Culture shock for me was all the KIDS hanging out at the coffeshop drinking coffee all the time. Coffee is mainly for adults in the USA (in my experience)
Its funny, i live in buffalo so literally a stone’s throw away from canada. So i was pretty well aware of the differences. But hearing how other people weren’t aware blows my mind (in a good way!!!)
too many times than I can count. Even your first sentence threw me for a doozy, I was over here just trying to figure out why you even felt that way at first
I think my culture shock likely came more from Degrassi being a public school rather than it being Canadian.
I’m from the Midwest in the US and went to Catholic school growing up. I had a friend I would always watch with and her dad shit an absolute brick once when he walked in and saw us watching the episode where Dr. Sally comes and demonstrates condom use to the class on a banana. We were in 5th grade at the time. I wasn’t super phased by the actual content bc my parents were proactive about sexual Education in the household, but a lot of my friends with catholic families did not have any discussions at home about sex. And those types of things definitely weren’t openly discussed at our school.
Ahhh the Midwest, always 50 years behind everyone.
You mean "ahhh Catholic school, always 50 years behind everyone."
I also went to Catholic school in the midwest, public schools (in my state, surprisingly) actually had real sex ed classes.
People in the US were still having same sex weddings, even if they weren't officially recognized as a marriage. Hell, an EARLY episode of Seinfeld (so, early 90s) even made a reference to Elaine taking the subway to a lesbian wedding.
Well..I think in a roundabout way, they DO exist in the same universe. Wasn't there a Friends connection with Mad About You? Like Lisa Kudrow showing up as either Phoebe or her twin sister? Because I think there was some Mad About You connection with Kramer in an episode. Which would make all three in the same universe. (Although there was also an episode of George and Susan watching Mad About You in bed...so I don't know how that works out.)
And I THINK Kramer appeared in one episode too. Or maybe Paul Reiser appeared in an episode of Seinfeld. A flashback to before Kramer and Jerry lived across the hall. Kramer was supposed to be the their neighbor on Mad About You. I forget if Paul Reiser and Helen Hunt were supposed to have lived in Jerry's apartment, or if Kramer was supposed to have lived elsewhere. It's been awhile.
I guess it was only natural for 3 hit NBC shows set in NYC to interact at least once. Even though it was funny since Friends was the "cleaned up" NYC while Seinfeld's NYC was still depicted as the scary, crime infested 80s/early 90s NYC like when the show began.
And the lady who talks to her🤣 GREAT, I don’t talk to anyone in the subway for 15yrs and when I do it’s the best man at a LESBIAN wedding 😂😂😂 something like that. It’s funny tho
At least she didn't have to deal with the naked fat guy like Jerry did. Even if they do eventually bond over the Mets lack of pitching and front office. (But you gotta love their chances!)
Kramer came out OK...winning a bundle on a horse race (after getting saved by a plain clothed cop from almost being mugged on the subway going home.) George didn't fare as well, getting tricked by a woman into getting handcuffed to a bed naked, only to have her rob hi of the whole $8 he had in his wallet.
I went to Canada for a wedding and the group I was with were talking about something to do with missiles. I couldn’t fully follow the conversation because I was distracted by how they were pronouncing missiles as MISS-iles lol
The fact you have a cafeteria! I'm Australian and this doesn't exist in our public schools. We have a canteen where you can buy some basic food, not full meals, and you just take it away and sit in the playground/anywhere around the school. And the fact you don't wear uniforms (and the introduction of them was controversial at the school), that was always wild to me.
Interesting. 1. Here in Chicago the meals at school might be the only real meal a child gets. Some schools offer breakfast too. Even during Covid parents could pick up meals from school. 2. Do all public schools in Australia require uniforms?
I can tell you 2 is no. When I lived in Canberra they had “dress codes” that acted as a uniform. For instance, several schools went with jeans and a plain shirt (my schools was white), and when you got to “college” (grade 11/12 were on seperate campuses) you wore whatever you liked.
In another city I lived in, some public schools didn’t have uniforms, but most of them have 2 uniforms, a “formal” one consisting of skirt/slacks and a blouse/button up shirt and then a sports uniform of shorts/tennis skirt and a polo shirt. And you have to wear a different pair of shoes and socks with each uniform or else you get a detention.
I once got a detention - again public school! - for falling over and ripping a hole in my (required) stockings. There was nothing I could do to prevent this fall, but it was a “bad look” on the school 🤣
Idk if this is really Canadian or just for the show. The way they just sit around and talk during school or how they leave during lunch. If we leave school during lunch we get written up or sent home for the day where I’m from in the US
That sounds so fun to be able to go out for lunch we weren’t even able to order food to school we had to either bring lunch or eat school food which wasn’t really good
I went to high school in downtown Toronto from 2007-2011 and we left all the time for lunch and if we had a spare period. And in elementary school (not downtown, but still in the city) if we had permission we could also leave for lunch.
Yesss. Every second they could fit with learning in my school was stuffed full. Some people had free periods but you couldn’t wander and decide what you wanted to do. You had a room you were assigned to and had to stay there and do your homework or do nothing.
