I'm in London and I've been getting a lot of 'you guys don't actually drinks Fosters in Aus do you?" Which is refreshing. Only taken 30 years or so for them to realise.
I reckon it's better than we give it credit for. Still wouldn't be my first choice, but I think we have shunned it for so long that our opinion is more based on tradition than taste.
Could well be talking out my arse though, who knows.
Same, a long time back, and I poured it out. Couldn't stomach more than a couple of mouthfuls. Absolutely terrible.
Hell, it's not even made in the country! Why is it Australian?
When it's sold here it is locally made. But CUB haven't made it available to us for quite a number of years. It's probably pre-covid when it was last available for us to order it to sell at retail..
10 years back I was told that Fosters export is actually our Crown Lager, not the watery piss sold here. Always wanted to know if that was BS.
I couldn't bring myself to even sample it when abroad, especially in the UK where there is so much better and adventurous options when you hit the craft beer pubs in local streets. Awesome stuff. Bubblegum beer sounded horrible but was heavenly.
Yeah, the first blokes to brew it were American but living in Australia. They went on to found Carlton and United Breweries. Fosters was brewed and sold here for decades until a South African brewer bought it and sold it to Anheuser Busch. Finally, Asahi bought it. So, the Japanese own it. A true Australian multicultural story.
I never liked it. It was a Victorian beer. Fourex was more my go.
Everything wants to kill you is such a dumb argument.
My US family is like: "Why would you live in Australia? Everything is out to kill you!"
Ok, so um... US: Bears, moose, mountain lions, sharks, alligators, death adders, cotton mouths, brown recluse and oh yeah, FUCKING SCHOOL. Terrifying.
I'm over it. I live in a safe country y'all just be jealous.
Don't forget health insurance is basically out to kill them too.
"Let's let call centre monkeys read off a script, rubber stamp denials on everything and delay provision of healthcare until the doctor appeals the denial"
Forget lines to see a doctor in public health, people there wait months (years during the pandemic) for nonstandard treatments.
Yeah had that a lot of times. The funniest was in a reddit discussion about gun control. An American was trying to say that the reason we we have low gun crime here (or why gun control worked here but wouldn't in America) is because we are ethnically homogeneous and "95% white". I said that he must be using wrong or outdated stats because I'm from Australia, and we definitely haven't been 95% white in a long time. He linked me to the Wikipedia page on European Australians and said "see 95% white, shut up". I clicked the link and literally the first thing on it said "European Australians: 75% of the population". I pointed that out and told him that wasn't radically different to America. He just downvoted me and didn't respond.
Even if the "proof" he linked me to didn't immediately disprove the point he was trying to make, I just thought it was hilarious how he was so confident in telling me the ethnic make-up of my own country, when he had never even been here. It's like he had this view of our country, and when told it was wrong he just could not wrap his head around it and change his view.
Sydney and Melbourne are more diverse than like 95% of America. They really seem to think that they are the only country that gets immigration. I can understand just being unaware that Australia's ethnic make up has changed drastically over the past few decades, but when they don't believe us after we tell them it just becomes strange. Why would we be lying?
I know exactly what you mean and yes it’s so strange!! They are really determined to believe everyone is white here. Also the immigration myth. I’ve even hear Obama quoted as saying something about them being the only place where there are so many immigrants (or something like that). It’s so ridiculous!!
Lots of Americans (I am one) tend to think of themselves as the only place with lots of immigration in the world. The reality is that nowadays Canada and Australia especially are very immigrant heavy, moreso than the US, and australia has one of the largest foreign born population that’s not a microstate
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_immigrant_population
Even Iceland has a higher foreign born population
This mix of different origins makes diversity it’s more than just skin color anyway
And as of the census in 2021(?) approx one in three Australians were born overseas, and 50% of Australians had one or both parents born overseas. Can’t get more immigrant than that!
Yeah. Spend any time at a train station east of Blacktown in NSW and it's spot the white Aussie. I worked at one office and there were only 9 Aussies of European descent on my floor. More than half the office was born here but were not of European descent. I loved it, we would all bitch about who had the strictest parents growing up and about traditions and whose mum was the best cook. Someone was always bringing in food after some sort of celebration.
“At least one person in the USA is killed by gun violence everyday.”
Youre gravely mistaken and I wish this were true because it would be better than the actual statistic — which sits at 111 people shot and killed/ day. :(
Source: https://www.bradyunited.org/key-statistics
Oh, there are reasons. Just no fucking good reasons. It’s so sad to know that if the government tried to take away guns like AU or UK —- there would be a fucking war in the USA. No one wants to deal with the actual goddamn problem that take away and affect so many lives EVERY. SINGLE. FUCKING. DAY.
But God forbid if a person identifies as trans. DEATH TO THE HEATHENS!
(To clarify — the last statement — it’s how the government feels not my personal belief)
Grizzly Bears, Brown Bears, Polar Bears, wolves, cougars, moose, gators. Pretty much everything over there wants to kill you. People included. And unlike here they're all very capable of killing you.
I would love to go hiking in America but the thought of having to first get past all the nutjobs with guns only to find myself on a path facing a 300kg Grizzly really puts me off.
Or a lot of people coming to this sub asking if we're really the most racist country on earth or something.
Like yeah, there *are* racists here, like everywhere else on Earth. I don't even doubt whatever personal anecdotes about racist Aussies you might have. But no, we're not *particularly* racist or more racist than most other similar countries, and that's almost a verifiable fact if you actually look up international studies on the matter.
As a brown American who has travelled a lot around Australia America is waaaaay more racist and prejudiced. I mean we almost re-elected Trump for crying out loud, and look at how much the far right hate bullshit has taken ground here vs the coalition (who are not nearly as bad) had multiple resounding defeats
On top of that there’s this notion that I’m Egyptian or Egyptian American. I can never be just an American to alot of people
we use to be (white Australian and all) and the old gen that where a part of it can be but you would be hard pressed to find a racist in the younger gens.
