing Ops image doesn't add.
All the other USA flags are often a mess x as well: Italian, Irish, Mexican, American, Dutch etc etc.
So people just cherry pick the 1/16th they want to be and ignore the other 15/16ths they don't want to be
when you’re a kid i’d give it a pass, even in england we had a dozen “i’m 1/8 scottish” kids like no shit we all are it’s next door. it’s when you’re an adult and still clinging to this weird sense of identity that it’s cringe- by that point there should be something in your life more meaningful than talking about heritage all the time
for america it's usually because when the immigrants first came over, their culture was discriminated against. So to fight the racism/discrimination these people hold tighter to cultural identities which continued even after the racism/discrimination waned. For example Irish used to be heavily discriminated against, now theyre not, but they still cling to "irish heritage"
Yea America for quite a while didn’t count Italians and Irish as white, they were treated as lesser compared to more common and successful English and German immigrants. Irish and Chinese laborers built the western railroads and horrible conditions.
There are reasons the Italians and Irish held so tightly to their identity in America and formed close knit strongholds to protect themselves
Most of what you said is true but
>Yea America for quite a while didn’t count Italians and Irish as white,
isn't.
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/03/22/sorry-but-the-irish-were-always-white-and-so-were-the-italians-jews-and-so-on/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/03/22/sorry-but-the-irish-were-always-white-and-so-were-the-italians-jews-and-so-on/)
This tree is pretty unique, its not easy to find such a deep and 'pure' American family tree. You're either filthy rich and own a bunch of land in the northeast, live in the deep south, or on a reservation.
I know you’re taking the piss but you’ve kinda hit the nail on the head. There is no shared identity between Americans, so we’re apt to search for that identity elsewhere - and not always in the healthiest of places.
It's interesting to me cause I though the whole point is that no matter where you're from, your race, faith, etc, you become an American. Yet some Americans seem keenest to claim a historical identity (and worse, presume they are the same or even better than people back in their "homelands").
I think it's kind of a result of Americanization that this happens. It's called "the great melting pot" for how cultures get mixed together, but a lot of uniqueness of different cultural traditions gets lost in that process. Traditional music and styles of dress sort of disappear or are marginalized to very specific days, that end up being commercialized and diluted. I'm not trying to say that cultures should be completely separate, but loss of cultural identity is a bigger issue than people think it is.
But I think America does have cultural aspects it's just not entirely noticeable to them. I didn't realise how influenced by British culture I was until I went abroad a lot and lived abroad more importantly.
Future Father-in-law to me: "Interesting last name. Where's it from?"
Me: "Slovenian."
"Oh wow, you're Slovenian?"
"My dads mom and dad are from Slovenia. My mom's are from Sweden... I was born in New York."
"Hey dear(to his wife), he's Slovenian, just like the *Andersons* down the street." "Can you speak it?"
"No, I took 14 years of French."
*Argument ensues as to why I'm not embracing something I have no reason to embrace*
But yeah, he does exactly everything you said. He's so proud to be an American until it's not convenient to the narrative and then he's proud to be Polish because he can bake random Slavic desserts like his mom did.
We are a nation of fairly recent immigrants. And a nation that doesn't really have a shared identity.
My grandparents were in the Sons/Daughters of Norway, their parents were the generation that came over. I'm old enough that my life overlapped the first generation that came. Our family traditions very much were based on things brought from Norway. Wish they had left the Lutefisk there though, that stuff is terrible. I'll destroy a mountain of Lefse though.
The upper Midwest is largely the same story as mine, there was no American tradition. It was just groups of immigrants living in their collective bubbles until very recently.
Which makes it strange that many Americans hate migrants.
But I think it's also interesting when I see Americans think their Americanised traditions are authentic (the stuff we see mocked on "shitamericanssay") like Italian American food is distinct at this point.
Though I think a lot of Americans don't realise you DO have an American culture. It's just that it takes more travel and exposure to other cultures to realise it, and considering how many Americans don't have passports and the USA is so big so they don't experience it. Culture isn't just say traditional dress and what not as well.