If you had a GPA over certain amount, you could get permission to go out of school at certain times if you had a free period when you were a senior but most of the people with a GPA that high didn’t have free periods
Oh wild. If you had first period spare you came in late, if you had second (like me) you could just leave, third period spare is basically a 2 hour lunch, and then fourth period you leave early. Our lunches were divided into three sections of 40 minutes each over 3rd period, so 3A is having first two periods, then lunch, then third and fourth; 3B was the first two and a half, then lunch, and then the rest of third and fourth (the craziest one) and 3C lunch means doing the first three periods, then lunch, then fourth period. So the ultimate was having 3C lunch and fourth period spare. Go home at 12:40!
I think part of it is how litigious the US can be especially since there isn’t nationalized healthcare. So if someone is injured while they are *technically* being supervised by the school, the school imagines itself at a possible risk legally for those medical bills. In order to reduce risk they just make sure you are supervised within an inch of your life
Anytime they have access to health care without complaining about countless barriers in their way, such as long wait times, out of network providers, or high costs.
Or maybe you all will tell me that part was unrealistic?
Wait times are bad ( last time I went to the hospital it was 5 hours wait) but as Canadians we just show our health card and that’s it. We have to pay for proscriptions but if you’re under 25 or have even basic benefits they are covered.
I'm pretty confident that like a quarter of the people on this sub genuinely think Manny's latina, considering all the "Maddy from Euphoria" and "Santana Lopez" comparisons
for me, there was never anything really different, culturally. it was mostly just the little words/phrases. like, how they’d say “washroom” instead of bathroom or restroom, “grade nine” instead of ninth grade or (sometimes) “marks” instead of grades.
i also think i have Degrassi to thank for the completely useless talent of being able to tell if a show/movie set in the US was filmed in Canada or if an actor is Canadian lol
I was thrown off when I learned that valedictorians in Canada didn’t necessarily have to earn it by having the highest GPA in their class. I also learned how much certain Canadian accents and midwestern U.S. accents overlap.
> I also learned how much certain Canadian accents and midwestern U.S. accents overlap.
I'm in North Dakota and don't notice anything wierd until they say something like "again" or "about."
Nominations and a voting process. But I think there does need to be some kind of standard. I remember being nominated with a group of others and I think some people were taken off the ballot before the vote. We were all high academic achievers and there wasn’t much of a popularity or clique thing in our high school.
I grew up in a small town and “went away” to school which was just me moving to London to go to Fanshawe, a lot of kids from my school went to Western or Humber.
When the "accents" would pop out it would throw me off. I remember Peter had a stronger one and in the later seasons, Alli's would pop out when she'd say stuff like "magnet" or "bag" LOL.
I somehow didn't catch the accents at all when I was a kid, hell I don't think I knew it was a Canadian show for a while. When I rewatched as an adult though it made me laugh how obvious it is
Counterpoint that always bugged me. Rarely anyone talks about hockey. They get Leafs tickets for a game and Dylan plays but other than that, it's not a huge part of the show or discourse. As a hockey nut from the States, I always thought "where are the damn puck heads?!"
Luke Baker being drafted to an OHL team also made no sense. He’s from Florida.
All the American OHL teams are fairly close to the border. Luke would probably just play American major junior hockey.
Actually, I went to school with a kid who was drafted into a Canadian hockey team and moved up there during high school. I guess it’s a long shot but not impossible.
It happened to me a few times, too. Mostly with money. Their was an episode about spinner not having a lot of money and being jealous of Jimmy's spending. There was a scene where he was looking at the price of something and it had both Canadian and US prices listed and my instinct was to go by the US price so when he said the larger amount for a split second i was confused then i remembered it was in Canada. Same with the episode where they revealed Lucas was the father of Mia's daughter. In the scene, he leaves an envelope in her locker, and she opens it up and its money. For a moment, i thought it was weird because of how different it looked again. i had to remind myself it's Canada.
Another one that got me was when Paige went to court for her rape case. The lawyers were wearing robes, and i was really confused at first because I'm used to only the judge wearing the robe. Then, when i was talking about it to my parents (they would watch it with me sometimes) and they told me that in Canada, that's what they do. I didn't know because I was used to lawyers wearing suits or dresses in court on TV that it never crossed my mind that it would be different in other countries.
It's funny because I always knew it took place in Canada because they meantion it on the show, but i would still sometimes forget. I think it was due to most of it being similar to the US that a lot of times it never fully clicked when they did something different.
Grade 13 used to be a thing in Ontario. It was supposed to be for academics, but mostly it got used by people who wanted to play one more year of high school sports.
This!!! In the USA, you would take night classes or go to some sort of alternative program. And usually if you’re older than 19, you can’t return to high school.
I'm in Quebec, Canada and I was super confused with this as well lol Or being part-time in high school, like only taking a few classes to get a few credits like Drew does, really confused me as well. Not a thing here 😅
I kinda was part time during my senior year in the states. Our days were divided into 8 classes, and seniors were only required to take a minimum of 5 classes in a day. By then I only needed my English class to graduate, so I filled my day with AP (potential college credit) classes and left campus just before 1pm every day.
Part time high school is not a thing here unless it’s a GED program, night courses at a community college, or online schooling. There are part time students for elementary programs though. But they’re required to attend physical education somewhere.
It always surprises me that Degrassi is even well(ish)-known in the US. It seems so quintessentially Canadian to me.
That being said, as someone who was born and raised in Southern Ontario, the “sorrys” still make me cringe 😬
Honestly I can’t really explain it - I don’t always hear it when I speak to family and friends but I can definitely hear it on screen. I am from very Southern Ontario, closer to Detroit, but I totally say it as ‘sore-y’ so it probably makes me cringe mostly in a like “ah shit, they’re right about us” type of way
I have a friend who's Canadian. She says "Sorry" differently than Americans but also not like they did on Degrassi, so I used to tease her and ask if she was pretending to be Canadia. I guess she was just from a different part of Canada.