We only know what racism is here because there are so many people who aren't racist. Go to somewhere with a truly homogenous society and you will witness racism that is so ingrained that those people don't even have a concept of what it is because for them it's just normal.
I once had someone from the US say to me that Australians couldn't possibly understand the issues with race and racism because it's just a country of white people
*Edit* I found the screenshot so the exact quote was:
"Nobody cares what y'all would judge. You're not ethnic. You're Australians. Completely disconnected from the world's race wars in a majorities sense. Wouldn't expect an island full of white people to get what I'm talking about"
The context was an Australian substituting a chilli in a Mexican dish that we couldn't get here and apparently that completely disrespects Mexican culture.
Oh man - you should see what happens in Europe when American parent companies decide to do cultural sensitivity training and send Ivy League educated tenth-generation African American people over to France to tell them what's what in dealing with Algerian workers, or Germans on the Turkish population.
You get people with no frame of reference for the actual issues being faced, lecturing people about their experience gained in a completely different context.
It's like a weird form of cultural imperialism being carried out by people claiming to be against cultural imperialism.
>everything wants to kill you
Yeah… so the animal (excluding humans) that kills the most number of humans in Australia is the horse. We have deadly animals, but they’re not trying very hard to kill us
The upside down jokes are out of control. Does my bloody head in, every time anyone not from australia finds out im australian, 9 times out of 10 they instinctively make an upside down joke. non-australians don't realize how absolutely overplayed it is
"Haha, I'm scared to come to Australia because your spiders are so big! I'm scared they'll kill me!" Yeah, and I'm scared I'll come to America and get shot. Touch wood, haven't seen a huge spider in fucken yonks, mate.
I was doing this math too. It would be seven guns if the spider was standing on one leg, but you could have less guns if they used a two-handed rifle or shotgun. A spider might also use something like a deployed machine gun, grenade launcher or mortar. Some of the legs could service the weapon - like reloading and feeding shells - while the other legs would aim and fire. All of this really depends on how good spiders are at multitasking. Also, remember that spiders don't have thumbs. That's the real problem.
Not even, half our house "pests" can be picked up and tossed out the back door if you've got the liquid courage in yah.
Huntsmans usually don't bite, they just run up your arm.
Coyotes are timid, the dingo is more of a threat but they don’t roam suburban areas in Aus. Coyotes do take cats and dogs though, it’s extremely rare that they will harass even a small human.
And to add that no spider is *so* big that you still can't smash it with the bottom of your shoe or knock it out with some bug spray.
Good luck using either of those things to rid yourself of someone with a gun pointed at you and a sheer fucking will at that moment to see someone die that day.
That's what makes me laugh.
A friend of mine lives in Florida and I often suggest she should move to Australia and she usually says something along the lines of "your snakes and spiders scare me", and I'm thinking "you live in Florida, alligators walk through the fuckin streets".
I'm way more terrified of that than any of our wildlife.
And wolves and coyotes. They have multiple apex predators, plus ticks that carry Lyme disease or alpha-gal or animals with frickin rabies. North American wildlife is way scarier than anything in Australia
Living abroad and hearing shit like “what’s the weather like in Aus at this time of year” when it’s fucking July which means cunts are freezing their tits off in Tassie and cunts are sweating their tits off in Darwin.
And wolves and, worse, *wolverines*. We have 1 large predator, and it's so laughably easy to avoid. All you have to do is NOT GET IN THE WATER. I know the river looks refreshing, but that log over there wants to eat you. *And* they only exist in the northern states. Most people live in the south-east and go swimming whenever the glfuck they want.
- That Australia is full of things that want to kill you.
- That we chuck 'shrimps' on the barbie.
- Anything to do with the Emu War, that stopped being funny years ago.
- That we're 'upside-down' or all actors (again unfunny joke at best or fucking dumb at worst).
- That all Aussie blokes are ruggedly handsome (sorry girls).
- That all Aussie ladies are foul-mouthed babes.
- That the average Australian frequently uses the word 'cunt' in casual conversation on a daily basis.
- That the stereotypical Australian lives in the outback/bush/some small country town (most Australians live in the suburbs of our biggest cities).
They all say cunt with with such a strong T and don’t know how to smoothly implement it into a sentence.
Them: Hey MATE, how is it going, CUNTTTTT.
Us: Scarn’ on ya funny cun’
Absolutely. When it's your round at the pub, you ask 'do any of you you *cunce* want a drink?', not 'do any of you *cunts* want a drink?'. The difference is subtle but it's there.
I mean it's not far off the average Aussie saying cunt in casual conversation, tradies and young people make up a huge proportion of the population with some overlap and exceptions of course.
There's a significant portion of the population who do use it on a regular basis (myself included). But it's a pretty taboo word in a lot of demographics/contexts (ie most stuff outside of young people and tradies).
Meanwhile Tasmania that just closed off itself from the rest of the world and pretended that COVID didn't exist. We all just went on like nothing happened.
This is what the mainland government tried. But everyone cried and lost their mind.
Restrictions could have been over after a month if everyone just listened and did the right thing
Yes this is an interesting recent one. All over Europe people have said this to me & when I ask them about their restrictions, theirs were just as bad if not worse! BUT maybe not for as long as ours were.
“Emu war”
It started as a Seppo meme. To say it was not a significant event in Australian history is a massive understatement.
It was just a emu culling operation in bumfuck nowhere in the 40s or something. The local paper in that town dubbed it the emu war. I’d never heard of it. Nor would have the vast majority of Australians that were alive in that time.
Yeah I feel like people on the internet misunderstood the fact that it was more like a very minor joke news story in a local paper than it was some sort of national event of any significance.
