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American culture of making noise and hyping is tiring and annoying at times. Sports events are the most prominent example. Going to popular sports matches in t

American culture of making noise and hyping is tiring and annoying at times. Sports events are the most prominent example. Going to popular sports matches in the US: football, ice hockey, basketball, etc. and you'll be bombarded with ads, noise, hype from the loudspeakers and flashing lights from the huge screens -- every single second you're there. When you watch the Super Bowl, you watch more ads than you watch the game. Going to a soccer game which is the most popular sport outside of the US, the only sound you'll ever hear is when the fans actually make noise. And perhaps, the announcement when they substitute players. By the way, it's quite cool to be in a high-stakes soccer match: There are volunteering leaders emerging from the crowd that orchestrate the people naturally. Noise in sports events are great, but only when they are not from the stupid flashing screens. It's not a surprise to me that the laugh tracks were invented in America. Their presence in modern American sitcoms is annoying at best. But now, I think the producers started to realize that. I think we are happier when we're treated like adults who know how to feel and behave.

sneak 9y ago
I don’t go to sports matches very often in any country, but the american habit of yell-talking when dining out at a restaurant ruins most dinners out in the US for me. That, and televisions in establishments in which they are entirely inappropriate.
- FeteCommuniste 9y ago
  Part of the yell-talking is trying to hear each other over the stupidly loud music and TVs in our restaurants. But I've noticed that even abroad Americans are louder than most nationalities when eating out.
  - ivanhoe 9y ago
    Speaking of the national stereotypes and loudness, just put together more than 2 Italian tourists and they're guaranteed to be the loudest in the room, they're just unbeatable... but they do it with a lot of charm, I have to admit...
    - newnewpdro 9y ago
      This. Full restaurants in Italy are a deafening cacophony. It's an arms race amongst people already accustomed to yelling at eachother on a daily basis.
    - jimmies 9y ago
      There are cultures in the world that are more obnoxious and more "impolite" than American in my humble opinion (and I'm not implying anything about Italian culture here). However, I think the distinction of noise in America is that it's a cheap way to make people excited, and it wears people out over time.
  - always_good 9y ago
    I grew up listening to self-hating Americans complaining how American tourists are the worst. Then I worked in a hostel in Prague and realized how loud everyone is, and how everyone swears there's some nationality that's the worst whether it's Brazilians, the British, or the Chinese. They're never the loud obnoxious ones as they sit there sharing their bigotry out loud. It's always some other country. The only constant is that nobody seems content just taking the upper hand of keeping their stereotypes to themselves. Everyone acts like they've lived 5 years in every country and somehow know how it all crumbles. In reality maybe they've lived in two countries and have had day-visits elsewhere. Hardly grounds for being a master of the nations. Like someone swearing that <some city> drivers are the worst. Almost guaranteed that they grew up there. American tourists didn't even have a bad rap where I worked in Prague because you just didn't see them compared to the daily horde of Europeans. By the time you work in the hospitality industry for a few seasonal cycles, you get burned out by the exact same conversations, like people arguing over which nation tourists suck the most. Turns out it's probably just the one you see the most of. In our case, the British. ;) These days it's on HN where people will post the template: "I took a few day trip to <place> and it's insane how <judgmental thing that people seem to do everywhere>."
cyphar 9y ago
One thing I didn't understand when I visited the US is that people applaud in American cinemas. I don't understand why that's seen as appropriate.
- FeteCommuniste 9y ago
  Where did you go? The only time I have heard applause at a movie is when the credits roll.
  - kqr 9y ago
    Yeah, but why? "Good job, projector. You shine ever so brightly among us. and you never missed the screen once during the whole movie!" Or perhaps the crowd applaud themselves for successfully going to the movies again. The possibilities are endless.
    - Cyph0n 9y ago
      Or maybe the audience enjoyed the movie?
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
    - khedoros1 9y ago
      A social urge to show appreciation, even when the intended recipients couldn't ever possibly hear it. I've mostly seen it in cases where excitement was already high, like the first night of a highly-anticipated movie, where something exceptionally amusing just happened. People sometimes express emotion in ways that don't really make sense.
    - allenu 9y ago
      I don't think it's any different from watching a sporting event and screaming and shouting when the team scores a goal. Even if you're all alone, you want to show appreciation.
    - 9y ago
stevenwoo 9y ago
The laugh track in the last two series of Red Dwarf is incredibly off-putting, can't blame that on Americans. :)
- eigenbom 9y ago
  Americans invented the laugh track. ;)
throwawaymsft 9y ago
Here's an example of what a soccer game would look like if commented the usual way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vJn5XxWg9U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vJn5XxWg9U
- arcticfox 9y ago
  This is pretty hilarious, but as a fan of both American football and soccer, basically complete nonsense. Soccer commentary is pretty much just as pointless anyways, maybe even more so, since usually the analysis is a lot more ambiguous.
  - plouffy 9y ago
    I don't think the point of the video is suggesting that soccer commentary is better. It's simply pointing to the reality of watching NFL sport commentary where we're constantly bombarded with stats, and graphics.
taeric 9y ago
Aren't the players literally wearing advertisements in those sports? I find that hard on the eyes, personally. (I realize some US sports do this. Nascar comes to mind.)
bernardino 9y ago
What you said reminds me a lot of what David Foster Wallace once said in an interview: "No, it's um... I mean, there's a difference, though, I think, between being mildly bored and but then there's another kind of boredom that I think you're talking about which is um: reading, reading requires sitting alone, by yourself, in a quiet room. And I have friends, intelligent friends, who don't like to read because they get - it's not just bored - there's an almost dread that comes up, I think, here about having to be alone and having to be quiet. And you see that when you walk in. When you walk into most public spaces in America it isn't quiet anymore; they pipe music through. And the music's easy to make fun of 'cause it's usually really horrible music. But it seems significant that we don't want things to be quiet, ever, anymore. And, to me, I don't, I don't know that I can defend it, but that seems to me to have something to do with when you feel like the purpose of your life is to gratify yourself and get things for yourself and go all the time, there's this other part of you that's the same part that can kind of, is almost hungry for silence and quiet and thinking really hard about the same thing for maybe half an hour instead of thirty seconds, that doesn't get fed at all. And it makes itself felt in the body in a kind of dread, in here. And I don't know whether that makes a whole lot of sense. But I think it's true that here in the US, every year the culture gets more and more hostile - and I don't mean hostile like angry - just, it becomes more and more difficult to ask people to read, or to look at a piece of art for an hour, or to listen, to listen to a piece of music that's complicated and that takes work to understand, because - well, there are a lot of reasons - but, particularly now in the computer and internet culture everything's so fast, and the faster things go the more we feed that part of ourselves but don't feed the part of ourselves that likes, that likes quiet, that can live in quiet, you know, that can live without any kind of stimulation. I don't know."
- swozey 9y ago
  This is why I love to escape for 1-2 weeks every 3-6 months to go camping and hiking, preferably around Olympic National Park. It's like a complete refresh except you get back from it and there's a serious chance of post-camping depression. Just don't listen to Lord Hurons Meet Me in the Woods for a few months.
  - 9y ago
brandonmenc 9y ago
Soccer is the most boring sport to watch unless you're hammered or rioting. It would be nice if they had some screens up to distract the fans.
- plouffy 9y ago
  I would argue that baseball, nascar or test series cricket might be more boring sober.
  - sien 9y ago
    George Bernard Shaw — 'The English are not a very spiritual people, so they invented cricket to give them some idea of eternity. '
- lechiffre10 9y ago
  That's entirely your opinion. Tennis and Soccer are perhaps the greatest sports in my opinion. Soccer( football) involves tactics and is played like chess, whereas Tennis is about reading your opponent and is incredibly mental
  - brandonmenc 9y ago
    > That's entirely your opinion. True, but I was replying to a snarky opinion.
- white-flame 9y ago
  At least soccer keeps in the gameplay (as well as basketball, hockey, etc). Baseball and football are mostly spent waiting for very brief moments of gameplay to happen.