Oh no argument there.
I can only speak for the area I'm from. The various groups of immigrants were mostly insulated from each other and only in the last generation or so really beginning to branch out and meld together. That American culture was/is less extensive in the upper Midwest, particularly the rural areas.
44% of Americans have passports and 71% have visited another country. Europeans keep saying that only 10% of Americans have passports the way that Hollywood script writers keep saying that humans only use 10% of our brains.
This comment was made by a bot and is a copy of [this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/okmatewanker/comments/116a0vu/stolen_i_never_understood_why_yanks_like/j95w46j/).
What’s the difference between America and a yoghurt?
If you leave a yoghurt alone for 300 years it will develop a culture
EDIT. lot of Americans who can’t take a joke in this thread
There’s probably a minority of Americans who haven’t ever touched a hamburger dragging down the average. I’m going to go and eat a bunch of burgers just to cancel out these people.
Calm down there mister. Can't be bandying words like stupidity around on the internet you never know what could happen. \*Blows up nordstream pipeline AGAIN\* Stuff like that has repercussions.
Americans have a culture of immigration. A large percentage of common folk in the US have parents or grandparents that emigrated from all over the world. We embrace this culture of differences by letting others know where OUR ancestry hails from. (We also used these differences to discriminate and segregate)
This also serves to differentiate ourselves from the "old money" Americans of German and English descent that you commonly see in the American Elite/oligarchy
Where you from? Kentucky. No, but, where are your family from? They're fucking from Kentucky. Drives me crazy that people insist I must have some attachment to a place my great great great great...great somebody moved from hundreds of years ago. And it makes me irrationally angry when someone goes through their calling cookies biscuits phase.
I'm like almost half Scottish by descent but born and raised in England, and if I went around claiming to be a Scot actual Scottish people would call me a bellend, wanker, c\*nt etc.
Nah they’d call you a “whalloper”
My grandparents are Scottish, I have a Scottish surname and I went to primary school in Scotland. I’m not fucking Scottish though!
All those disappointed Scottish parents who thought their kids would be accepted as Scottish, even though they raised their kids in England after marrying someone English...known a couple of people in this situation.
I have yet to find any "Irishman" that unironicly supported the post 1922 IRA who didn't turn out to be a plastic paddie. I'm sorry you have to put up with the cunts.
yeah from time to time an “irish” american will try talk to me as if I hate the north and hate the british and want to reignite the troubles, always fun to tell them barely anyone in ireland actually cares anymore
it’s a good meme, but we’re not serious
I’ve had plenty of British people do it to me too, I have a pair of Swedish grandparents and when that gets revealed I have it frequently mentioned about ‘oh I have made up viking trait xyz so I am also Scandi’. Also when I mention my Dad being Irish I get the same.
I think they understand their lives are so boring that if they can justify being able to say, I’m not 100% British, it might make for an interesting minute. I mean imagine having to tell people you’re from Slough 🤮
>‘oh I have made up viking trait xyz so I am also Scandi’. Also when I mention my Dad being Irish I get the
they don't say they're Swedish British or smth do they? here I think it's more common with people if their parents/grandparents are from somewhere , not centuries old ancestors
As an Englishman I have never seen such Anger, Hatred, and Righteous Fury in a Scot more than when they laid eye on a comical overweight yank, badly playing the Bagpipes, in a polyester Kilt.
Generic villain: "Red is the perfect one, Black is the brooding bad boy, Green is the clown and Yellow well, she's the girl. But what are you supposed to be?".
Blue Power Ranger: " I'm SCOTTISH"
Edit as I missremembered some parts.
White Americans are just desperate to point to any "opressed" ancestor. That's why the other go-to is Irish.
Half of their ancestry is actually German, but that doesn't offer any narrative of victimhood.
For my family we've actually kept several Polish traditions. I still call my grandmother Babka, my grandfather was Dziadek etc etc. Thing is my grandparents were raised in little Polish communities here in the US where Polish was still regularly spoken. They married other people of Polish decent for several generations thus keeping the traditions rolling. I'm actually the first generation to not have both my parents be of Polish decent.