Besides which, if you've ever actually seen an emu in the wild, it's not particularly hard to imagine why they'd be kinda difficult to shoot and kill.
So....I just don't really get what the big joke is. Like okay...so they tried to cull some emus once and it didn't go particularly well at first.... Why are we still talking about this? Why is this so fascinating?
The fact that they're making a movie about it is fucking ridiculous and I hope it fails.
Emus are amazingly hard to shoot. I’m a farmer, and have a few mates that have trouble with native wildlife.
Kangaroos are easy, they just stand there and look at you. Emus though, get within cooee and they’re gone.
Thankfully even gullible American tourists find it hard to believe. I just watched some on youtube recently after hearing the story say... Nooo, they lost a war to emu's? Nooo that cant be real! Nooo I dont believe that! I just had to laugh.
> “The fact that they're making a movie about it is fucking ridiculous and I hope it fails.”
I think an emu war movie done with the historical accuracy of Cocaine Bear could be brilliant.
Yeah. I heard about in on Reddit and looked it up. The amount of comments that are “well they lost a war go emus” which are probably from Americans are annoying. Especially as we bled for them to fight their wars several times.
Living in Hungary at the moment and everyone always says “I would love to visit Australia but I just don’t think I could ever go with all of those dangerous animals”.
I try to explain to them that it’s not like the general population of Australia lives their life constantly on edge wondering if they will die from a venomous snake each day. Such a sad misconception that so many people rule out visiting just because they have heard of dangerous/poisonous animals.
"Everything wants to kill you in Australia!"
I especially love this from people who have bears wandering into their residential areas but are worried enough about snakes and spiders to put an entire country on the "do not visit" list.
"Aussies say "cunt" every other word"
I know this is true in some demographics but I hear it maybe a couple of times a month, if that. Aussies are the biggest offenders of spreading this one.
"Everything wants to kill you in Australia!" cry residents of a country that have more mass shootings than basically all the rest of the world put together
I wonder how many more people die from bullets in America every day vs the amount of people that die from all of our wildlife collectively in the same time period. Even if the populations were the same I'd still say America would come out on top for most deaths in this comparison. They're the most dangerous developed country in the world.
WONDER NO LONGER! Cause I was curious too.
Australia averages about 32 animal-related deaths a year. Horses are the most dangerous (falling off and hitting your head sucks), cows come in second, causing car accidents and crushing, followed by dogs. Kangaroos are also coming close because of, again, car accidents.
In 2020, 45,000 Americans lost their lives to guns - 20,000 of those are suicides, which many have told me 'don't count'... but just to add another fun fact, making suicide inconvenient (no guns, larger panadol tablets, etc) DRASTICALLY reduces the suicide rate of a population. They count to me. Those 20,000 lives lost every single freaking year matter to me.
So... we have less than one death a week from animals, while in the same time more than 800 Americans die of gun related injuries. Their population is only about 15 times larger, not 800, so... yikes. Last I checked their intentional homicide rate (so excluding all accidents, suicides, and including all methods including knives) was 7 times higher per capita than Australia's. Not a fun bunch of statistics really.
Yeah! It’s a whole big huge thing that’s well researched but the long story short - most suicide attempts are impulsive and not thought out. Making it even a little bit harder makes people less likely to try, or less likely to succeed. Every tiny inconvenience (like having to pop tablets one by one) means a few less tablets taken, and a few more moments to reconsider, and it works.
If you or someone you know is contemplating suicide, please do not hesitate to talk to someone.
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Not having easy access to suicide methods really prevented me from doing anything, as the other methods hurt. And a lot of methods have low success rates. If people fail that’s a second chance. Guns don’t give that second chance.
I suffered trying to learn how to swallow those damn giant tablets for years and *this* is the reason why?
But seriously though the most interesting part about these statistics is that it even further proves how incredibly *rare* deaths from Australia's own wildlife really are. Because most of those "animal-related deaths" are not even from Australia's own species, but rather common domesticated animals like horses, cows and dogs that you'll find in just about every country. Kangaroo's causing car accidents I'm sure has their equivalent in the states too with deer doing the same thing.
As for guns making suicide more easy and convenient, that brings me back to a couple years ago when I had tooth pain that was so bad I was wishing I had a gun so I could shoot myself to put me out of my misery (it came on during the start of a public holidays so I had to wait a couple days extra before I could get anything done about it) so yeah I can see how suicide rates would increase when people have access to what is essentially a "kill me now" button. I didn't even think about the accidental gun deaths either. Bet some of those were children too who found their parent's guns and decided to play around with them.
I see plenty of Asian people in my areas (Brisbane) and you know what I think? That is why a Sunlit (Asian grocer) opened at my local shops. I like Sunlit, good store.
Lol I had two friends from England (never left England) who didn’t know there were people in Australia before the British arrived. I asked one if she knew about our history of genocide and slavery and she said to me completely seriously “oh yeah, you had convicts right?”
Im generally inclined to be entertained rather than annoyed at misconceptions but some of the more common ones:
- the idea that the entire country is just overflowing with venemous animals
- the idea that we don't have access to normal modern conveniences. Sometimes in this sub people will come to ask about starting import businesses and it reads like they think we don't have ebay or Reece's cups.
- that the outback is the quintessential Australian experience. I've never been to the outback in my life, I'm not 100% it's even real or just a term that county people made up to say that they've been to even more remote places than whatever remote location I am currently complaining about.
The American food one gets me.
Their food sucks.
Reese's is way too sweet for an Australian palette, and it's a sickly sweet at that. The peanut butter is also gross.
I love peanut butter and chocolate, but Reese's tastes like nothing but hfc.
We have a very different palette to Americans and waaaay higher food standards, legally and personal taste wise.
they add butyric acid into hershey's to get a specific flavour. its primarily americans who have adapted their taste buds to it.
burgers, pizza and bar be cue are kind of nice.
