Netflix: Americans Are Somewhat Self-Absorbed

At least in terms of the service being cheaper in Canada, from what I've been reading, they don't have as large of a catalog. Lots of American TV is not available.

Plus, isn't Internet access more expensive with smaller caps?

This is very typical in Canada. The selection, not just of the Netflix catalog, but also the selection of products that one would like to purchase up here is very limited compared to America. And if you do find what you are looking for up here a lot of the time it is much more expensive. It's very frustrating sometimes.
 
That we tend to not give much attention to things outside our borders is quite true. But why should we?
Just because Europeans tend to be nosy, does not mean we need to be.

American Cowboy Mentality: Ride in, shoot the badguys, fuck the girl, ride into the sunset.

Reality: Pregnant girl, half the town blown up, and the towns people are wondering 'WTF happened?'

That's pretty much how Americans are viewed everywhere else. So yeah, i'd say that falls under 'Self Absorbed.'

The painful part? When asked about the damage they've done. A typical american would answer "I have no idea what you're talking about, i don't even know where that is." And so the rest of the world will have to deal with americans going through their cowboy cycle every few years.
 
Well, isn't this kind of true though? I mean I have always noticed Hardocp is a bit in love with this fine country of ours, but yeah, I would not scofflaw at the notion that we as a country are the equivalent to a rather self absorbed douchebag (I added the douchebag part :p ).
 
The painful part? When asked about the damage they've done. A typical american would answer "I have no idea what you're talking about, i don't even know where that is." And so the rest of the world will have to deal with americans going through their cowboy cycle every few years.

I heard you been rustlin' cattle, pardner. Now tell me where yer hidin' yer women, and draw!
 
American Cowboy Mentality: Ride in, shoot the badguys, fuck the girl, ride into the sunset.

Reality: Pregnant girl, half the town blown up, and the towns people are wondering 'WTF happened?'

That's pretty much how Americans are viewed everywhere else. So yeah, i'd say that falls under 'Self Absorbed.'

The painful part? When asked about the damage they've done. A typical american would answer "I have no idea what you're talking about, i don't even know where that is." And so the rest of the world will have to deal with americans going through their cowboy cycle every few years.

If what you say is true, how the rest of the world chooses to view the US seems based more on TV than reality. But, that is OK, cause I really don't care what they think. They don't know me, nor I them, so why would I care? Why should they care? I don't consider that a Cowboy mentality at all, but you are free to.

I don't accept responsibility for the US government or our corporations. I vote mostly independent or libertarian. None of them ever seem to get elected.
 
I thought you were being ironic. I laughed.

The US should care about Canada because--unless you count the EU as a single entity--we are your biggest trading partner.

Just save some water for the fish, OK? We're starting to run out.

I thought it would be fun to make it a trick question to really try to throw people off :)

As for water, just melt some of the ice caps in your northern parts. Those aren't needed for anything anyway, that is just water that we are wasting let it sit there.
 
I thought it would be fun to make it a trick question to really try to throw people off :)

As for water, just melt some of the ice caps in your northern parts. Those aren't needed for anything anyway, that is just water that we are wasting let it sit there.
Annnnnd he's done it again. *clap* *clap*
 
As citizens, how can we focus much on anything else? We're unrepresented by our own "tax the crap out of us" congress, our lawmakers have gone crazy chasing an unrealizable dream of "safety" by passing laws that only restrict the law-abiding citizens, and we're completely intimidated and distracted by either having to earn a living, afraid of losing our jobs, or too busy looking for one, while our economy is in shambles, trying to repay a 2 generation-deep national debt.

Are you kidding me? If Washington, Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin were alive today, they'd leave. The USA isn't what people in other countries see on television or in the news...it's people like you and me, who disagree with the majority of decisions made by a very small minority of elitists, who have betrayed us by not doing the job we pay them for. They're not the real Americans; we are.

Is it any wonder why, as a whole, we "worship" the rich and famous as a culture? It's the only way to find a little hope, as people call us "self-centered" instead of flesh-and-blood people trying to survive a nightmare.
 