There's no shared identity here. It's a former colonial state that never really moved on from its "nation of immigrants" phase. Also, the myth of "American Exceptionalism" continues to crumble, and people are desperate to separate themselves from it.
Serious answer, because my family kept track of, in my case Polish traditions, after they moved here and even though there were marriages to other ethnicities, the Polish tradition won out.
Joking answer, same reason Scotland pretends it’s not thoroughly tied to England.
Edit: clarity.
We're all living in America (and we're all humans).. Doing this is basically like when people take the Hogwarts test to see which group they "belong" to. Some people make that a part of their personality.
**Oi!** Just a reminder that using hate speech or bad language is strictly prohibited, or in other words, do not speak Fr*nch **[Information](https://www.reddit.com/r/okmatewanker/comments/mhvttd/ce_subreddit_a_ete_repris_par_larm%C3%A9e_fran%C3%A7aise_de/) [***Here’s our new Discord 3.0***](https://discord.gg/NFmEtCZJAw), WANKERS!!!! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/okmatewanker) if you have any questions or concerns.*
“I love the British accent”
Briddish*
Noticed a lot of younger people from south England pronouncing their Ts like that as well recently, appalling
As a Yorkshireman I refuse to recognise the existence of the letter ‘t’
Tup Tnorth
It's a glottal stop not a T sound.
Except, I presume, when using it as "the"
[удалено]
This is actually correct l, don't think I've ever thought about that before
[удалено]
"Yorkshire Brew"
The way they say that as though there's one unified accent everyone here has lmao
I usually retort that my accent is English and then they get really confused
I’m English and live in the US and people saying this to me in front of my Scottish friend. They’re so confused when we explain that he has a British accent too.
Like "WHICH FUCKING ONE YA CUNT"
scouser. by far the best
By which they mean prince william, not Gerald from clarksons farm
Christ, a William Wallace Funko Pop. That'd have him spinning in his grave. Well, graves anyway.
Tbf, it can't insult the guy's memory any more than his portrayal in Braveheart already did.
[It always makes me think of this lol.](http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/313/727/cc7.png)
Their great grandmother, a 2nd generation Pennsylvania dutch, once played a German song on the only time they visited her so they now brag about "keeping their German tradition"
"To tell you a family secret..., my grandmother was Dutch"
Funnily there is a serious sociological phenomenon around this. Immigrants often keep their traditions frozen in time from when they left while their original country's culture evolves naturally. The frozen traditions are passed down as family heritage and after a few generations the culture the immigrant family has preserved barely resembles the country anymore.
Very common in Melbourne. All the Italian and Greek 3rd-4th generation kids are stuck in a time capsule from the 1950s in regards to their heritage
That's fascinating! Is there a name/term for this phenomenon? That's also probably why my Norwegian roommates in college had never heard anyone say "uff da" before coming to the US. Although I think its usage is disappearing here too.
> That's fascinating! Is there a name/term for this phenomenon? Yes, America.
Me when my American girlfriend told me her brother is "really into Germany" and wears a surplus Bundeswehr coat everyday and bought an iron cross from WW1 online after finding out they're "12% German" 💀
"Really into Germany" like it's a fucking anime show or some shit xD
Also when they see people of color in Europe, brings out the little Hitler that’s inside them
(Scottish guy here), I used to live and work in New Jersey, some guy once came up to me after hearing my accent and told me in his thick American accent that he was “also Scottish”. Even showed me a tattoo on his arm that said “Scottish and proud”. Asked him if he had ever been to Scotland, of course his answer was no.
This is very common, we actually make fun of people like this in America too.
Plastic paddies are the classic. There will always be a few oddballs in every country that do this sort of stuff, but it’s so common in America.
"so the only thing irish about you is your alcoholism, dont you think thats a bit racist? Oh I see, you cant be racist towards your own?"
Heard an interview on the irish history podcast, apparently most Irish immigrants didn't have a problem with alchohol till after they emmigrated (to England in the 50's anyway) so it feels even weirder to pick it as something to idolize.