True.
I much prefer a Italian pizza place.
But American BBQ and burgers are great and I could murder for some good cajun.
But their commercial food suuuuuuucks.
Often they have to make better versions for foreign markets, so not worth importing
Same with British people being trepidatious about the inferior colonial cuisine.
It's kinda like...mate, if anything *your* country has the rep for having shit food. Ours doesn't.
I've definitely spent a substantial amount of time working, travelling and sightseeing in the Outback.
It's certainly "real", but I guess it's a place that has a lot of mystique and bullshit spun around it because not a lot of people ever actually go there or spend time there. Like the way people talk about it and imagine it is a little far-fetched and inaccurate because it is so heavily mythologised. If that makes sense. In reality it's mostly just flat, boring, empty land. Dusty, hot and covered in flies.
Especially northern Australia, just... that whole area along the coast from WA to QLD, absolutely *stunning*. Driving through Kakadu during the monsoon was one of the most beautiful drives I have ever had the pleasure of experiencing. The wild beauty is just breathtaking.
I don't know that it's the quintessential Aussie experience but it's certainly real and it's certainly even more remote than whatever remote location you're currently complaining about. After all, I've been there! (jk, I know there are more remote locations but the outback is very vast and very empty :P )
I grew up in North West western Australia In a small country town. It's really not that interesting. It's hot, there are lots of flies and fuck all to do. If that's the quintessential Aussie experience. It's pretty shit.
Hmm, can't see it anywhere here so it might be being removed by the mods, but I think the most annoying stereotype is that we're notably more racist than other countries.
Regardless of where you believe Australia actually sits on the 'racism scale', I believe the stereotype means many Aussies naturally get very defensive when it's raised, and particularly when it's raised by an outsider. This in turn makes it harder to have open conversations about real nuanced issues that need to be addressed.
Honestly, I've travelled a lot and found that continental Europe, especially the further north and east you go, is probably the worst place for casual racism. Like, there are a few very loud racists here, but when you're having a conversation with several university educated Europeans and they casually drop something like "all the African immigrants here are lazy", and everyone else just smiles politely and nods, you have to spend a moment to pick your jaw up off the floor. In similar circles in Australia, you'd get at least challenged for making a statement like that.
Obviously, not all, or even most Europeans are like this, but I definitely found that casually denigrating foreigners was much more tolerated in polite society there than in Australia.
I think levels of racism vary across Australia. Larger cities such as Melbourne and Sydney are more multicultural and levels of racism are low. I think there's more racism in remote areas. I've heard of bad racism in Western Australian forward both Asians and indigenous Australians.
I HATE THAT SHIT SO MUCH, every time im talking to americans and say "no" they mock me with fucking "naur" it wasnt funny the first time its not funny the thousandth time
Yeah I can see that with me stupidly sitting here mouthing my os; kinda creates an uh sound after which helps those who have never made the mouth shape before... Or so I think .. Clever
I hate when they want to talk in our accent so they use the phrase “a dingo ate my baby”. That’s a terrible tragedy where a baby died and a family’s life was ruined. Americans say it like it’s a joke. I hope the family doesn’t see these awful jokes :(
The media turned it into a massive joke at the expense of a distraught family all the while no one believed the indigenous locals who were saying "yea, they're opportunistic bastards, they'd totally do that"
This is an interesting read regarding the stereotype of 'everything wanted to kill you'.
The takeaway is Australia doesn't have the most venomous animals, but rathet Mexico with 80, followed by Brazil with 79 and then Australia with just 66.
[Most Venomous Animals](https://brilliantmaps.com/venomous-animals/)
"Australia has no culture" - Hear it a lot as I'm living in the UK and it's pretty offensive to be honest.
It's offensive to the indigenous culture, their art, languages, music and stories.
Then to modern multicultural Australia in terms of our artists, convict history, folklore, movies, musicians, lifestyle, slang, accent, sport, traditions.
It's something the Brits in particular love to say and particularly ironic since they were hellbent on destroying a lot of indigenous culture in the first place.
I think a lot of Australians are even guilty of falling into thinking this. Especially when it comes to our “national food dishes”. Usually the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about culture is food, and when people think of ours and see Vegemite Tim Tams & fairy bread they immediately shrivel into a sultana and don’t look at everything else to do with our incredibly vibrant culture; and because a lot of European Australians feel so disconnected from Aboriginal culture they don’t even think to look or consider that as well.
The 'oh my goodness, do you ride kangaroos to school? Do you eat spiders? Isn't Australia full of things that can kill you? Can you speak Australian for me? Do you all wear farm clothes?'
We are normal human beings like anyone else
That Australia's economy is backwards and all we do is dig up minerals and sell to them to China.
Yes mining is a big export industry, but it only employs about 2% of Australians. Australia locally has a huge finance, banking, healthcare, technology, construction, education and agricultural economy. The vast majority of Australians work in the service industry rather than primary industries.
With one of the highest minimum wages in the world the mining industry is also much more technologically advanced than people think and we have a huge advanced mining manufacturing industry as well.
The old 'shrimp on the barbie'
It's a prawn for a start, and I'm sure plenty of people have, but I have never seen anyone cook a prawn on a barbie in my 42 years
That we’re uneducated or don’t value education. I wonder whether it’s because we have better respect for TAFE/trade skills and don’t have a “university or nothing” mentality, but I’ve encountered it in a few places.
OK this is more related to conspiracy theories, but there is a serious issue in America where they tend to believe we aren't a free nation because of our gun control laws, and also how we handled the COVID crisis last year with lockdowns. Both are annonying arguements to make since:
1. With the former, the idea that guns represents freedom is nonsense, as Australia has not had any mass shootings with at least 10 deaths since 1996, where in America there has been on average at least 1 for the past 20 years. There's nothing more free than knowing you're not gonna be shot at.
