" care we could humble ourselves a bit and learn from others alternatively of just screaming ' WE’RE THE BEST WE’RE THE BEST ! ' "
While America can sometimes feel like a very divided place, with politics removed from the equation, there’s a lot to agree on. The US has great food, gorgeous scenery, and also…a lot of things that annoy people, too. Reddit userDE_12345recentlyaskedAmericans of Reddit to share their non-political pet peeves about America, and they did not hold back. Here are 27 of their biggest grievances:
1.“Spam phone calls.”
2.“Prescription drug ads. We are one of only two countries on the planet where this is allowed.”
3.“Headlights!”
4.“The work culture. It’s easy to fall into the trap of working 45+ hours a week, and for two weeks vacation/one week of sick days to be considered a good start at a place…then you find you have so much work you can never take your full vacation time.”
5.“A general lack of respect for other people in public spaces. Whether it’s blasting music in the car with windows down, having phone conversations with the speaker turned on, not using turn signals, or not fully stopping at stop signs, there’s just an overall lack of respect for other people. This whole ‘it’s my world and you’re living in it’ attitude.”
6.“Bidets. Why don’t we have them?”
7.“So many made-up companies that don’t actually do anything besides take people’s money.”
8.“Literacy rates and the lack of respect towards education and academia. Educators are some of the worst-treated professionals out there and are not even remotely close to being paid what they’re owed.”
9.“How many nonstop ads invade our lives. It’s EVERYWHERE. I understand ads are a part of life, unfortunately, but my goodness is it spammed nonstop any and everywhere you go.”
10.“Our healthcare/insurance system is absolute bullshit.”
11.“Waste and excess plastic. Go to a professional sports game or hotel event and look at what just gets thrown in a landfill. It’s gross.”
12.“Lack of public transit infrastructure in most major cities, and the loss of third places.”
13.“Male culture. I moved to the UK after spending my whole life in the US. I found that men in the UK were more comfortable with their emotions, openly vulnerable, less aggressive, showed affection for their friends, talked to strangers openly, were funnier, etc. I think we underestimate how toxic the culture in the US can be because we are so used to it.”
14.“The complexity of our tax code.”
15.“There’s no sense of community anywhere anymore. Who’s good friends with neighbors anymore? Can you leave your front doors unlocked? Leave your kids with your neighbors? The concept of it takes a village has sort of dissipated as life has become insular.”
16.“Punctuality is not a valued trait culturally. Outside of school and work, it seems that nobody in this country will respect anybody else’s time enough to arrive at the agreed-upon time.”
17.“That tax isn’t added in on labeled prices. You find out the final cost at the register.”
18.“The lack of consumer protections.”
19.“The religion of consumerism and ‘Go big or go home.’ Thinking that being loud equals competence. It just all feels very egotistical, arrogant, plastic, dead. Wish we could humble ourselves a bit and learn from others instead of just screaming ‘WE’RE THE BEST WE’RE THE BEST!'”
20.“Telephone poles. Would love to see us bury our electrical lines.”
21.“Worship of the military. I’m a veteran, and I’m even annoyed by it.”
22.“People who trash our National Parks. The influencers that carve into stone. The a-holes who tromp into hot springs and over delicate ecosystems. The worst ones are the ones who set that example for their children.”
23.“The point of sale machine asks me if I want to donate money to some charity every single time I check out at the grocery store or pharmacy.”
24.“Maybe kind of political, but the Pledge of Allegiance. It’s creepy enough that we make our kids say it every day before school, but do we really need to do it at Little League games and school concerts, too?”
25.“The way everything has to be ‘amazing.’ For example, businesses send surveys after you buy something. If it was just satisfactory, then it’s some huge concern. Satisfactory should be fine! Keep on keeping on, I’ll use this business again. So then reviews wind up being either five stars or, if something goes wrong, one star, which feels distorted, and doesn’t really reward times when something is exceptional. Also, customer service employees can’t be exceptional all the time, and they shouldn’t be punished for being adequate.”
26.“How come our paper money is so boring?!?! Everyone else has cool money!!! Have y’all seen Mexican money?!? The coins are okay, but I’m SICK of this lame-ass pastel green special paper!! You can’t even get it wet!! Other countries have cool holographic money, and it can survive the washing machine! GET WITH THE TIMES, DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY.”
27.And finally, “How old a lot of vital infrastructure is.”
Comments have been blue-pencil for distance and uncloudedness .
Comments have been edited for length and clarity.