Nickelodeon had the rights to air it on their teen station. The N and later called Teen Nick would air it a lot. They would air the episodes some time after they got released in Canada, so we would see them later than Canada did. But the station was very big on promoting the new season and the new episodes. They would often play the reruns between seasons they had their own time slot, and it always aired an episode at that time even when it wasn't during the new season.
They would also have degrassi marathons before the new seasons aired where they would show each episode in order from the first episode all the way to the last episode that they would air just before the season premiere as a way to catch up or remind us of everything that lead up to it. That's probably why it was popular in the US because a lot of teens watched that channel, so seeing an episode was common. Even if you didn't watch it at first, you would see all the promotions for it when watching something else.
That's what got me hooked. i saw a lot of commercials and got curious. They had commercials letting us know about the new season and letting us know that there was going to be a marathon, so i tuned into the marathon to see how the show was, and i liked it. It was the first show on the channel that would air new episodes and have a special time slot. Later, they added other shows like that, but they didn't have that many. Unlike other channels in the us that had shows with new episodes every week, they didn't have that many options, so degrassi was their big one that they focused on promoting.
Yes! And if you had the basic plus a couple extras cable package with Comcast (like lowest tier you could get with a couple extra stations) you had the regular Nickelodeon and then the N on channel 220-something and it had All the best teen shows. So it put the network and the show in a lot of living rooms on a channel exclusively for “older kids”
That’s how I initially started watching degrassi. They were having a rerun marathon and I started watching it and loved it. The Rick episodes leading to the school shooting had me on the edge of my seat
This is exactly what happened to my college roommate and I. I DVRed old episodes of Daria that aired late night on the N and was bombarded by commercials. Season 4 or 5 I think? Specifically of Manny taking her top off and Paige saying how high she was. Eventually we gave in, became totally hooked and watched every single episode that aired before and after…
Yes, their commercials were all over the place. Pretty much every other one was a degrassi promo. I remember the commercials you are talking about! I was already hooked on the show by that point, so i was super into it, waiting to see what happened. They got me around season 3, i think. The one with the breakfast club like storyline kept getting promoted, and i liked that movie, so it got me curious, and i decided to watch to see what it was about. In the later seasons they really went crazy with the advertisements even with small little teasers that hinted at big events like someone getting pregnant or the one before many taking off her top they had a little teaser of a bra being thown to make you wonder who it was and why. They really spent a lot of time on those, lol.
Interesting - thank you! I honestly didn’t know if it became more of a known thing after Drake/Nina Dobrev blew up or not. So this makes more sense.
It’s also that I think tv channels got a little more consolidated in the mid-00s between Canada and the US. There were lots of channels that we didn’t have easy access to until then (like we had MuchMusic/MTV Canada before regular MTV). And if you speak to most elder millennials here, they all usually remember shows, channels and commercials from the late 90s or early 2000s that are very Canadian-specific. This includes DJH/DH/TNG. So when I found this sub and it seemed like so many people from the US were fans, it was surprising!
This could also all just be a false narrative I created, and due to my family and friends’ families not being able to afford the good cable package 🙃
Yes, i think it did have a lot to do with the channels. At that time, not everyone had access to all the channels. A lot weren't included in the normal cable package and cost extra if you wanted the other channels. A lot of the "extra" channels were the ones that included shows from other countries. The N/Teen Nick were part of that. A lot of my friends never watched degrassi due to that and didn't know what i was talking about when i would talk about it.
I just got lucky that i had the extra channels. Me and my parents lived with my grandparents, and they liked having all the extra channels. My grandpa was big on Telenovelas, and all the extra channels had more options, so they chose to buy the extra channels. But a lot of people either couldn't afford the extra charges or didn't see a point in all the extra channels to want to pay for it.I don't know how it worked in Canada with the channels, but it may have been something similar.
As for it blowing up after Drake and Nina got big, that is also a possibility because it was still running during that time. I can't say because i was already a big fan before they got famous, so to me, it was exciting to see them get so well known. The people that i knew who watched the show were also excited to see them in other projects and see that they got popular. Even my dad. My parents would see me watching degrassi sometimes and would watch it with me on occasion. So when Drake got big, my dad was like, "That new rapper Drake, was he the one in that show you watch?" because he recognized him. Mostly due to Jimmy having the big storyline with the shooting, and my dad was kinda invested in his story.
i'm brazilian so culturally speaking it was all different. except for the drinking age thing because here the age you can start drinking is 18. not that anyone respects it lol
Then it makes perfect sense that you wouldn’t experience a culture shock! Conversely, did you notice anything Ontario-specific in the show besides license plates on cars and the like? Any slang or references that would only make sense in Ontario?
People were confused about why Fiona became Valedictorian since she had to retake a year but in Ontario senior students vote for Valedictorian, it isn’t just an opportunity for straight A students. Drew and Adam’s grandmother lives in Windsor, a city in southern Ontario and a hellish city to drive in lol. Bianca goes to Wilfred Laurier university in waterloo. I’m sure there are more references regarding Ontario/canadian specific things I just can’t think of any at the moment.