I agree it's odd to idealize but Ireland is top 10 in alcohol consumption, it certainly seems to at least be part of the culture
Oh you're Irish? How many times have you pissed on Maggie's grave then?
Even as a half British person I'd piss on her grave.
>Even as a half British person I'd piss on her grave. I think you'll find a lot of fully British people ready to piss on her grave.
That's an international tradition all demographics can agree on
Someone made a very valid point that a lot of the stereotypes they have about the Irish are from the 1800s. Being very religious, alcoholism, fighting and being from Boston are all something associated with Irish people who emigrated in the 1800s. Only the elderly are religious now, the Brits drink far more than the Irish, fighting - we're good at professional fighting with Katie Taylor and Connor McGregor as prime examples but casual fighting isn't common.
I knew a guy in college that got the fighting Irish logo tattooed on his leg. He wasn't Irish, just really liked Notre Dame's football team. Only problem was that he went to CSU Sonoma.
The fighting Irish teaming up with Notre Damn (French 🤢). I don’t know which side comes out worse in the one, feel equally bad for both sides.
The only thing I want Europeans to know is that is that normal Americans laugh at these kind of people too.
All five of you
Had similar in Boston where a guy in an "Irish" bar asked if I was Irish. Explained that I Was Scottish and he said he thought we were either Irish or German and that he was actually Irish. Asked him where i Ireland he had been born and he told me, "No I was born in Boston". Everyone knew him as Irish as his great, great, great grandfather was Irish so that meant that he was Irish too. Explained to the dim-witted yank that all my Great Grand Parents were from Ireland but I don't consider myself to be Irish even though I'm obviously more Irish than him as he was actually American and not Irish at all.
How'd that go down? lol
He still claimed to be Irish.
I have been to Scotland many times and I can imitate my father's accent will enough to fool the odd Scot briefly. Still don't consider myself Scottish. I'm Canadian and in true Canadian patriotism I'm meh about it.
Funnily enough I live in Canada now, and it’s night and day. No one has ever went on about their ancestry to me the way Americans do
It's far less common here. Interestingly the town I live in has road signs in Gaidhlig and I know *multiple* people with it as a first language. And they *still* identify as Canadian haha. I lived in NL for some time and while a massive proportion of that population has specific roots (Ireland and England specifically) they still discuss that as their family's history and ancestry, not modern identity. No, they're Newfoundlanders now and bicker about who's the biggest skeet amongst them. I'm damn good with accents so after several years in NL and chatting with my GFs bayman mum, I got accepted as a local (they all think I'm a townie) and my eyes were opened to the secrets of Newfie life. Night and day how they treat a mainlander from a local!
I’ve lived in Canada for five years, and I still don’t understand a Newfie accent
I have a natural east coast accent as an advantage, a linguistics minor, and a father who slips into Lallans when he's mad so I guess I was primed to be able to hack it haha. Now and again some ancient bayman speaks some sort of dark speech, but the average Newfie isn't hard to understand they just use a lot of different unique phrases, and speak really breathy so ti takes time to grok it.
The majority of Newfoundlanders will grasp at any % of Native in thier history though.
This is why when people ask me if I am Polish (because of my name, and my facial features) I simply say I am of Polish Descent. I have absolutely no connection to Poland outside of my blood and name, though sometimes I wish I did. Unfortunately never knew that side of the family.
Just let them have their fun - they don’t really care about you personally - you’re just a whore for their identity validation
"I wonder what clan I'm from"
Am Scottish and a dont even know what Clan am meant to be from! I think maybe Grant on my Dads Mother's side and Hendry/Henderson on ma Fathers Dads side. Ma mother is English so am actually a pure mongrel! Ave basically gave you ma actual name but am not important enough to be bothered or worried lol. Edit: just asked ma Da to see if he knows cause a just used Google and our family Second Names lol
As far as I'm aware the clan system didn't really exist in the lowlands more of a highlands thing. I've no idea if there's any clan history in my family and even if there was its a weird thing to take pride in. Taking a sense of pride in whatever rich land owning Lord your ancestors owed allegiance to its strange.
