PeterExplainsTheJoke
Peeetah why it’s “ Name three countries “
I have watched this part , and why the first episode is know as “ Name three countries “ ?
Discussion
Americans are willfully ignorant morons.
Source: am American
Ha ha 😂😂😂 seriously why ?
Classic essay at 'murican school: "why are the US the best country in the world?"
"- cause I don't know any other one anyway."
Got to love the confidence of not knowing but still waving the flag high!
The teacher also would have taken "Murica fuck yea." as a correct answer. Source: I'm also from the USA.
There is a stereotype that Americans know literally nothing about places outside our country, while other countries know far more.
While it is true that education isn't great in America, this particular stereotype is more of a result of media. People across the world consume American Media, as well as media from other countries, but Americans tend to only consume American and sometimes British media. Part of this is a language barrier, which goes back to education, but a larger part of it is that American media is generally high in production value and easily accessible. Most Americans feel no need to seek out other media when they have a full catalogue of domestic media that covers all genres and is immediately relatable to them culturally, and which they can access without any extra expense. Other countries tend to consume American media not because they find it more relatable than their own media, but because the film and television industries in other countries are not nearly as robust as they are in the United States, where they first took off and spread from, leading to significantly lower volume and comparatively lower quality productions.
I am not an American, so take it with grain of salt.
My friend once told me that Americans usually are like this because educational system is pretty wild in some specs (they learn a lot of useless things, many schools accept average or below average results as fine, etc.), some Americans are just happy that they live in a big state and they need to know what's in it, why bother learning what's on the other side of the ocean.
But it's just one POV.
Yeah it's really bad. The meme is a slight exaggeration but I'd bet the median American would blank on at least one country in Western Europe if given an unlabeled map. And that's the only continent where there's even a chance
Median is extremely generous, I'd be shocked if 20% of Americans could label Luxembourg. That being said I'd be similarly shocked if Europeans could do the same with any other continent.
But is that really a good test?
I'd be thrilled if 50% of Americans could confidently label UK, France, Spain, and Italy on a map of Europe.
Over 50% of Americans can definitely identify those nations. It’s usually the smaller ones people struggle with, or nations Czechia and Slovakia which split fairly recently. I wonder how Europeans would do naming states in the US
And if we're comparing the USA states due to comparable size and population to European countries I'd be willing to bet both of those groups couldn't name more than five Indian or Chinese states/provinces despite being larger and more populated.
Chinese have states?!
Yup, although I think the proper term is autonomous zones. Although it’s about as accurate as calling North Korea the democratic people’s republic.
Yes. There are provinces, autonomous regions, and a few cities that have the legal status of provinces.
We know Norwegians will be able to name Texas and most people around the world know of Florida, New York, and California due to their prevalence in popular media.
But is it really fair to compare naming of US states to countries?
I'd be willing to be most Americans will get Italy right, and then 1-2 out of 3 of the rest. All four though? Maybe the day after a geography quiz, but I bet you'd be surprised how little time a lot of people retain such information.
It's pretty comparable. Many Americans identify themselves to other Americans by state, or even city as a point of reference. If I was living in Europe, I might not be excited to meet someone from the US, but I would be excited to meet someone from my state the same way someone from Europe might be excited to meet someone from their country while living in the US.
Europeans have subdivisions too. An spanish person would be excited to meet someone from their region while travelling. The first question we ask after finding an spanish person is “from where”
-is it fair comparing naming of states to countries
Some of those states are larger than European nations and are very prevalent in media.
The UK, France, Italy and Spain are all prominent countries. It’s like asking a European to name Texas, California, Florida and New York
Yes, but because of the prevalence in popular media you mentioned.
From a historical perspective the states are insignificant compared to countries.
From our historical perspective most countries are insignificant compared with states. The point is that a good many of our states are the size of other nations and on a whole you're about as likely to visit the less popular ones as we are any given country in Europe/Africa/Asia
I wonder how Europeans would do naming states in the US
I've seen some hilarious ones. California, Texas, and Florida are accurate but that's about it.
I'd struggle with the Baltics, I might be able to pull it off with a list of country names. I'd extend this courtesy to any European trying to fill in USA states
I must first preface this by saying that I’m Canadian
Why do people always say whenever the intelligence of Americans is brought up that they’re stupid because a majority of Americans probably can’t label one single European micronation on a map? Luxembourg is a speck on the European continent and Europe is already pretty small. There are other intellectual pathways like math or science or music that can show someone’s intelligence than just geography
I’m not doubting the unintelligent of my countrymen because they some dumbasses but this is a poor barometer of intelligence.