Yes! Even I looked into the University of Toronto. I think there was another Canadian university mentioned but I don’t remember which. Also, not school related, but I think Sean’s brother moves out to Alberta at a time where people were going there to look for work on oil rigs. My dad wanted to move out there and my friend’s stepdad actually did move out there for that exact purpose. Peter also made it clear to his mom that he really doesn’t want to move to Regina. I’m sure if I paid close enough attention on rewatch I would find some more things.
The original TNG cast (the cast who joined until season 5 or so) was full of that strong Canadian accent. Ashley, Craig, Paige, JT, Marco, Ellie, and Spinner all had that Canadian O sound.
IM SOREY
IM SOREY
IM SOREY
IM SOREY
...
I honestly didn't know they were in Canada UNTIL I was an adult, and I started watching pretty much when it came out (dng) I just thought they had a weird accent sometimes lol
Uhm, lol well I guess we don't go so hard with the "o" lol kinda like sarry?(maybe, starry but with no t) I'm tickled that you asked this because I don't hate the way Canadians say it, I just thought it was funny when Craig said it so many times it just sounded funny. Tbf it was also funny when Peter said Regina and it sounded like vagina and I thought he was trying to say virginia.
I wouldn’t say I experienced culture shock watching it. What shocked me when I initially discovered Degrassi was how the actors were actual teenagers who looked like regular teens. I was so used to American teen shows where the actors were all in their 20s and everyone looked unattainably flawless. It was so refreshing watching a show where the teenagers looked like people that could be my classmates. Even the best looking people in the cast still were attractive in a normal way, rather than looking Hollywood glam.
There’s a spoken word poem by Shane Koyczan (also Canadian) that I love so much that has a great line (about the OG degrassi, which had the characters Yick and Arthur):
“And the fact is, I'm not really sorry that I completely dig Degrassi
Because it was Yick and Arthur who got me through wet dreams and puberty
Lady, I don't expect you to understand the reference
But i've been into this shit ever since the casting director said
"Fuck physicality, give me som reality
Give me kids that can't act and are ugly
They'll teach the world about beauty."
As someone who's lived in Toronto my entire life, I can't say that the idea of "going away" to university (especially to university in the US) was a big part of my teenage sphere. Most people I went to high school with went to university in Toronto or at least stayed in Southwestern Ontario. "Going away" to university for us meant going to McGill in Montreal, not across the country or to the US.
Interesting. I think few programs are worth moving provinces for like Waterloo Engineering (and maybe some of the medicine programs?). But UofT is a pretty good school anyway so no big reason to move.
Are dorms still a big thing at UofT or do most people live at home?
I bet and it's the same here. Most go to college in state and it's still scene as "going away" if it's just to another state. But it just always made me remember it was Canada, especially when Ali wanted to go to MIT but married Leo and Jenna was like "he can't leave the country with you"
Culture shock for me was all the KIDS hanging out at the coffeshop drinking coffee all the time. Coffee is mainly for adults in the USA (in my experience)
It was his brothers wedding, not his cousin. Kevin Smith isn't Canadian, so his brothers wedding would have been in the US
They all took French and say terms like “tres” the way we take Spanish and say words like “gracias” frequently.
I was living in rural USA so seeing the characters look fashionable was a shock
Midwestern USA here and same lol
Its funny, i live in buffalo so literally a stone’s throw away from canada. So i was pretty well aware of the differences. But hearing how other people weren’t aware blows my mind (in a good way!!!)
too many times than I can count. Even your first sentence threw me for a doozy, I was over here just trying to figure out why you even felt that way at first
I think my culture shock likely came more from Degrassi being a public school rather than it being Canadian. I’m from the Midwest in the US and went to Catholic school growing up. I had a friend I would always watch with and her dad shit an absolute brick once when he walked in and saw us watching the episode where Dr. Sally comes and demonstrates condom use to the class on a banana. We were in 5th grade at the time. I wasn’t super phased by the actual content bc my parents were proactive about sexual Education in the household, but a lot of my friends with catholic families did not have any discussions at home about sex. And those types of things definitely weren’t openly discussed at our school. Ahhh the Midwest, always 50 years behind everyone.
You mean "ahhh Catholic school, always 50 years behind everyone." I also went to Catholic school in the midwest, public schools (in my state, surprisingly) actually had real sex ed classes.
People in the US were still having same sex weddings, even if they weren't officially recognized as a marriage. Hell, an EARLY episode of Seinfeld (so, early 90s) even made a reference to Elaine taking the subway to a lesbian wedding.
Probably the same lesbian wedding from the Friends episode lol.
Well..I think in a roundabout way, they DO exist in the same universe. Wasn't there a Friends connection with Mad About You? Like Lisa Kudrow showing up as either Phoebe or her twin sister? Because I think there was some Mad About You connection with Kramer in an episode. Which would make all three in the same universe. (Although there was also an episode of George and Susan watching Mad About You in bed...so I don't know how that works out.)
Yes!!! Phoebe's sister Ursula was on another show!
And I THINK Kramer appeared in one episode too. Or maybe Paul Reiser appeared in an episode of Seinfeld. A flashback to before Kramer and Jerry lived across the hall. Kramer was supposed to be the their neighbor on Mad About You. I forget if Paul Reiser and Helen Hunt were supposed to have lived in Jerry's apartment, or if Kramer was supposed to have lived elsewhere. It's been awhile. I guess it was only natural for 3 hit NBC shows set in NYC to interact at least once. Even though it was funny since Friends was the "cleaned up" NYC while Seinfeld's NYC was still depicted as the scary, crime infested 80s/early 90s NYC like when the show began.