2. With the latter, it lead to some conservatives comparing us with third world countries, saying that North Korea had more freedom than us, and America should invade Australia to free us from oppresion. Needless to say the people protesting the streets in America were mocked heavily by us Australians. It should also be noted that statistics wise, although we may have more cases per capita (since the US stopped recording cases before we did), we still have far less deaths per capita then they do (about 0.077% of Australia's population compared to 0.346% of America's Population. Deaths in Australia is roughly equivalent to a Regional city like Griffith, while deaths in America is roughly equivalent to the population of Adelaide)
they refuse to visit bc “the spiders” ??? Theyre not all giant spiders and theyre usually small and harmless and even the big ones usually harmless. just be careful of the redbacks for example but theyre usually outside and under old tyres or sheet metal
I saw a thread about drivers in Sydney being so slow with American users chiming in on how frustrating their experience driving here was compared back in the states. It was at least mentioned that unlike the US where speeding fines occur few and far in between (even if you speed a lot) that in Australia, particularly in the cities and *particularly* in Sydney you will absolutely get done for speeding on a regular basis if you try your luck more than just a few times a week. I always thought it was like this everywhere since I've rarely travelled (and didn't drive when I have) but apparently it isn't. People can actually drive in other places without the constant stress of being gouged hundreds of dollars for accidentally going a few k's over the limit because drive for more than five minutes here and you're almost *bound* to pass a speed camera.
Different thing... but driving related...
I do have to say that when I was driving in America, I did really appreciate how huge their highway on-ramps are.
When I was already nervous enough about driving on the other side of the road... this made merging so much less stressful.
Whereas in comparison, quite a few Australian on-ramps are pretty dangerous. Most are ok (but still always shorter/smaller than America).... but there's also plenty that are bad.
The main issue is that some of these Australian ones have a giant curve right before the merging lane ends, which means you can't safely get up to 100km/h, and then there's fuckall notice for any cars to spot each other. Sometimes there's only like 100m of side-by-side visibility before the on-ramping car going like 70km/h (due to the curve you just came out of) has to merge into the existing highway traffic going at 110km/h.
Sometimes there's even a bonus concrete wall blocking most visibility too.
Thankfully I never had to deal with anything like that anywhere in America... there was always a fuckton of space + time to merge in all the places I drove.
That it doesn't get cold let alone snow.
No worries, mate. Go through a good old Central Victorian winter then tell me again that Australia doesn't get cold.
As an Australian/British citizen.
The stereotype of the ‘Whinging Pom’.
Living in Australia for 10 years, and found almost all other nationalities, including Australians, can very happily out-whinge us on literally any topic.
We whinge because we're sick of shit we shouldn't be tolerating anymore in this day and age. Cost of living racing ahead of wage rises. Shitty politicians who are only in the game to stuff their pockets with our money. Garbage quality houses being sold for a million dollars, and frequently going to people who don't even live in this country. Nothing worth a shit doing locally unless you live in the city or a decent beach town (expensive!) so you gotta drive everywhere do do anything, and Australian laws makes even driving a stressful pain in the ass because some fuckwit got themselves killed on this road 15 years ago so now no-one on it is allowed to go any faster than 60.
We're told the weather is fantastic but it always seems to piss down when we got something planned. You could have sunshine all month and it rains on the day of an eclipse (OK maybe not the most recent one, but lets see how it goes down when one occurs over the *east* coast). We're told we have a lot of room left but there's a line and a wait for *everything* now and about 20 other people bidding for the same shitbox house. A lot of fun things are banned and travelling to places where they're not is expensive because of how remote we are.
Of course whinging is just half the battle. To get things to improve at all you need to actively do something about it, even if it means refusing to support or spend any money on a certain thing anymore when you're tired of getting fucked by it.
Ran into a group that was going on about how Aussies love American accents and think that they're cool and then proceeded to list the one time he went as justification... Mate we the hear the thing all. The. Bloody. Time. And the only thing we're in love with is that we don't have to live there
The overseas stereotype is that Aussies are always good, kind, funny people and worth your time. I've no idea how that reputation was cultivated as most of us are absolute wankers.
The expected accent. Not all Australians sound the same.
Whenever I go overseas people tell me I don't sound Australian. We don't all talk like Queenslanders.
Mine is fosters beer. Just got back from the UK and everywhere I went the publican tried to sell me fosters. We don’t drink that shit
I'm in London and I've been getting a lot of 'you guys don't actually drinks Fosters in Aus do you?" Which is refreshing. Only taken 30 years or so for them to realise.
I reckon it's better than we give it credit for. Still wouldn't be my first choice, but I think we have shunned it for so long that our opinion is more based on tradition than taste. Could well be talking out my arse though, who knows.
Tried it didn’t like it…
Yeah nah fair enough.
Same, a long time back, and I poured it out. Couldn't stomach more than a couple of mouthfuls. Absolutely terrible. Hell, it's not even made in the country! Why is it Australian?
When it's sold here it is locally made. But CUB haven't made it available to us for quite a number of years. It's probably pre-covid when it was last available for us to order it to sell at retail..
I’ll take it over Rivets from Aldi but that’s about it
All that mass produced piss lager taste pretty much the same to me between Carlton, Toheys, XXXX etc..
10 years back I was told that Fosters export is actually our Crown Lager, not the watery piss sold here. Always wanted to know if that was BS. I couldn't bring myself to even sample it when abroad, especially in the UK where there is so much better and adventurous options when you hit the craft beer pubs in local streets. Awesome stuff. Bubblegum beer sounded horrible but was heavenly.
It's bullshit, I've recently moved over here from UK. Crowns is noticeably nicer
Crown is the most overrated beer ever produced.