I'm a Canadian who has lived on and off in the USA for a number of years. Now it may be a stereotype and not apply to all, but I can attest that Americans are fairly myopic when it comes to world events. Hey, don't get all Huffy. Canadians have their own special quirks and flaws, but we are more cosmopolitan.

I like Americans though .. really!
 
If what you say is true, how the rest of the world chooses to view the US seems based more on TV than reality.

It's based on how the US itself treated other countries in the past (including mine). Every few years, the US sticks its nose in another country in the name of great justice, makes it worse, finds out they couldn't handle it, declares themselves the winner just to end it, and then conveniently forgets about it. Over and over.
 
I wouldn't really call it self absorbed, it's more like none of the other countries really matter here. The only time we really would need to worry about other countries is if we have a problem with them.
 
That we tend to not give much attention to things outside our borders is quite true. But why should we?
Just because Europeans tend to be nosy, does not mean we need to be.

I don't think it is so much that Europeans are nosy; rather, Americans are just noisy.

Does anybody remember the recent summer Olympics in Beijing? I was watching a fencing match, and the American crowd was stomping on the bleachers chanting "U-S-A! U-S-A!" WTF? No wonder the rest of the world frowns on us/U.S.
 
American Cowboy Mentality: Ride in, shoot the badguys, fuck the girl, ride into the sunset.

Reality: Pregnant girl, half the town blown up, and the towns people are wondering 'WTF happened?'

That's pretty much how Americans are viewed everywhere else. So yeah, i'd say that falls under 'Self Absorbed.'

The painful part? When asked about the damage they've done. A typical american would answer "I have no idea what you're talking about, i don't even know where that is." And so the rest of the world will have to deal with americans going through their cowboy cycle every few years.

/sillycomment
Sounds like you're mad because while our country came in to save the day during all sorts of national disasters, someone fucked your sister. And she got preggers, then he left. /sillycomment

People talk shit about America all the time, are we self absorbed? No.

Are individuals in our country self absorbed? Sure, but their are people like that everywhere.

Generalization about 310 million people is pretty fucking ignorant.

We could make rash generalizations as to why 3rd world countries are 3rd world countries....
 
/sillycomment
Sounds like you're mad because while our country came in to save the day during all sorts of national disasters, someone fucked your sister. And she got preggers, then he left. /sillycomment

People talk shit about America all the time, are we self absorbed? No.

Are individuals in our country self absorbed? Sure, but their are people like that everywhere.

Generalization about 310 million people is pretty fucking ignorant.

We could make rash generalizations as to why 3rd world countries are 3rd world countries....

Page 3 until I found a comment I actually agreed with...
 
As a Canadian I'm completely with the Americans in them being self-absorbed.

Dude, your shit is so much more of a soap opera than our shit, or for that matter the rest of the worlds shit, everybody is absorbed in American politics. Everything in your country is a god damn full-production opera, its amazing, and also ironic because I can guarantee you that if you polled people in any country in the EU, they would know more about politics in the US than they would about politics in any other country in the EU, (excluding Greece maybe, but that's just because of that economic fiasco).

You guys have a black president.
You guys have riots and people setting fire to mosque building sites and burning Koran’s.
You guys have media making the most drop-dead sensationalist statements I've ever heard. You ever heard Peter Mansbridge of the CBC? 10 seconds in your falling asleep! You ever listened to Glenn Beck? 10 seconds in and a /b/’s worth of geeks are DDOSing fox studios and/or putting life savings into gold coins!
You guys have a fucking privatized prison system… I mean, what is this I don’t even…
Monsanto.
Not to mention two bloody wars!

The US really is leading the way, the rest of the planet seems to be complacent with cabinets and shadow-cabinets quietly trying (and mostly failing in a hideously expensive manner) to improve the status-quo. You guys are definitely much more aggressively forwarding the political frontier.

So yeah, I don’t blame Americans for being self absorbed. I’m not even an American and I’m a self-absorbed American.
 