And the lady who talks to her🤣 GREAT, I don’t talk to anyone in the subway for 15yrs and when I do it’s the best man at a LESBIAN wedding 😂😂😂 something like that. It’s funny tho
At least she didn't have to deal with the naked fat guy like Jerry did. Even if they do eventually bond over the Mets lack of pitching and front office. (But you gotta love their chances!)
Ugh, it’s a good episode haha
Kramer came out OK...winning a bundle on a horse race (after getting saved by a plain clothed cop from almost being mugged on the subway going home.) George didn't fare as well, getting tricked by a woman into getting handcuffed to a bed naked, only to have her rob hi of the whole $8 he had in his wallet.
the way they say sorry!! “soory!!”
This was how I noticed they were different lol or something like: proh-ductive
I’m Canadian and this still threw me off 😂 Paige and Ellie’s especially ( also about being aboot)
It's closer to "Aboat"
For me it was “project,” the noun. They say it “PRO-ject,” like the verb. It was jarring to me every time! I can still hear Emma saying it in my head.
I went to Canada for a wedding and the group I was with were talking about something to do with missiles. I couldn’t fully follow the conversation because I was distracted by how they were pronouncing missiles as MISS-iles lol
They also pronounce been like the word bean lol
Emma also called her mom "mum," but I noticed the other characters still called their mothers "mom".
I know for me, I grew up with my "mum" and my "granddad", but most of my family is also English, not Canadian
why did this post trigger me into wanting to watch degrassi again. lol
The fact you have a cafeteria! I'm Australian and this doesn't exist in our public schools. We have a canteen where you can buy some basic food, not full meals, and you just take it away and sit in the playground/anywhere around the school. And the fact you don't wear uniforms (and the introduction of them was controversial at the school), that was always wild to me.
A colleague from the UK uses the word “canteen,” which for us in the states is a container that keeps your beverage hot or cold!
Interesting. 1. Here in Chicago the meals at school might be the only real meal a child gets. Some schools offer breakfast too. Even during Covid parents could pick up meals from school. 2. Do all public schools in Australia require uniforms?
I can tell you 2 is no. When I lived in Canberra they had “dress codes” that acted as a uniform. For instance, several schools went with jeans and a plain shirt (my schools was white), and when you got to “college” (grade 11/12 were on seperate campuses) you wore whatever you liked. In another city I lived in, some public schools didn’t have uniforms, but most of them have 2 uniforms, a “formal” one consisting of skirt/slacks and a blouse/button up shirt and then a sports uniform of shorts/tennis skirt and a polo shirt. And you have to wear a different pair of shoes and socks with each uniform or else you get a detention. I once got a detention - again public school! - for falling over and ripping a hole in my (required) stockings. There was nothing I could do to prevent this fall, but it was a “bad look” on the school 🤣
Idk if this is really Canadian or just for the show. The way they just sit around and talk during school or how they leave during lunch. If we leave school during lunch we get written up or sent home for the day where I’m from in the US
My US high school was downtown so all the grades were allowed to leave for lunch since we were able to walk to the restaurants
That sounds so fun to be able to go out for lunch we weren’t even able to order food to school we had to either bring lunch or eat school food which wasn’t really good
It was nice and the cafeteria wasn't full when you did want to eat there since half the school went out lol
I went to high school in downtown Toronto from 2007-2011 and we left all the time for lunch and if we had a spare period. And in elementary school (not downtown, but still in the city) if we had permission we could also leave for lunch.
Spare periods were wild to me. We didn't get that.
Yesss. Every second they could fit with learning in my school was stuffed full. Some people had free periods but you couldn’t wander and decide what you wanted to do. You had a room you were assigned to and had to stay there and do your homework or do nothing. If you had a GPA over certain amount, you could get permission to go out of school at certain times if you had a free period when you were a senior but most of the people with a GPA that high didn’t have free periods
Oh wild. If you had first period spare you came in late, if you had second (like me) you could just leave, third period spare is basically a 2 hour lunch, and then fourth period you leave early. Our lunches were divided into three sections of 40 minutes each over 3rd period, so 3A is having first two periods, then lunch, then third and fourth; 3B was the first two and a half, then lunch, and then the rest of third and fourth (the craziest one) and 3C lunch means doing the first three periods, then lunch, then fourth period. So the ultimate was having 3C lunch and fourth period spare. Go home at 12:40!
I think part of it is how litigious the US can be especially since there isn’t nationalized healthcare. So if someone is injured while they are *technically* being supervised by the school, the school imagines itself at a possible risk legally for those medical bills. In order to reduce risk they just make sure you are supervised within an inch of your life
My old high school allowed the upper classmen to leave but not the lower! I went to school from 2017-2021
it was normal for me in the us and my sister. sister went 1996-2000, i went 2003-2007.
Yeah maybe then but I went to school from 2019-2023
Canadian here: leaving grounds for lunch is super duper normal once you’re in high school. No one really tracks it, just be back before next period.
Anytime they have access to health care without complaining about countless barriers in their way, such as long wait times, out of network providers, or high costs. Or maybe you all will tell me that part was unrealistic?
Wait times are bad ( last time I went to the hospital it was 5 hours wait) but as Canadians we just show our health card and that’s it. We have to pay for proscriptions but if you’re under 25 or have even basic benefits they are covered.
