What’s an American thing you see in movies that you thought was fake but is actually real? – 21 blown minds
Contrary to a low stakes conspiracy theory that I just made up, America is a genuine place, and not a fictional location invented by the entertainment industry to make it rich.
This hasn’t stopped the literally dozens of people who live outside of the US from assuming that things they see on the box are very clever fakes. If you are one of these people, EmergencySpare7939 on the r/CasualConversation sub-Reddit popped the question:
‘Non-Americans, what is an American thing you see in movies that you thought was fake but is actually real?
‘Whenever I see non-Americans online talk about their time in America a few things always come up. Things like yellow school busses and red solo cups always seem to be something that surprises them. It feels great seeing that excited over things that are common for me to see everyday.’
While we already knew about their little red party cups and thought that they were sweet in an “Oh, bless them” kind of way, there are an awful lot of things about American culture that we thought were a complete fiction which turns out are not. Unless, of course, America only exists as a piece of performance art that got out of hand.
1.
‘I was talking w/ a British friend yesterday and he didn’t know that the Cheesecake Factory was real. He thought it was a restaurant they made up in The Big Bang Theory…’
–wanderover88
2.
‘Steam coming out of manholes in the streets! I was fully convinced that was something they did in movies to make it look eerie. Then I went to Buffalo, NY for a work thing and saw it for myself.’
–pirividite
3.
‘College sports. It took me years to bump into the fact that it is, indeed, not just a thing but a huge thing.’
–masseyrati80
4.
‘Here’s a fact that blew my mind: Out of the 10 largest sports stadiums in the world, 8 of them belong to US college football teams.’
–darkkujo
5.
‘The amount of small talk with strangers. Cashiers, neighbours, random people in elevators. I thought that was scripted politeness.’
–Born_Maybe4788
6.
‘Not even just small talk, just plain talk. Random people love telling me their business, for some reason, and sometimes it’s serious/deep stuff.
‘Lady on the train telling me how she grew up poor in South America and sometimes only had onions to eat, random guy in the dollar store telling me how his girlfriend and her son are treating him like a sugar daddy, etc. It honestly blows my mind sometimes.’
–kickballfever
7.
‘Billboards and adverts for lawyers and pharmaceuticals, and gun shops. I figured they existed but assumed were always exaggerated, as just seemed like a bizarre concept to me as a Brit.
‘Then I spent a week in Texas. Goddamn.’
–thefuturesbeensold
8.
‘Don’t forget billboards for churches (or just religion in general). I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be a “Saul on the road to Damascus” thing where someone will see a sign for a particular church and instantly convert because the sign says nice things, but yeah.’
–nudistinclothes
9.
‘Half the time it’s not even nice! Just so many signs I passed on my road trip were just things like “REPENT”, “THE DEVIL LOVES SINNERS”, “THINK ITS HOT NOW?” with hellfire in the background.
‘And it’d be like 8 billboards for the same church back to back along the same road.’
–squaretaro3270
10.
‘Baggers at the checkout in grocery stores. I thought this was a plot device in The Shawshank Redemption until I saw it for real.’
–Opening_Cut_6379
11.
‘How much they love an English accent. I lost count of how many times I heard “you from England? I just love your accent”.’
–pagestillnotfound
12.
‘Not me but friends from Spain thought Groundhog Day was just a thing from the movie. Other British friends thought the same of snow days.’
–Pitiful_Double3840
13.
‘As a British person, I first encountered yellow school buses on The Simpsons, so I assumed it the bus was yellow because it was a cartoon. I grew up in an area where there were bus routes just for schools, but they were just normal public transport buses.’
–NiobeTonks
14.
‘Red Sesame Street style fire hydrants.’
–blahblahblahblah1943
15.
<blockquote’>
I’m an American. But in college I had a Spanish friend and we were out driving around, and there was a cheerleading team holding a car wash fundraiser. Many of them were in bathing suits but not like teeny bikinis. So we paid the $5.
‘The whole time I could smell the smoke coming out of my friend’s short-circuited brain. He could not believe it was real. Later, he said he felt like he woke up in Toon Town, from the Roger Rabbit movie.
–SomebodysGotToSayIt
16.
‘Pep rallies. They just look so big idk how it gets coordinated.’
–Otherwise-Grape1551
17.
“Objects in mirror are closer than they appear”. I thought this was a plot device in Jurassic Park and couldn’t believe it when someone on Reddit showed me a closeup photo of their own mirror saying this.’
–Opening_Cut_6379
18.
‘Ads for prescription drugs on TV was the big one for me! I’d see references to it on TV shows, and I thought people were just joking about how shady drugs can be. Then, the first time I visited the States, I was watching TV there and saw all these ads for prescription drugs. I was like, what?! Those ads they joked about are real?’
–CuriousLands
19.
‘Cheerleader competitions (like in the movie “bring it”). I thought it was made up for the movie.’
–Inderu
20.
‘American here married to a man born and raised in China. When we were traveling to meet my family he saw tumble weeds. He thought tumble weeds were Hollywood props made for movies in some factory or something.’
–Moist-Release-9227
21.
‘Piggly wiggly. I thought it was just a movie thing (Close Encounters of the Third Kind), because it’s such a ridiculous name for a supermarket.’
–Rarefindofthemind
Source: u/EmergencySpare7939