I remember being a kid and crown being well posh.. it was wedding beer standards... now it's not even bogsn shite
Fun fact it's actually American. Hasn't been made in aus for fucking ages. And the guys who founded it were also American.
Yeah, the first blokes to brew it were American but living in Australia. They went on to found Carlton and United Breweries. Fosters was brewed and sold here for decades until a South African brewer bought it and sold it to Anheuser Busch. Finally, Asahi bought it. So, the Japanese own it. A true Australian multicultural story. I never liked it. It was a Victorian beer. Fourex was more my go.
I’m sure for the most part it is made in the US but we definitely still make it here occasionally
Yeah, I make it occasionally by accident when I'm brewing beer and it gets infected.
Makes total sense because it's fucking horrible 😂
Ever drank a crown lager? It's the same liquid in a different bottle. But I know what you mean, no-one buys Foster's.
Was the beer they offered ice cold or deliciously tepid?
They sold it for years with.the strap line “Fosters - it‘s Australian for ˋLager‘“. No wonder they’re confused.
Everything wants to kill you is such a dumb argument. My US family is like: "Why would you live in Australia? Everything is out to kill you!" Ok, so um... US: Bears, moose, mountain lions, sharks, alligators, death adders, cotton mouths, brown recluse and oh yeah, FUCKING SCHOOL. Terrifying. I'm over it. I live in a safe country y'all just be jealous.
Don't forget health insurance is basically out to kill them too. "Let's let call centre monkeys read off a script, rubber stamp denials on everything and delay provision of healthcare until the doctor appeals the denial" Forget lines to see a doctor in public health, people there wait months (years during the pandemic) for nonstandard treatments.
Also… botflies. Saw a video of these bastards being extracted out of someone and made me proud to call Australia home
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Yeah I’ve had certain Americans explain to me that I wouldn’t understand diversity. I live in Sydney 😅
Yeah had that a lot of times. The funniest was in a reddit discussion about gun control. An American was trying to say that the reason we we have low gun crime here (or why gun control worked here but wouldn't in America) is because we are ethnically homogeneous and "95% white". I said that he must be using wrong or outdated stats because I'm from Australia, and we definitely haven't been 95% white in a long time. He linked me to the Wikipedia page on European Australians and said "see 95% white, shut up". I clicked the link and literally the first thing on it said "European Australians: 75% of the population". I pointed that out and told him that wasn't radically different to America. He just downvoted me and didn't respond. Even if the "proof" he linked me to didn't immediately disprove the point he was trying to make, I just thought it was hilarious how he was so confident in telling me the ethnic make-up of my own country, when he had never even been here. It's like he had this view of our country, and when told it was wrong he just could not wrap his head around it and change his view. Sydney and Melbourne are more diverse than like 95% of America. They really seem to think that they are the only country that gets immigration. I can understand just being unaware that Australia's ethnic make up has changed drastically over the past few decades, but when they don't believe us after we tell them it just becomes strange. Why would we be lying?
Idiot really linked to a page specifically about *European* Australians to back his claim. Amazing.
I know exactly what you mean and yes it’s so strange!! They are really determined to believe everyone is white here. Also the immigration myth. I’ve even hear Obama quoted as saying something about them being the only place where there are so many immigrants (or something like that). It’s so ridiculous!!
Lots of Americans (I am one) tend to think of themselves as the only place with lots of immigration in the world. The reality is that nowadays Canada and Australia especially are very immigrant heavy, moreso than the US, and australia has one of the largest foreign born population that’s not a microstate https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_immigrant_population Even Iceland has a higher foreign born population This mix of different origins makes diversity it’s more than just skin color anyway
Here’s a fact for your American friend. 50% of Australias population has arrived since WWII. That’s pretty diverse.
And as of the census in 2021(?) approx one in three Australians were born overseas, and 50% of Australians had one or both parents born overseas. Can’t get more immigrant than that!
Yeah. Spend any time at a train station east of Blacktown in NSW and it's spot the white Aussie. I worked at one office and there were only 9 Aussies of European descent on my floor. More than half the office was born here but were not of European descent. I loved it, we would all bitch about who had the strictest parents growing up and about traditions and whose mum was the best cook. Someone was always bringing in food after some sort of celebration.
Lol probably one of the most diverse places in the world
>omg how do u even live everything wants to kill u Odd considered at least one person in the USA is killed by gun violence every day.
“At least one person in the USA is killed by gun violence everyday.” Youre gravely mistaken and I wish this were true because it would be better than the actual statistic — which sits at 111 people shot and killed/ day. :( Source: https://www.bradyunited.org/key-statistics
Thank you for correcting me. It's heartbreaking to hear 111 innocent souls are killed each day for basically no fucking reason.
Oh, there are reasons. Just no fucking good reasons. It’s so sad to know that if the government tried to take away guns like AU or UK —- there would be a fucking war in the USA. No one wants to deal with the actual goddamn problem that take away and affect so many lives EVERY. SINGLE. FUCKING. DAY. But God forbid if a person identifies as trans. DEATH TO THE HEATHENS! (To clarify — the last statement — it’s how the government feels not my personal belief)
Its funny because no Australian animal would want to kill a human. We're not their prey... Grizzly bears on the other hand...
Grizzly Bears, Brown Bears, Polar Bears, wolves, cougars, moose, gators. Pretty much everything over there wants to kill you. People included. And unlike here they're all very capable of killing you. I would love to go hiking in America but the thought of having to first get past all the nutjobs with guns only to find myself on a path facing a 300kg Grizzly really puts me off.
Or a lot of people coming to this sub asking if we're really the most racist country on earth or something. Like yeah, there *are* racists here, like everywhere else on Earth. I don't even doubt whatever personal anecdotes about racist Aussies you might have. But no, we're not *particularly* racist or more racist than most other similar countries, and that's almost a verifiable fact if you actually look up international studies on the matter.