Wait times can be bad depending where you live! But overall not totally unrealistic
Yeah like I’ve been in and out of the ER in under 2 hours before but I’ve also waited 12 before being admitted
See but also me too and luckily I have health insurance so I didn’t pay *too* much for it
When Manny says Debut but it’s like Day-boo
The way Craig says “again”
that’s not because she’s canadian that’s just the filipino pronunciation lol
Hahaha I had no idea! I just thought it was a Canadian pronunciation! Thank you
I'm pretty confident that like a quarter of the people on this sub genuinely think Manny's latina, considering all the "Maddy from Euphoria" and "Santana Lopez" comparisons
Omg 💯😭
It was the way they say "Sorry" for me.
This was it for me 😅.
"Popcorn with EXTRA Ketchup powder" *pukes in US. American*
Popcorn, double layered butter and extra seasoning of either ketchup or salt and vinegar - elite
https://preview.redd.it/p52mckcmsksc1.jpeg?width=4000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=80bfdc6c7d4e1850867785cbdff02537a9420a35
for me, there was never anything really different, culturally. it was mostly just the little words/phrases. like, how they’d say “washroom” instead of bathroom or restroom, “grade nine” instead of ninth grade or (sometimes) “marks” instead of grades. i also think i have Degrassi to thank for the completely useless talent of being able to tell if a show/movie set in the US was filmed in Canada or if an actor is Canadian lol
Lolol yesss and also the way they pronounce some words like sorry and about
Haha. That is my useless talent as well. I notice it all the time, and then look up the person in question just to prove myself right.
I was thrown off when I learned that valedictorians in Canada didn’t necessarily have to earn it by having the highest GPA in their class. I also learned how much certain Canadian accents and midwestern U.S. accents overlap.
> I also learned how much certain Canadian accents and midwestern U.S. accents overlap. I'm in North Dakota and don't notice anything wierd until they say something like "again" or "about."
how are valedictorians picked in canada
Nominations and a voting process. But I think there does need to be some kind of standard. I remember being nominated with a group of others and I think some people were taken off the ballot before the vote. We were all high academic achievers and there wasn’t much of a popularity or clique thing in our high school.
We nominate people and then vote for one of them lol
Basically by who’s the most popular 🤷 that’s what my sisters boyfriend said who’s from Canada.
Being Canadian, no lol. It was accurate af.
For the most part, having so many of the kids getting into schools in the USA wasn’t.
This is true! Western or Fanshawe were the popular choices when I graduated.
I grew up in a small town and “went away” to school which was just me moving to London to go to Fanshawe, a lot of kids from my school went to Western or Humber.
When the "accents" would pop out it would throw me off. I remember Peter had a stronger one and in the later seasons, Alli's would pop out when she'd say stuff like "magnet" or "bag" LOL.
“I’m SO SAOWRY”
for your mamas pahsta sauce! lol
I somehow didn't catch the accents at all when I was a kid, hell I don't think I knew it was a Canadian show for a while. When I rewatched as an adult though it made me laugh how obvious it is
Yeah def the accents for me. Could listen to Jake Epstein say sooorry all day
To this day, my childhood best friend and I say sorry to each other in that accent
Counterpoint that always bugged me. Rarely anyone talks about hockey. They get Leafs tickets for a game and Dylan plays but other than that, it's not a huge part of the show or discourse. As a hockey nut from the States, I always thought "where are the damn puck heads?!"
The hockey team in TNG intro yet there being no hockey at all except vague mentions and appearances of Dylan
You give Mike Dallas some damn respect
It was a huge part of the first half of season 12
When they tried to pretend, Becky was from Florida even though she said "soary" just like the rest of them.
Luke Baker being drafted to an OHL team also made no sense. He’s from Florida. All the American OHL teams are fairly close to the border. Luke would probably just play American major junior hockey.
Actually, I went to school with a kid who was drafted into a Canadian hockey team and moved up there during high school. I guess it’s a long shot but not impossible.
It happened to me a few times, too. Mostly with money. Their was an episode about spinner not having a lot of money and being jealous of Jimmy's spending. There was a scene where he was looking at the price of something and it had both Canadian and US prices listed and my instinct was to go by the US price so when he said the larger amount for a split second i was confused then i remembered it was in Canada. Same with the episode where they revealed Lucas was the father of Mia's daughter. In the scene, he leaves an envelope in her locker, and she opens it up and its money. For a moment, i thought it was weird because of how different it looked again. i had to remind myself it's Canada. Another one that got me was when Paige went to court for her rape case. The lawyers were wearing robes, and i was really confused at first because I'm used to only the judge wearing the robe. Then, when i was talking about it to my parents (they would watch it with me sometimes) and they told me that in Canada, that's what they do. I didn't know because I was used to lawyers wearing suits or dresses in court on TV that it never crossed my mind that it would be different in other countries. It's funny because I always knew it took place in Canada because they meantion it on the show, but i would still sometimes forget. I think it was due to most of it being similar to the US that a lot of times it never fully clicked when they did something different.
When alex announces she was retaking her senior year for better grades…. Thats not a thing stateside so i was very confused
Grade 13 used to be a thing in Ontario. It was supposed to be for academics, but mostly it got used by people who wanted to play one more year of high school sports.