You guys have a black president.
You guys have riots and people setting fire to mosque building sites and burning Koran’s.
You guys have media making the most drop-dead sensationalist statements I've ever heard. You ever heard Peter Mansbridge of the CBC? 10 seconds in your falling asleep! You ever listened to Glenn Beck? 10 seconds in and a /b/’s worth of geeks are DDOSing fox studios and/or putting life savings into gold coins!
You guys have a fucking privatized prison system… I mean, what is this I don’t even…
Monsanto.
Not to mention two bloody wars!

Wow, somebody should really write a book about this. Would probably be a best seller, at least in the US.
 
Generalization about 310 million people is pretty fucking ignorant.

We could make rash generalizations as to why 3rd world countries are 3rd world countries....

You've been doing the same thing over and over in the last hundred years. If your general attitude had changed at all, then you wouldn't be seeing the same thing happening in each generation. Generalizations tend to become fact when you see the same attitude everytime.

I'd have to say that the democratic system is being abused there. When america makes a blunder, it's blamed on the president. He steps down on the next election, taking all the blame with him. America instantly has a clean slate again. New guy comes up, does the same screw up, steps down. Clean slate. Repeat. That kinda gives the kind of leaders you vote represents you, and when the leaders you pick to represent your interest keeps doing the same thing over the years. Your country starts getting a reputation it's pretty much earned. Democracy has become a scapegoat.

U.S.: "We screwed you over ten years ago? So what! That's ancient history! We also screwed over your neighboring country? See! We're on your side! Now lets do business! Trust me!"

And it still amazes me that americans are surprised whenever they find out other countries don't trust them.
 
And it still amazes me that americans are surprised whenever they find out other countries don't trust them.

I thought you guys were amazed when we don't care whenever we find out other countries don't trust us.


Wait, is this thread about Americans caring about what other countries think or not caring about what other countries think? I'm confused.
 
You've been doing the same thing over and over in the last hundred years. If your general attitude had changed at all, then you wouldn't be seeing the same thing happening in each generation. Generalizations tend to become fact when you see the same attitude everytime.

I'd have to say that the democratic system is being abused there. When america makes a blunder, it's blamed on the president. He steps down on the next election, taking all the blame with him. America instantly has a clean slate again. New guy comes up, does the same screw up, steps down. Clean slate. Repeat. That kinda gives the kind of leaders you vote represents you, and when the leaders you pick to represent your interest keeps doing the same thing over the years. Your country starts getting a reputation it's pretty much earned. Democracy has become a scapegoat.

U.S.: "We screwed you over ten years ago? So what! That's ancient history! We also screwed over your neighboring country? See! We're on your side! Now lets do business! Trust me!"

And it still amazes me that americans are surprised whenever they find out other countries don't trust them.

I'd like you to let us know where you live, so we can generalize about that country and append all those negative qualities to you as a person. Then you can defend yourself by saying well not everyone here is like that!

Like the guy from Canada talking shit about the US... a country that has as many people as ONE of our states...

If you look at the Super powers of the world, I think we're doing a pretty damn good job.

Where you say democracy is being abused, you fail to see the whole point of having new voted leaders. The fact that not one person can hold power for a long period of time keeps corruption (in theory) to a minimum.

You cannot judge one generation of people upon the mistakes of another. The same as you cannot judge one person based upon the mistakes of another.

The fact that you are making these judgements about everyone in the United States makes me seriously question your maturity. You say we've been doing the same thing for over a hundred years. Yet we are on the forefront of equality when it comes to citizens rights..

Not only do people give the United States shit all the time, they do it without remembering the fact that we're still a very young country.

As I stated before, let us know where YOU are from, before you start talking shit about a country you are making overwhelming generalizations about.
 
agree with the comment and think more americans should see how ignorantly self absorbed we are.

but I think it's more compartmentalized than just "americans" most don't give a shit about stuff unless it directly affects them or their money.
 
lol I agree netflix..bravo. NOW DIE

NUKE NUKE NUKE!