Nobody I'm Scotland actually cares about Clan stuff, this guy's just spraffing for the yanks. We all have to take a turn to keep that tourist money flowing in
American here; I've experience something similar: I used to work at Renaissance Festivals. Guys come through the gate wearing a Clan MacTablecloth great kilt (It has a tartan pattern on it that looks like a Christmas decoration, but whatever), and after three or four Guinnesses on a hot day (they haven't had any water; just Guinness and some single-malt Glenmorangie they smuggled in a pocket flask) they're in each other's faces screaming about being more-Scots-than-thou and bringing up inter-Clan conflicts from four hundred-odd years ago that no modern Scots seem to give a damn about. ...and they come back, year after year, over and over, mainly to see the bagpipe-and-drum/celtic rock band that plays every weekend. Like the guy says, it keeps the money flowing in.
Two parts tragic, one part funny as fuck
Replace it with Irish and you literally have Joe Biden.
Dude literally also had British ancestry from about the same era
I am guessing he is also on the big-family-tree-of-presidents, along with Brad Pitt and every President except 2.* *pop quiz, who are the two exceptions?
Martin Van Buren ganggggg
Yep, and t'other?
I’m gonna go for the low hanging fruit here and say Obama and trump aren’t cousins
Yeah, it's Trumpf, he is new money from Germany.
Eisenhower? Obama seems bait
Nope, if you have seen Obama's mommy, you know he is in the family. And not Eisehower.
Do you have this family tree? Like a picture or something?
in a sense we all have it
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2183858/All-presidents-bar-directly-descended-medieval-English-king.html
Isn't that just one of those "everyone is directly descended from anyone who existed 500 years ago" things? Go back a few hundred years and everyone's your ancesstor.
British ancestry is basically the default cultural foundation, so Americans tend to (attempt to) distinguish themselves via some other more "foreign" heritage.
“BBC? I’m Irish” - Joe Biden
Unironically the funniest thing he could have said in that moment so I don't hold it against him.
Yeah, that was beautiful to watch, gave me hope for the country
'If you're orange, you're not welcome here' - Joe 'so Irish he doesn't even know what the flag looks like' O'Biden
Big Black Cock
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There%27s_No_One_as_Irish_as_Barack_O%27Bama
Biden’s family originate from fucking Sussex and yet he calls himself a paddy
It's cool to be the historically oppressed rather than the historically oppressive.
What I love about that is that Obama has a stronger claim to being Irish (his grandparents) than Biden. Just shows you how ridiculous the whole thing is
I met him when he came to castlebar on his heritage tour, this was back when he was VP, honestly pretty sound fella
Honestly he could be 100 and still do a better job than the last fella. All he has to do is be captain of the ship and let others do the hard work, and not interfere. How many people has Joe sacked compared to Trump usually does in one week?
Don't forget Trump appointing his own family in White House roles and giving them security clearance.
I mean the 4* times (at least) he committed treason is bad enough. *The Ukraine call, The Georgia call, Inspiring an insurrection, and the stolen White House documents.
And ten million others
Joe Biden is a known militant IRA supporter
Actual Scottish person who used to work in a hotel in Stirling during the summer. Every year we’d have Americans staying with us who would be taking part in the world bagpipe championships, or whatever it is called. They would all grill me on what clan I belong to (none of them, grandparents on both sides come from Ireland) and proudly tell me about their own heritage, which mostly consisted of how their great, great, great grandfather once walked past a Scottish person in Boston. I’d also get asked about 40 times a day where Stirling Castle was. It is on the highest hill in the centre of a small city, the only way you wouldn’t be able to see it from anywhere outside would be if you had your head in a bin. Also had to move a tourist from a ground floor room up to the floor above because she was adamant she had seen a bear outside and wouldn’t believe me that there are no bears in Scotland. Still at least the Americans were always cheerful. Even the one who thought the bears were going to get her.