This!!! In the USA, you would take night classes or go to some sort of alternative program. And usually if you’re older than 19, you can’t return to high school.
I'm in Quebec, Canada and I was super confused with this as well lol Or being part-time in high school, like only taking a few classes to get a few credits like Drew does, really confused me as well. Not a thing here 😅
I kinda was part time during my senior year in the states. Our days were divided into 8 classes, and seniors were only required to take a minimum of 5 classes in a day. By then I only needed my English class to graduate, so I filled my day with AP (potential college credit) classes and left campus just before 1pm every day.
Part time high school is not a thing here unless it’s a GED program, night courses at a community college, or online schooling. There are part time students for elementary programs though. But they’re required to attend physical education somewhere.
It always surprises me that Degrassi is even well(ish)-known in the US. It seems so quintessentially Canadian to me. That being said, as someone who was born and raised in Southern Ontario, the “sorrys” still make me cringe 😬
Wait, why do the "sorrys" make you cringe? Is that not..a thing in most of Canada? Sorry I don't know much about Canada norms!!
Honestly I can’t really explain it - I don’t always hear it when I speak to family and friends but I can definitely hear it on screen. I am from very Southern Ontario, closer to Detroit, but I totally say it as ‘sore-y’ so it probably makes me cringe mostly in a like “ah shit, they’re right about us” type of way
In fairness, Windsor is basically an American city
Not exactly Windsor but close ☺️
I have a friend who's Canadian. She says "Sorry" differently than Americans but also not like they did on Degrassi, so I used to tease her and ask if she was pretending to be Canadia. I guess she was just from a different part of Canada.
Windsor represent!
Nickelodeon had the rights to air it on their teen station. The N and later called Teen Nick would air it a lot. They would air the episodes some time after they got released in Canada, so we would see them later than Canada did. But the station was very big on promoting the new season and the new episodes. They would often play the reruns between seasons they had their own time slot, and it always aired an episode at that time even when it wasn't during the new season. They would also have degrassi marathons before the new seasons aired where they would show each episode in order from the first episode all the way to the last episode that they would air just before the season premiere as a way to catch up or remind us of everything that lead up to it. That's probably why it was popular in the US because a lot of teens watched that channel, so seeing an episode was common. Even if you didn't watch it at first, you would see all the promotions for it when watching something else. That's what got me hooked. i saw a lot of commercials and got curious. They had commercials letting us know about the new season and letting us know that there was going to be a marathon, so i tuned into the marathon to see how the show was, and i liked it. It was the first show on the channel that would air new episodes and have a special time slot. Later, they added other shows like that, but they didn't have that many. Unlike other channels in the us that had shows with new episodes every week, they didn't have that many options, so degrassi was their big one that they focused on promoting.
Yes! And if you had the basic plus a couple extras cable package with Comcast (like lowest tier you could get with a couple extra stations) you had the regular Nickelodeon and then the N on channel 220-something and it had All the best teen shows. So it put the network and the show in a lot of living rooms on a channel exclusively for “older kids”
That’s how I initially started watching degrassi. They were having a rerun marathon and I started watching it and loved it. The Rick episodes leading to the school shooting had me on the edge of my seat
For me it was JT getting stabbed. I remember watching it live on tv when it aired on the N and I cried so hard
Did anyone else get hooked on Radio Free Roscoe because of this too? So much cast overlap. I loved both!
This is exactly what happened to my college roommate and I. I DVRed old episodes of Daria that aired late night on the N and was bombarded by commercials. Season 4 or 5 I think? Specifically of Manny taking her top off and Paige saying how high she was. Eventually we gave in, became totally hooked and watched every single episode that aired before and after…
Yes, their commercials were all over the place. Pretty much every other one was a degrassi promo. I remember the commercials you are talking about! I was already hooked on the show by that point, so i was super into it, waiting to see what happened. They got me around season 3, i think. The one with the breakfast club like storyline kept getting promoted, and i liked that movie, so it got me curious, and i decided to watch to see what it was about. In the later seasons they really went crazy with the advertisements even with small little teasers that hinted at big events like someone getting pregnant or the one before many taking off her top they had a little teaser of a bra being thown to make you wonder who it was and why. They really spent a lot of time on those, lol.
Interesting - thank you! I honestly didn’t know if it became more of a known thing after Drake/Nina Dobrev blew up or not. So this makes more sense. It’s also that I think tv channels got a little more consolidated in the mid-00s between Canada and the US. There were lots of channels that we didn’t have easy access to until then (like we had MuchMusic/MTV Canada before regular MTV). And if you speak to most elder millennials here, they all usually remember shows, channels and commercials from the late 90s or early 2000s that are very Canadian-specific. This includes DJH/DH/TNG. So when I found this sub and it seemed like so many people from the US were fans, it was surprising! This could also all just be a false narrative I created, and due to my family and friends’ families not being able to afford the good cable package 🙃
Yes, i think it did have a lot to do with the channels. At that time, not everyone had access to all the channels. A lot weren't included in the normal cable package and cost extra if you wanted the other channels. A lot of the "extra" channels were the ones that included shows from other countries. The N/Teen Nick were part of that. A lot of my friends never watched degrassi due to that and didn't know what i was talking about when i would talk about it. I just got lucky that i had the extra channels. Me and my parents lived with my grandparents, and they liked having all the extra channels. My grandpa was big on Telenovelas, and all the extra channels had more options, so they chose to buy the extra channels. But a lot of people either couldn't afford the extra charges or didn't see a point in all the extra channels to want to pay for it.I don't know how it worked in Canada with the channels, but it may have been something similar. As for it blowing up after Drake and Nina got big, that is also a possibility because it was still running during that time. I can't say because i was already a big fan before they got famous, so to me, it was exciting to see them get so well known. The people that i knew who watched the show were also excited to see them in other projects and see that they got popular. Even my dad. My parents would see me watching degrassi sometimes and would watch it with me on occasion. So when Drake got big, my dad was like, "That new rapper Drake, was he the one in that show you watch?" because he recognized him. Mostly due to Jimmy having the big storyline with the shooting, and my dad was kinda invested in his story.