sneak 9y ago

I don’t go to sports matches very often in any country, but the american habit of yell-talking when dining out at a restaurant ruins most dinners out in the US for me. That, and televisions in establishments in which they are entirely inappropriate.

FeteCommuniste 9y ago
Part of the yell-talking is trying to hear each other over the stupidly loud music and TVs in our restaurants. But I've noticed that even abroad Americans are louder than most nationalities when eating out.
- ivanhoe 9y ago
  Speaking of the national stereotypes and loudness, just put together more than 2 Italian tourists and they're guaranteed to be the loudest in the room, they're just unbeatable... but they do it with a lot of charm, I have to admit...
  - newnewpdro 9y ago
    This. Full restaurants in Italy are a deafening cacophony. It's an arms race amongst people already accustomed to yelling at eachother on a daily basis.
  - jimmies 9y ago
    There are cultures in the world that are more obnoxious and more "impolite" than American in my humble opinion (and I'm not implying anything about Italian culture here). However, I think the distinction of noise in America is that it's a cheap way to make people excited, and it wears people out over time.
- always_good 9y ago
  I grew up listening to self-hating Americans complaining how American tourists are the worst. Then I worked in a hostel in Prague and realized how loud everyone is, and how everyone swears there's some nationality that's the worst whether it's Brazilians, the British, or the Chinese. They're never the loud obnoxious ones as they sit there sharing their bigotry out loud. It's always some other country. The only constant is that nobody seems content just taking the upper hand of keeping their stereotypes to themselves. Everyone acts like they've lived 5 years in every country and somehow know how it all crumbles. In reality maybe they've lived in two countries and have had day-visits elsewhere. Hardly grounds for being a master of the nations. Like someone swearing that <some city> drivers are the worst. Almost guaranteed that they grew up there. American tourists didn't even have a bad rap where I worked in Prague because you just didn't see them compared to the daily horde of Europeans. By the time you work in the hospitality industry for a few seasonal cycles, you get burned out by the exact same conversations, like people arguing over which nation tourists suck the most. Turns out it's probably just the one you see the most of. In our case, the British. ;) These days it's on HN where people will post the template: "I took a few day trip to <place> and it's insane how <judgmental thing that people seem to do everywhere>."

cyphar 9y ago

One thing I didn't understand when I visited the US is that people applaud in American cinemas. I don't understand why that's seen as appropriate.