The US is functionally a continent, and most Europeans wouldn’t get half of states, or countries in Africa/Asia no one is saying ‘look at the state of European education.’
Honestly, I wouldn't be able to name most of the US states either. I'm European btw . I know some, but definitely not all of them.
To be fair, Luxembourg has like 200k people. I don't expect Europeans to know where the city of Modesto is and that's about the same size.
To be fair, that's going to be difficult for anyone not in Europe. Like France and Germany are easy enough, and they will likely get Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. Luxembourg, Liechtenstein and Monaco tho, is pretty unlikely. They aren't exactly the most well known of countries.
I heard American education is very varied among schools and teachers can just teach extra stuff they want to as they have a less rigidly defined syllabus. It’s why when there are threads about “Americans, do you learn about x and y at school” there are always people saying “only if the teacher has a particular interest in it”
I’d say it’s more about the educational system has failed in America. Standardized testing was created to make sure everyone was getting a good education but then teachers only teach the test which is not good enough. It was a race to lowest common denominator.
I mean I remember learning about other countries in grade school. While I think our education system is ass, it’s also a parenting issue, lots of ignorant parents who don’t care about their children’s schooling mixed with a system that pushes them to the next grade is creating people who don’t have the ability to think critically. I know teachers that TRY very hard to educate, but you can’t teach children that don’t know how to learn.
First hand experience: in a tour in a different country and they ask what country everyone is from. Aussie says Australia, etc. the first American says "North Carolina".
Happened to me more than one time. On a group tour: everyone introduces themselves, there are guys from India, Spain and... Colorado, New York and... apparently the country of Los Angeles.
As an American, I always say “The States, Colorado (or Michigan) specifically”. Because:
If you’re on a tour you’re probably not going to be the only American.
There’s a big cultural difference between states and I don’t want southern stereotypes to be applied to me.
As an American who’s been on a bunch of tours internationally, when you’re in a tour and just say you’re from the US, 99% of the time someone will immediately ask which state. It’s easier to just skip the first step and go straight to the state.
Fucking this, god damn, it's so annoying hearing this complaint when I live abroad and when I just broadly say I'm American, I'm almost immediately, with like 90% frequency told "yes, I can tell, but what state." Like fuck, you can't win.
Tbf that’s kind of a holdover from our past when most people identified with their state first rather than their country.
Had the exact same thing once in a tour guide in Italy.
I just responded "UK" at first, but the tour guide then proceeded to delve into Roman history and Roman roads and before I knew it he was talking about a City 15 minutes drive away from me. At that point I think it's justified to elaborate exactly where you're from.
They are the United States of America for a reason. Each state is the size of an european country for a reason.
And the reason is because they are actually like the European Union, a bunch of countries united under the the premise of the well being and development of all.
/s
It's an overgeneralized stereotype more than anything. In a country of 350 million people, you will see people of all shapes, sizes, and worldviews. There are a lot of willfully ignorant people and a lot of well-informed people.
if you want the actual answer, it’s probably referring to one of those viral videos where social media influencers would go around asking random citizens that lives in the USA some really basic geography questions and lots if not most of them answered wrongly or in general just seem very ignorant which people would joke about them reflecting the average American
Most of those are cherry picked to make people look dumb.
I moved from the US to Spain for retirement. At my retirement party, a coworker came up to me and said "I think it's really cool you are moving to South America". I just kind of laughed because I thought it was a joke and said "We are moving to Europe". She just looked at me like I was crazy and said "No Spain is in South America. They don't speak Spanish in Europe silly".
I just smiled and nodded knowing I would never see this person again.
On a similar note, in March we had some friends from the US visit us and the husband didn't bring a jacket because he thought it was our summer time...
Edit Typo
I can't remember which show it was trying to people on The streets to name 3 countries and so many were unable to
"show"
Anti-intellectualism is rampant in the US. Laziness and the desire to wallow in hate rather than be bothered with research and thought.
United States of America. Mexico. Canada. Boom
Someone would definitely say “Africa” and be gone.
You are? Name 3 countries.
Uhh, the USA (best country), Europe, and Texas!!
Boom, easy. Get me a harder question next time.
/s
I would comment on that, if I knew any countries!!!
The latest joke going around I hear is:
The only reason anyone knows Americans have schools is because of the reports of school shootings.
Because Americans are morons and most would fail the game.
Three is a low. I would suspect that vast majority of even poorly educated Americans could name the US, Canada and Mexico for instance.
Nothing like characterizing a large group of people with the worst traits of a small subset of that group. It's a good thing that doesn't happen with any other groups though right?