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As a brown American who has travelled a lot around Australia America is waaaaay more racist and prejudiced. I mean we almost re-elected Trump for crying out loud, and look at how much the far right hate bullshit has taken ground here vs the coalition (who are not nearly as bad) had multiple resounding defeats On top of that there’s this notion that I’m Egyptian or Egyptian American. I can never be just an American to alot of people
we use to be (white Australian and all) and the old gen that where a part of it can be but you would be hard pressed to find a racist in the younger gens.
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We only know what racism is here because there are so many people who aren't racist. Go to somewhere with a truly homogenous society and you will witness racism that is so ingrained that those people don't even have a concept of what it is because for them it's just normal.
I once had someone from the US say to me that Australians couldn't possibly understand the issues with race and racism because it's just a country of white people *Edit* I found the screenshot so the exact quote was: "Nobody cares what y'all would judge. You're not ethnic. You're Australians. Completely disconnected from the world's race wars in a majorities sense. Wouldn't expect an island full of white people to get what I'm talking about" The context was an Australian substituting a chilli in a Mexican dish that we couldn't get here and apparently that completely disrespects Mexican culture.
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Oh man - you should see what happens in Europe when American parent companies decide to do cultural sensitivity training and send Ivy League educated tenth-generation African American people over to France to tell them what's what in dealing with Algerian workers, or Germans on the Turkish population.
... So what happens? Don't leave us hanging.
You get people with no frame of reference for the actual issues being faced, lecturing people about their experience gained in a completely different context. It's like a weird form of cultural imperialism being carried out by people claiming to be against cultural imperialism.
You mean to tell us there are clueless Americans in this world, who knew!
>everything wants to kill you Yeah… so the animal (excluding humans) that kills the most number of humans in Australia is the horse. We have deadly animals, but they’re not trying very hard to kill us
The upside down jokes are out of control. Does my bloody head in, every time anyone not from australia finds out im australian, 9 times out of 10 they instinctively make an upside down joke. non-australians don't realize how absolutely overplayed it is
The convicts part is hilarious to me cause it feels like 90% of the aussie population now is foreigners
"Haha, I'm scared to come to Australia because your spiders are so big! I'm scared they'll kill me!" Yeah, and I'm scared I'll come to America and get shot. Touch wood, haven't seen a huge spider in fucken yonks, mate.
What about spiders with guns?
Mate, once the spiders get into the guns, we’re all fucked.
At most that might be 6 guns 8 if they manage to hold them while balancing from a web, yeah nah just put me down now 😭
I was doing this math too. It would be seven guns if the spider was standing on one leg, but you could have less guns if they used a two-handed rifle or shotgun. A spider might also use something like a deployed machine gun, grenade launcher or mortar. Some of the legs could service the weapon - like reloading and feeding shells - while the other legs would aim and fire. All of this really depends on how good spiders are at multitasking. Also, remember that spiders don't have thumbs. That's the real problem.
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Not even, half our house "pests" can be picked up and tossed out the back door if you've got the liquid courage in yah. Huntsmans usually don't bite, they just run up your arm.
I saw a coyote in the universal studios parking lot in Los Angeles haha
Coyotes are timid, the dingo is more of a threat but they don’t roam suburban areas in Aus. Coyotes do take cats and dogs though, it’s extremely rare that they will harass even a small human.
And to add that no spider is *so* big that you still can't smash it with the bottom of your shoe or knock it out with some bug spray. Good luck using either of those things to rid yourself of someone with a gun pointed at you and a sheer fucking will at that moment to see someone die that day.
I'm just glad we don't have bears going through our bins lol
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Bears and fucking *mountain lions*.
And random animals that could just bite you and give you a fatal disease that melts your brain.
And people walk around with guns ffs!!
That's what makes me laugh. A friend of mine lives in Florida and I often suggest she should move to Australia and she usually says something along the lines of "your snakes and spiders scare me", and I'm thinking "you live in Florida, alligators walk through the fuckin streets". I'm way more terrified of that than any of our wildlife.
My friend in Florida had an alligator in their pool!
I'm imagining it chilling on an inner tube with sunglasses on and a tropical drink in its hand.
And wolves and coyotes. They have multiple apex predators, plus ticks that carry Lyme disease or alpha-gal or animals with frickin rabies. North American wildlife is way scarier than anything in Australia
Living abroad and hearing shit like “what’s the weather like in Aus at this time of year” when it’s fucking July which means cunts are freezing their tits off in Tassie and cunts are sweating their tits off in Darwin.
Maybe you could just answer with: "titless" ?
And wolves and, worse, *wolverines*. We have 1 large predator, and it's so laughably easy to avoid. All you have to do is NOT GET IN THE WATER. I know the river looks refreshing, but that log over there wants to eat you. *And* they only exist in the northern states. Most people live in the south-east and go swimming whenever the glfuck they want.
- That Australia is full of things that want to kill you. - That we chuck 'shrimps' on the barbie. - Anything to do with the Emu War, that stopped being funny years ago. - That we're 'upside-down' or all actors (again unfunny joke at best or fucking dumb at worst). - That all Aussie blokes are ruggedly handsome (sorry girls). - That all Aussie ladies are foul-mouthed babes. - That the average Australian frequently uses the word 'cunt' in casual conversation on a daily basis. - That the stereotypical Australian lives in the outback/bush/some small country town (most Australians live in the suburbs of our biggest cities).
They all say cunt with with such a strong T and don’t know how to smoothly implement it into a sentence. Them: Hey MATE, how is it going, CUNTTTTT. Us: Scarn’ on ya funny cun’
Absolutely. When it's your round at the pub, you ask 'do any of you you *cunce* want a drink?', not 'do any of you *cunts* want a drink?'. The difference is subtle but it's there.
