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The Ubiquity of US Culture

Tex929rr
@Tex929rr
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We are nearing the end of our European trip (Danube Christmas river cruise) with a short stay in Budapest. It’s a day shorter than planned as Lufthansa cancelled our Christmas morning flight to Munich so we are on the train tomorrow. We have been walking around both sides of the river here and in Vienna and I’ve noticed kids from all over Europe wearing US themed clothing. Little Eastern European girls in “I ♥️NY” hats. And lots of clothing that sort of simulates US stuff - a 40ish guy had on a “Camp David Auto Repair” jacket with a big trademark logo. And I haven’t seen a single Che Guevara shirt. I guess you need to be in the US to find young people that stupid.

I can never quite put my finger on why the American stuff is so prevalent. Is our popular culture so ubiquitous that it’s popular with all these freedom loving Hungarians? Jeez, wait until they find out about Buc-Eees.

Today it finally snowed - big, wet flakes so it really feels like Christmas. Apparently the entire city shuts down tomorrow so it’s probably good that we are getting out of town.

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Discussion (22)

  • John H.@JohnH
    Tex929rr (View Post):

    I can never quite put my finger on why the American stuff is so prevalent.

    American stuff is fun. It's that simple!

    I have been seeing this sort of thing for decades. I wish I'd evolved a phrase better than "inept iconography" but that is going to have to do. Of it, my favorite misapprehensions of America are flags, on T-shirts or jacket shoulder patches, that show the right colors, maybe even the right stripes, but get the stars wrong. Oh, they're five-pointed. But the number of them is anything but 50. I don't think many foreigners understand the one-star-one-state formula.

    Anyway, it's common. With specific regard to the inauthentic flags, I think the first one I saw was while standing in line at the Odessa (Ukraine) railway station, in 1992. Kind of weird, in a place where the freight trains were still marked as Soviet.

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