I had an American tell me Canada was "so small", because in their text books it only printed the lower quarter of Canada. Just a small strip above the USA
It is the smallest country in the world, if you ignore everything from 3rd to last country
we aren’t all this stupid i promise
Just 80% of the American population 🤣
tbf that image does contain like 80% of the Canadian population
Honestly more than 95% probably
I think like something around 70% live south of lake Superior, and this picture does show much more than than, so 95 is probably pretty close
It's not quite as massive though as it appears if you look at the whole world map in mercator projection.
(It is slightly larger than the USA including Alaska, but it's not quite as huge as the projection makes it seem)
Isnt Canada like the top 3 biggest country? Mercator projection does make it look enormous, but it's still a pretty big country
That was a fun tool
In defense of the map: why would you print all of Canada when you’re making a US-specific map?
This exact same thing happens to maps specifically of Canada, a large chunk of the U.S. is cut off because America is not Canada.
To be fair I fully understand how OP didn't get this
They are American. Easy explanation
And you’re Argentinian, it’s spelt falklands not las malvinas
and you're a brit, it's spelled spelled not spelt
There's countless hours of youtube videos of people asking Americans to name other countries than the US, point where they think X country is on a world map or name capitals of other countries. most Americans they get aren't very good at it.
Edit: for those of you replying to me stating the obvious, yes I'm aware that theyre cherry picking who ends up on the videos, It's for content. I got asked a question and answered it, much like Selena Gomez yesterday I don't care.
So Americans are dumb ?
Worse. They aggressively do not care.
That's next level description. And it's so accurate.
IF I SPEAK LOUDER WHILE TRAVELLING IN EUROPE, THE PART OF YOUR BRAIN THAT UNDERSTANDS AMERICAN WILL HEAR IT BETTER.
In the case of these videos it’s usually selection bias, or in some cases descriptive editing or actors. They won’t show the guy who just does name three countries, they’ll stick with the ones who can’t for views.
We are certainly edited that way, yes.
Yes
There are Americans who are dumb and if you focus on just them you can certainly give the impression that all Americans dumb. Take this video for instance. Really funny video that only focuses on the few people who did something entertaining and doesn't show the likely dozens of people who were able to easily answer the question correctly because that doesn't make good TV.
There are many dumb Americans. But, there are many dumb people everywhere. The internet just gets exposed to dumb Americans more than they get exposed to other dumb people.
Tbf they only show the people that are dumb or give the craziest reactions and most people know it. Calling China Iraq might make you look stupid but hey you’ll end up on a popular show
Most Americans that they choose to show, sure. Thinking a YouTube video is representative of an entire country is the kind of idiocy I’d expect a non-American to be aware of.
Usually they're surprised Africa isn't a country.
The irony is that anyone who takes a curated youtube collection designed to garner clicks as a general truth of an entire populace is probably not very intelligent.
That's not a problem exclusive to the US but for most of the Americas also, pretty much all countries in North and South America will give no better response than Americans
I mean, they don’t exactly show the uncut videos. We have no idea how many people got the answers correct because they don’t show those. If they’re asked 30 people and got 3 dumb people, those 3 dumb people are the ones they’re gonna show.
I could go anywhere and ask anything and find 20 minutes or morons. The correct answers aren’t funny.
To be honest, I could see some people not know capitals of smaller countries. How many people know that the capital or Indonesia is Nusantara (sort of).
This is true about most countries. Of course they aren’t going to include the clips of people who actually get the answers correct.
Ok, what's stopping those same youtube people from just cutting out the americans that answer correctly? If I was making those youtube videos, I would just fill them full of stupid people to get more views and watch time.
Easy: Europe, Atlantis and London
Edit: guys, some of you need this: /s
😂😂🤝
You forgot Africa
Africa, Europe and British 🤠
Tokyo, Alaska, San Francisco
Blonde girl: "Africa?"
Gunshot
Geographic Peter here becuse social studies Peter is in downvote jail for July
The joke is that people in the US are very bad at naming other countries based on several choice examples
Name a country beginning with U
Urope 😂😂😂
U-goslavia
Uganda
I know, Africa, Puerto Rico and Asia
Because other countries feel it’s right to call Americans stupid which is unfair there is plenty of smart Americans we aren’t all dumb
I know right? Somehow almost every commenter here is getting away with saying “all Americans are morons,” and it rubs me the wrong way. Like, wouldn’t they feel bad if someone called the people in their country stupid? Why is hate and generalization so normalized?
Yeah ikr if i said things like, “all french people are cowards” or if i said, “all germans are evil” or even if i said, “all English people are pretentious” they would feel offended. For some insane reason its only ok to insult Americans when every country has flaws and every country has sub par people in them
Just another boring “america dumb” joke
First game is the Fitnessgram Pacer Test.