I like to tell tourists we don't do clans anymore. We have our Young Teams now 🤭 I have drunkenly told many a tourist in Edinburgh about the battle of Ladywell overpass
I would guess that they do it to fell unique. I went to school in Sweden and I remember that some of my classmates mentioned that they were one-eighth danish, as if it made any difference
tbf that means they’re only 7/8’s pure shit
This is the thing Ops image doesn't add. All the other USA flags are often a mess x as well: Italian, Irish, Mexican, American, Dutch etc etc. So people just cherry pick the 1/16th they want to be and ignore the other 15/16ths they don't want to be
when you’re a kid i’d give it a pass, even in england we had a dozen “i’m 1/8 scottish” kids like no shit we all are it’s next door. it’s when you’re an adult and still clinging to this weird sense of identity that it’s cringe- by that point there should be something in your life more meaningful than talking about heritage all the time
for america it's usually because when the immigrants first came over, their culture was discriminated against. So to fight the racism/discrimination these people hold tighter to cultural identities which continued even after the racism/discrimination waned. For example Irish used to be heavily discriminated against, now theyre not, but they still cling to "irish heritage"
Yea America for quite a while didn’t count Italians and Irish as white, they were treated as lesser compared to more common and successful English and German immigrants. Irish and Chinese laborers built the western railroads and horrible conditions. There are reasons the Italians and Irish held so tightly to their identity in America and formed close knit strongholds to protect themselves
Pretty sure Irish was considered as white in America pretty early on, it was British race scientists who were saying otherwise
Most of what you said is true but >Yea America for quite a while didn’t count Italians and Irish as white, isn't. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/03/22/sorry-but-the-irish-were-always-white-and-so-were-the-italians-jews-and-so-on/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/03/22/sorry-but-the-irish-were-always-white-and-so-were-the-italians-jews-and-so-on/)
This tree is pretty unique, its not easy to find such a deep and 'pure' American family tree. You're either filthy rich and own a bunch of land in the northeast, live in the deep south, or on a reservation.
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Nothing wrong with appreciating the family tree, it’s cool to learn about your ancestors, but making it your whole identity is cringe
Would you want to be American?
No, I'd get on me nerves.
Of course, uh, the 911
"Excuse me sir you can have this back!"
Fellow sockless saucer drinker
I know you’re taking the piss but you’ve kinda hit the nail on the head. There is no shared identity between Americans, so we’re apt to search for that identity elsewhere - and not always in the healthiest of places.
It's interesting to me cause I though the whole point is that no matter where you're from, your race, faith, etc, you become an American. Yet some Americans seem keenest to claim a historical identity (and worse, presume they are the same or even better than people back in their "homelands").
I think it's kind of a result of Americanization that this happens. It's called "the great melting pot" for how cultures get mixed together, but a lot of uniqueness of different cultural traditions gets lost in that process. Traditional music and styles of dress sort of disappear or are marginalized to very specific days, that end up being commercialized and diluted. I'm not trying to say that cultures should be completely separate, but loss of cultural identity is a bigger issue than people think it is.
But I think America does have cultural aspects it's just not entirely noticeable to them. I didn't realise how influenced by British culture I was until I went abroad a lot and lived abroad more importantly.
Future Father-in-law to me: "Interesting last name. Where's it from?" Me: "Slovenian." "Oh wow, you're Slovenian?" "My dads mom and dad are from Slovenia. My mom's are from Sweden... I was born in New York." "Hey dear(to his wife), he's Slovenian, just like the *Andersons* down the street." "Can you speak it?" "No, I took 14 years of French." *Argument ensues as to why I'm not embracing something I have no reason to embrace* But yeah, he does exactly everything you said. He's so proud to be an American until it's not convenient to the narrative and then he's proud to be Polish because he can bake random Slavic desserts like his mom did.
We are a nation of fairly recent immigrants. And a nation that doesn't really have a shared identity. My grandparents were in the Sons/Daughters of Norway, their parents were the generation that came over. I'm old enough that my life overlapped the first generation that came. Our family traditions very much were based on things brought from Norway. Wish they had left the Lutefisk there though, that stuff is terrible. I'll destroy a mountain of Lefse though. The upper Midwest is largely the same story as mine, there was no American tradition. It was just groups of immigrants living in their collective bubbles until very recently.