FeteCommuniste 9y ago
Where did you go? The only time I have heard applause at a movie is when the credits roll.
- kqr 9y ago
  Yeah, but why? "Good job, projector. You shine ever so brightly among us. and you never missed the screen once during the whole movie!" Or perhaps the crowd applaud themselves for successfully going to the movies again. The possibilities are endless.
  - Cyph0n 9y ago
    Or maybe the audience enjoyed the movie?
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  - khedoros1 9y ago
    A social urge to show appreciation, even when the intended recipients couldn't ever possibly hear it. I've mostly seen it in cases where excitement was already high, like the first night of a highly-anticipated movie, where something exceptionally amusing just happened. People sometimes express emotion in ways that don't really make sense.
  - allenu 9y ago
    I don't think it's any different from watching a sporting event and screaming and shouting when the team scores a goal. Even if you're all alone, you want to show appreciation.
  - 9y ago

stevenwoo 9y ago

The laugh track in the last two series of Red Dwarf is incredibly off-putting, can't blame that on Americans. :)

eigenbom 9y ago
Americans invented the laugh track. ;)

throwawaymsft 9y ago

Here's an example of what a soccer game would look like if commented the usual way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vJn5XxWg9U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vJn5XxWg9U

arcticfox 9y ago
This is pretty hilarious, but as a fan of both American football and soccer, basically complete nonsense. Soccer commentary is pretty much just as pointless anyways, maybe even more so, since usually the analysis is a lot more ambiguous.
- plouffy 9y ago
  I don't think the point of the video is suggesting that soccer commentary is better. It's simply pointing to the reality of watching NFL sport commentary where we're constantly bombarded with stats, and graphics.

taeric 9y ago

Aren't the players literally wearing advertisements in those sports? I find that hard on the eyes, personally. (I realize some US sports do this. Nascar comes to mind.)

bernardino 9y ago

What you said reminds me a lot of what David Foster Wallace once said in an interview: "No, it's um... I mean, there's a difference, though, I think, between being mildly bored and but then there's another kind of boredom that I think you're talking about which is um: reading, reading requires sitting alone, by yourself, in a quiet room. And I have friends, intelligent friends, who don't like to read because they get - it's not just bored - there's an almost dread that comes up, I think, here about having to be alone and having to be quiet. And you see that when you walk in. When you walk into most public spaces in America it isn't quiet anymore; they pipe music through. And the music's easy to make fun of 'cause it's usually really horrible music. But it seems significant that we don't want things to be quiet, ever, anymore. And, to me, I don't, I don't know that I can defend it, but that seems to me to have something to do with when you feel like the purpose of your life is to gratify yourself and get things for yourself and go all the time, there's this other part of you that's the same part that can kind of, is almost hungry for silence and quiet and thinking really hard about the same thing for maybe half an hour instead of thirty seconds, that doesn't get fed at all. And it makes itself felt in the body in a kind of dread, in here. And I don't know whether that makes a whole lot of sense. But I think it's true that here in the US, every year the culture gets more and more hostile - and I don't mean hostile like angry - just, it becomes more and more difficult to ask people to read, or to look at a piece of art for an hour, or to listen, to listen to a piece of music that's complicated and that takes work to understand, because - well, there are a lot of reasons - but, particularly now in the computer and internet culture everything's so fast, and the faster things go the more we feed that part of ourselves but don't feed the part of ourselves that likes, that likes quiet, that can live in quiet, you know, that can live without any kind of stimulation. I don't know."

swozey 9y ago
This is why I love to escape for 1-2 weeks every 3-6 months to go camping and hiking, preferably around Olympic National Park. It's like a complete refresh except you get back from it and there's a serious chance of post-camping depression. Just don't listen to Lord Hurons Meet Me in the Woods for a few months.
- 9y ago

brandonmenc 9y ago

Soccer is the most boring sport to watch unless you're hammered or rioting. It would be nice if they had some screens up to distract the fans.

plouffy 9y ago
I would argue that baseball, nascar or test series cricket might be more boring sober.
- sien 9y ago
  George Bernard Shaw — 'The English are not a very spiritual people, so they invented cricket to give them some idea of eternity. '
lechiffre10 9y ago
That's entirely your opinion. Tennis and Soccer are perhaps the greatest sports in my opinion. Soccer( football) involves tactics and is played like chess, whereas Tennis is about reading your opponent and is incredibly mental
- brandonmenc 9y ago
  > That's entirely your opinion. True, but I was replying to a snarky opinion.
white-flame 9y ago
At least soccer keeps in the gameplay (as well as basketball, hockey, etc). Baseball and football are mostly spent waiting for very brief moments of gameplay to happen.