Easy: California, Florida, Texas.
America, Canada and Mexico duuh
This has to be just bots posting. There is no way OP is an actual human with a brain, right?
Why do I see this every day, multiple times a day?
Glad I’m not the only one who thought this
JFC wasn’t this posted here like a day ago
Americans can't name 3 countries correctly.
America , North America , South America ?🇺🇸
U forgot Africa smh
Someone posted this exact same thing just with better grammar a couple of days ago
This sub cannot be serious bro
Because "America stupid" is a common form of joke
Americans usually suck at geography
Looks like that'll be a short movie
Are you an American?
Nooooooo - stop copying stuff - it’s always lame
is that rick grimes
Lol who cares about the rest of the world when America is at the center
Name three countries: USA, America, the United States!
It feels like an onion article to have a show like squid game milked for profit.
They don’t test for geography on the state exams that determine educational funding so you are lucky if you even get a class on geography and if you do it’s often taught by the gym teacher or something
- ahhh Europe?
The guy behind Cate Blanchett I presume is already failing at the task.
Mmmh shbidibaum, Dubai and North.
z
7im
United States, Canada, Mexico, Panama, Haiti, Jamaica, Peru...
Easy: America, United States and the US
Yurope, Iowa, Africa
Oh no.. the show is going to be extremely cringe and full of heavy-handed political messaging, isn't it?
Texas, California, Africa. Easy.
Americans are stereotyped to be really weak in geography, so weak that they can't even spot their own country on the map, so naming any three countries would be so hard that many players will be eliminated.
Because Americans are often seen as bad at geography
Daily reposting of obvious jokes
Canada USA Mexico is literally 3 countries. You need a harder challenge like name 3 capital cities. Most americans dont know the capital of Canada.
Because american people are dumb af
Nah, way too hard: Everyone would answer "'Murca, Mexico, and Yurp" and gets murked straight away.
Animaniacs prepared us for this.
There’s a running meme that Americans are the dumbest people on earth, and it’s not exactly wrong.
In this case, the meme originated (I believe) from influencers interviewing people on the street and asking them stupidly easy questions, only to receive even stupider answers. One of these questions was “Can you name three countries?”
The response would almost always wind up being a mix of countries and continents, showing that Americans cannot name three countries.
"Name a woman."
There is a stereotype of americans being bad at geography and not being able to name countries (they would instead say stuff like africa ussr and paris) it probably isn't backed by studies but the usa being so big and important they don't need as much knowledge about other countries and don't travel outside of us canada Mexico much
When I asked American "name 1 country except for America" they said: "Europe".
Capitalism is so strong here that education is not deemed important (well, education, health and a large etc). We don't want workers to be "illustrated" as they would take the means of production by themselves in a natural cooperative and collective way (as it should be, a collective effort and not individual greed, motivated by common good and not monetary compensation).
America, Texas, and Africa
What did it win?
Everyone dead in the first round
Because American are stoopid
because muricans dumb hehe, they don't know anything.
this will be an exclusive episode on youtube shorts 🔥
Next. Who pays for tariffs?
America, Africa, West Korea. Easy. I can even name 5 more. Britardland, Tattooine, Puerto Rico, Mushroom Kingdom, and Big Booty Brazil
Easy question: America, USA and Texas
Destroy every good franchise for money. The fact that the original season was an anti capitalist commentary makes it even funnier.
Americans suck at geography.
Signed, one Peter Griffin who can name all 196 UN countries.
Bear country
Flavor country
Music country
americans are notoriously bad at geography
Canada Mexico El Salvador Hondaurus Nicaragua Panama Columbia Senegal Guyana French Guyana Columbia Brazil Bolivia Argentina Chile Equador Portugal Spain Andorra France Luxembourg Netherlands Belgium Scotland England Ireland Northern Ireland Whales Denmark Finland Norway Sweden Germany Lichtenstein Austria Hungary Switzerland
...Im bored. You get the point. America dumb blah blah blah. Name all the states you European Chode.
1st game , Say 3 north america countries
It refers to probably videos online where somebody stands with a map of the world and a pointer and ask people usually americans to point to a country and usually they make embarrassing mistakes that get a laugh
It's funny, because people actually believe this DOESN'T happen in other countries, believe me, it does happen, and a lot...
We're all living in America (Rammstein reference)
USA, Africa and Middle-Earth
OP, so your post is not removed, please reply to this comment with your best guess of what this meme means! Everyone else, this is PETER explains the joke. Have fun and reply as your favorite fictional character for top level responses!
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.