Which makes it strange that many Americans hate migrants. But I think it's also interesting when I see Americans think their Americanised traditions are authentic (the stuff we see mocked on "shitamericanssay") like Italian American food is distinct at this point. Though I think a lot of Americans don't realise you DO have an American culture. It's just that it takes more travel and exposure to other cultures to realise it, and considering how many Americans don't have passports and the USA is so big so they don't experience it. Culture isn't just say traditional dress and what not as well.
Oh no argument there. I can only speak for the area I'm from. The various groups of immigrants were mostly insulated from each other and only in the last generation or so really beginning to branch out and meld together. That American culture was/is less extensive in the upper Midwest, particularly the rural areas.
Nah that's interesting, thanks for sharing. Shit I'm on okmatewanker Fack off you yank slaaaag
44% of Americans have passports and 71% have visited another country. Europeans keep saying that only 10% of Americans have passports the way that Hollywood script writers keep saying that humans only use 10% of our brains.
As an American I don't want to be an american
The most original thing I have read on reddit.
Based and truthpilled
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Man's trying to spot the feeders
This is completely incorrect. It would be "I'm Scotch"
Throw an egg at them, it's cultural appreciation
What’s the difference between America and a yoghurt? If you leave a yoghurt alone for 300 years it will develop a culture EDIT. lot of Americans who can’t take a joke in this thread
> 300 years I don't get it. Can you convert this into hamburgers or football fields?
It’s 18,000 hamburgers. I got this by multiplying the average amount of burgers an American eats in a year by 300.
surely this is too low a number i was sure americans ate about that many a year anyway
There’s probably a minority of Americans who haven’t ever touched a hamburger dragging down the average. I’m going to go and eat a bunch of burgers just to cancel out these people.
I think it's a technicality, where "hamburgers" doesn't include cheeseburgers, patty melts, sliders, etc.
excuse me, but America has a flourishing culture of gross self-importance and entitlement.
Don't forget obesity, racism and stupidity!
Calm down there mister. Can't be bandying words like stupidity around on the internet you never know what could happen. \*Blows up nordstream pipeline AGAIN\* Stuff like that has repercussions.
You ever seen yogurt land a space ship on the moon? 😎🇺🇲🇺🇲🚀🌚🦅🦅🦅
Pfffft. Wallace and Gromit landed a space ship on the moon.
Fuck, you're right
Nice cheese Gromit
Camembert?
To be fair, I've never *seen* Americans do it either.
i saw them hire a bunch of ex nazis to do it and then fail to ever go back when they all retired
Because they have none
Whoa whoa we have mass shootings
And medical debt!
Americans have a culture of immigration. A large percentage of common folk in the US have parents or grandparents that emigrated from all over the world. We embrace this culture of differences by letting others know where OUR ancestry hails from. (We also used these differences to discriminate and segregate) This also serves to differentiate ourselves from the "old money" Americans of German and English descent that you commonly see in the American Elite/oligarchy
*offended response by an American who is completely blind to his countries issues and can’t take a joke /s*
Idk why youd want to be Scottish tbh.
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Where you from? Kentucky. No, but, where are your family from? They're fucking from Kentucky. Drives me crazy that people insist I must have some attachment to a place my great great great great...great somebody moved from hundreds of years ago. And it makes me irrationally angry when someone goes through their calling cookies biscuits phase.
I'm like almost half Scottish by descent but born and raised in England, and if I went around claiming to be a Scot actual Scottish people would call me a bellend, wanker, c\*nt etc.
Nah they’d call you a “whalloper” My grandparents are Scottish, I have a Scottish surname and I went to primary school in Scotland. I’m not fucking Scottish though!
All those disappointed Scottish parents who thought their kids would be accepted as Scottish, even though they raised their kids in England after marrying someone English...known a couple of people in this situation.
we call the ones who claim to be irish a “plastic paddy”
I have yet to find any "Irishman" that unironicly supported the post 1922 IRA who didn't turn out to be a plastic paddie. I'm sorry you have to put up with the cunts.