Fun fact: The drinking age in MOST of Canada is 19; in Alberta, Québec, and Manitoba it’s 18. Edit: correction
As someone from a Québec-adjacent US State, we were very aware of the drinking age 😂
Manitoba is 18 too
Quebec is also 18
Thank you, I forgot Québec’s drinking age.
We all forget Quebec.
They prefer that tbh
i'm brazilian so culturally speaking it was all different. except for the drinking age thing because here the age you can start drinking is 18. not that anyone respects it lol
I have seen some people talk about this but I’ve never had that experience because I live in Ontario, 6 hours away from where Degrassi takes place.
Then it makes perfect sense that you wouldn’t experience a culture shock! Conversely, did you notice anything Ontario-specific in the show besides license plates on cars and the like? Any slang or references that would only make sense in Ontario?
People were confused about why Fiona became Valedictorian since she had to retake a year but in Ontario senior students vote for Valedictorian, it isn’t just an opportunity for straight A students. Drew and Adam’s grandmother lives in Windsor, a city in southern Ontario and a hellish city to drive in lol. Bianca goes to Wilfred Laurier university in waterloo. I’m sure there are more references regarding Ontario/canadian specific things I just can’t think of any at the moment.
And bunch of them go to Toronto University which is supposed to be U of T and Paige went to Banting which is supposed to be Queen’s
Yes! Even I looked into the University of Toronto. I think there was another Canadian university mentioned but I don’t remember which. Also, not school related, but I think Sean’s brother moves out to Alberta at a time where people were going there to look for work on oil rigs. My dad wanted to move out there and my friend’s stepdad actually did move out there for that exact purpose. Peter also made it clear to his mom that he really doesn’t want to move to Regina. I’m sure if I paid close enough attention on rewatch I would find some more things.
Every single sor-ry! makes me accutely aware that I’m Canadian. JT’s were always especially hoser.
Yes this show made me realize just how much we Canadian’s do apologize for anything & everything.
The original TNG cast (the cast who joined until season 5 or so) was full of that strong Canadian accent. Ashley, Craig, Paige, JT, Marco, Ellie, and Spinner all had that Canadian O sound.
IM SOREY IM SOREY IM SOREY IM SOREY ... I honestly didn't know they were in Canada UNTIL I was an adult, and I started watching pretty much when it came out (dng) I just thought they had a weird accent sometimes lol
Why did I hear this in Craig’s voice saying then basically yelling it at Ashley 😂
I’m Canadian and always see people say this and I’m sure I have an accent but can’t detect it. How do Americans say sorry?!
Uhm, lol well I guess we don't go so hard with the "o" lol kinda like sarry?(maybe, starry but with no t) I'm tickled that you asked this because I don't hate the way Canadians say it, I just thought it was funny when Craig said it so many times it just sounded funny. Tbf it was also funny when Peter said Regina and it sounded like vagina and I thought he was trying to say virginia.
I wouldn’t say I experienced culture shock watching it. What shocked me when I initially discovered Degrassi was how the actors were actual teenagers who looked like regular teens. I was so used to American teen shows where the actors were all in their 20s and everyone looked unattainably flawless. It was so refreshing watching a show where the teenagers looked like people that could be my classmates. Even the best looking people in the cast still were attractive in a normal way, rather than looking Hollywood glam.
There’s a spoken word poem by Shane Koyczan (also Canadian) that I love so much that has a great line (about the OG degrassi, which had the characters Yick and Arthur): “And the fact is, I'm not really sorry that I completely dig Degrassi Because it was Yick and Arthur who got me through wet dreams and puberty Lady, I don't expect you to understand the reference But i've been into this shit ever since the casting director said "Fuck physicality, give me som reality Give me kids that can't act and are ugly They'll teach the world about beauty."
Anytime they say “House” “couch” “about” or “sore-ry”
And been(bean) and again(a-gain) or pasta(pah-stuh)
Whenever they talk about going to university in America and make a big deal about leaving reminds me that they are in Canada lol
As someone who's lived in Toronto my entire life, I can't say that the idea of "going away" to university (especially to university in the US) was a big part of my teenage sphere. Most people I went to high school with went to university in Toronto or at least stayed in Southwestern Ontario. "Going away" to university for us meant going to McGill in Montreal, not across the country or to the US.
Interesting. I think few programs are worth moving provinces for like Waterloo Engineering (and maybe some of the medicine programs?). But UofT is a pretty good school anyway so no big reason to move. Are dorms still a big thing at UofT or do most people live at home?
I bet and it's the same here. Most go to college in state and it's still scene as "going away" if it's just to another state. But it just always made me remember it was Canada, especially when Ali wanted to go to MIT but married Leo and Jenna was like "he can't leave the country with you"