*waves american flag*
 
EVERYONE is self absorbed.... why is canada less self absorbed than the US then, i hate these off the cuff statements without some words to back up the argument..
 
wait wait... hold up. I think I know the reason why everyone hates the US....
because most of the sweepstakes and giveaways I see online are only open to the US. :p
 
EVERYONE is self absorbed.... why is canada less self absorbed than the US then, i hate these off the cuff statements without some words to back up the argument..
This is true. My wife spent the better part of a year doing translation work in Barcelona. All of her friends there insisted they were the most cosmopolitan city in the world but they couldn't understand that no one outside of Spain cared about their wine. And every month or so, someone in line somewhere would ask her what country she was from, assuming from the colour of her skin only that she was not a Spanish citizen. I can't imagine anyone in a Canadian or American grocery store just assuming you weren't from there before you even spoke a word.

I'm trying to think of a single country I've visited that didn't have a separatist movement or at least an insular mindset. Canada has the Bloc Quebecois; the US now has teabaggers; France/Spain has the Basques; in Barcelona I saw "Free Catalan" graphitti; in Munich, I was told quite directly that "ve are in Bavaria"; In Zurich and Geneva (the banking capital of the world), there were organized protests against those capitalist pigs McDonald's; Italy still has a city-state, of all things.

Everyone everywhere is going to create a division between us and them. It gets quite boring.
 
Americans are self absorbed because of their moral standards, not because they don't know where Mauritania is. Not because we go to war. If we were truly self absorbed in that sense, we would just junk people who disagree. We would win wars faster with scorched earth policies. We would go plunder the world. We are a huge generator of foreign aid, and our people are big aid donors to overseas charities.

Many of Americans are self absorbed because of their materialism and elitist desire to be cooler than thou. Not because we don't know the major world teams in rugby.
 
I have to agree with that comment though.

How many of you keep track of the price of gas in every country around the world? How many of you keep track of elections in other countries?

Here is a test for everyone, without looking it up.
Americans tell me the name of the President in Mexico and the President of Canada.

Everyone else in the world, tell me the name of the American President.

Want another test? How many people in the US can find Iran, Iraq or Afghanistan on a map? How many people in those countries do you think can find the US on a map?

I can almost promise you that most people in other countries know the name of our president, but most american's aren't going to know or care about the president of other countries. Same as any other info about anything outside the USA. So i have to fully agree with his comment. Most americans aren't going to be paying attention to what is going on in other countries for them to see and even notice, hey wait a minute I'm being charged $8.99 a month for this service and Canada is paying $7.99.


Well of course everyone else in the world is going to know the name of the most important country on the planet. American Exceptionalism. Deal with it.
 
Reed Hastings has issued an apology for the moronic statement he made yesterday about American’s being “self absorbed.”

My Big American Foot is in my mouth. Yesterday, I made an awkward joke with a reporter in Toronto about Americans (like me) being self-absorbed relative to Netflix pricing in Canada. I was wrong to have made the joke, and I do not believe that one of the most philanthropically-minded nations in the world (America) is self-absorbed or full of self-absorbed people.
 
Reed Hastings has issued an apology for the moronic statement he made yesterday about American’s being “self absorbed.”
To anyone that thinks a CEO doesn't have a material effect on a company, read the comments on that blog. Some people are in serious need of a laxative.
 
I, and many others I see posting on international news sites (with an American flag next to their name) prove this comment wrong. He is acting as if americans are stupid and don't use the internet. Besides, isn't the canadian dollar different from the USD? Don't they pay more for stuff, but make more money in their system?

Yes. It's close to parity, but as an example, in Ontario our minimum wage is $10.25.
 
All Americans are self absorbed ... it's what makes us ... Americans!
 
I think most people in general are somewhat self-absorbed, doesn't matter where you're from.
 
The guy spoke from his heart. He had to back track , because from a PR or from the media circus, its not the thing you say if you want to stay up in the Ivory Tower.
 
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