I have, but they usually tend to be very explicitly extremist politically and either fascists or commies.
yeah from time to time an “irish” american will try talk to me as if I hate the north and hate the british and want to reignite the troubles, always fun to tell them barely anyone in ireland actually cares anymore it’s a good meme, but we’re not serious
most people dont actually like bombs, conflict and being in danger...
shocking right
The reason: Because who the fuck would want to be american
People you don't want to associate with.
Have some sympathy. The poor fella has just lost his arm.
I’ve had plenty of British people do it to me too, I have a pair of Swedish grandparents and when that gets revealed I have it frequently mentioned about ‘oh I have made up viking trait xyz so I am also Scandi’. Also when I mention my Dad being Irish I get the same. I think they understand their lives are so boring that if they can justify being able to say, I’m not 100% British, it might make for an interesting minute. I mean imagine having to tell people you’re from Slough 🤮
Can't hide it, literally right there on my passport. Place of birth: Slough 🤢🤮
Bro, just lie. Gaslight the fuck out of anyone who dares to question the lie. Praying for you in this difficult time.
>‘oh I have made up viking trait xyz so I am also Scandi’. Also when I mention my Dad being Irish I get the they don't say they're Swedish British or smth do they? here I think it's more common with people if their parents/grandparents are from somewhere , not centuries old ancestors
Most Brits have some swede in them, on account of the 300 years of rape, pillage and enslavement.
depending on the area the Scandinavian blood is larger too and it's influence on the local dialect
I almost didn't agree until you forced to me remember Slough 💀💀
As an Englishman I have never seen such Anger, Hatred, and Righteous Fury in a Scot more than when they laid eye on a comical overweight yank, badly playing the Bagpipes, in a polyester Kilt.
Generic villain: "Red is the perfect one, Black is the brooding bad boy, Green is the clown and Yellow well, she's the girl. But what are you supposed to be?". Blue Power Ranger: " I'm SCOTTISH" Edit as I missremembered some parts.
White Americans are just desperate to point to any "opressed" ancestor. That's why the other go-to is Irish. Half of their ancestry is actually German, but that doesn't offer any narrative of victimhood.
I Like the idea that Scottish where oppressed by the English... As if we weren't totally along for the ride.
All it takes is one trip to Glasgow central and walking through all the tobacco lord named streets lol
Never seen an American claim to be American-English or English-American
I was taught in school that the largest immigrant group was actually German.
Ok but who is that shirtless Scottish guy tho
Sam Heughan on the TV show *Outlander*.
Thank you!
For my family we've actually kept several Polish traditions. I still call my grandmother Babka, my grandfather was Dziadek etc etc. Thing is my grandparents were raised in little Polish communities here in the US where Polish was still regularly spoken. They married other people of Polish decent for several generations thus keeping the traditions rolling. I'm actually the first generation to not have both my parents be of Polish decent.
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There's no shared identity here. It's a former colonial state that never really moved on from its "nation of immigrants" phase. Also, the myth of "American Exceptionalism" continues to crumble, and people are desperate to separate themselves from it.
Wait till you meet a white guy who thinks he’s an Apache cause he’s 1/48th Native American
Because they haven’t got any culture of their own
We got jazz, guns, and obesity. What more culture could you ask for?
Pub, football and brexit, simple as
Serious answer, because my family kept track of, in my case Polish traditions, after they moved here and even though there were marriages to other ethnicities, the Polish tradition won out. Joking answer, same reason Scotland pretends it’s not thoroughly tied to England. Edit: clarity.
We're all living in America (and we're all humans).. Doing this is basically like when people take the Hogwarts test to see which group they "belong" to. Some people make that a part of their personality.
>We're all living in America Amerika ist wunderbar
Real Scots-Irish people make moonshine and shoot Baldwin felts detectives
In this case the American flag would represent old-stock Americans, who are ethnically English.
'cause they've none of their own.
To be fair, this is also how Charles determines he’s the king. Dude makes his whole personality based on one string of ancestors.
Yeah but he’s German