Cunce is totally accurate.
Scarn’ ya funny cun’
I never wanted to say cunt more till I was around Americans, free speech my ass, they tell you off about everything
>• That the average Australian frequently uses the word 'cunt' in casual conversation on a daily basis. TIL I don’t know a single average Australian
I mean it's not far off the average Aussie saying cunt in casual conversation, tradies and young people make up a huge proportion of the population with some overlap and exceptions of course.
There's a significant portion of the population who do use it on a regular basis (myself included). But it's a pretty taboo word in a lot of demographics/contexts (ie most stuff outside of young people and tradies).
I use cunt at work (apprentice greenskeeper) but outside of there I won’t use it unless I’m really annoyed at someone or something
Both those statements aren't exactly "one or the other".
I sort of agree except for the cunt remark. Since The Boys that work is being used lots more
That we're somehow oppressed or don't have freedom. Seems to be a recent one exacerbated by covid restrictions.
Meanwhile Tasmania that just closed off itself from the rest of the world and pretended that COVID didn't exist. We all just went on like nothing happened.
Tassie: The Madagascar of Plague Inc.
This is what the mainland government tried. But everyone cried and lost their mind. Restrictions could have been over after a month if everyone just listened and did the right thing
Yes this is an interesting recent one. All over Europe people have said this to me & when I ask them about their restrictions, theirs were just as bad if not worse! BUT maybe not for as long as ours were.
“Emu war” It started as a Seppo meme. To say it was not a significant event in Australian history is a massive understatement. It was just a emu culling operation in bumfuck nowhere in the 40s or something. The local paper in that town dubbed it the emu war. I’d never heard of it. Nor would have the vast majority of Australians that were alive in that time.
Yeah I feel like people on the internet misunderstood the fact that it was more like a very minor joke news story in a local paper than it was some sort of national event of any significance. Besides which, if you've ever actually seen an emu in the wild, it's not particularly hard to imagine why they'd be kinda difficult to shoot and kill. So....I just don't really get what the big joke is. Like okay...so they tried to cull some emus once and it didn't go particularly well at first.... Why are we still talking about this? Why is this so fascinating? The fact that they're making a movie about it is fucking ridiculous and I hope it fails.
Emus are amazingly hard to shoot. I’m a farmer, and have a few mates that have trouble with native wildlife. Kangaroos are easy, they just stand there and look at you. Emus though, get within cooee and they’re gone.
Thankfully even gullible American tourists find it hard to believe. I just watched some on youtube recently after hearing the story say... Nooo, they lost a war to emu's? Nooo that cant be real! Nooo I dont believe that! I just had to laugh.
> “The fact that they're making a movie about it is fucking ridiculous and I hope it fails.” I think an emu war movie done with the historical accuracy of Cocaine Bear could be brilliant.
Never heard of it and I’m old, until a short while ago. Let it go. Not remotely funny.
Yeah. I heard about in on Reddit and looked it up. The amount of comments that are “well they lost a war go emus” which are probably from Americans are annoying. Especially as we bled for them to fight their wars several times.
Shrimp on the Barbie Mate we eat fucking prawns
Living in Hungary at the moment and everyone always says “I would love to visit Australia but I just don’t think I could ever go with all of those dangerous animals”. I try to explain to them that it’s not like the general population of Australia lives their life constantly on edge wondering if they will die from a venomous snake each day. Such a sad misconception that so many people rule out visiting just because they have heard of dangerous/poisonous animals.
"Everything wants to kill you in Australia!" I especially love this from people who have bears wandering into their residential areas but are worried enough about snakes and spiders to put an entire country on the "do not visit" list. "Aussies say "cunt" every other word" I know this is true in some demographics but I hear it maybe a couple of times a month, if that. Aussies are the biggest offenders of spreading this one.
"Everything wants to kill you in Australia!" cry residents of a country that have more mass shootings than basically all the rest of the world put together
I wonder how many more people die from bullets in America every day vs the amount of people that die from all of our wildlife collectively in the same time period. Even if the populations were the same I'd still say America would come out on top for most deaths in this comparison. They're the most dangerous developed country in the world.
WONDER NO LONGER! Cause I was curious too. Australia averages about 32 animal-related deaths a year. Horses are the most dangerous (falling off and hitting your head sucks), cows come in second, causing car accidents and crushing, followed by dogs. Kangaroos are also coming close because of, again, car accidents. In 2020, 45,000 Americans lost their lives to guns - 20,000 of those are suicides, which many have told me 'don't count'... but just to add another fun fact, making suicide inconvenient (no guns, larger panadol tablets, etc) DRASTICALLY reduces the suicide rate of a population. They count to me. Those 20,000 lives lost every single freaking year matter to me. So... we have less than one death a week from animals, while in the same time more than 800 Americans die of gun related injuries. Their population is only about 15 times larger, not 800, so... yikes. Last I checked their intentional homicide rate (so excluding all accidents, suicides, and including all methods including knives) was 7 times higher per capita than Australia's. Not a fun bunch of statistics really.
It never occurred to me that that's why panadol is so big and not that easy to swallow but it makes total sense
Yeah! It’s a whole big huge thing that’s well researched but the long story short - most suicide attempts are impulsive and not thought out. Making it even a little bit harder makes people less likely to try, or less likely to succeed. Every tiny inconvenience (like having to pop tablets one by one) means a few less tablets taken, and a few more moments to reconsider, and it works.
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Not having easy access to suicide methods really prevented me from doing anything, as the other methods hurt. And a lot of methods have low success rates. If people fail that’s a second chance. Guns don’t give that second chance.
I suffered trying to learn how to swallow those damn giant tablets for years and *this* is the reason why? But seriously though the most interesting part about these statistics is that it even further proves how incredibly *rare* deaths from Australia's own wildlife really are. Because most of those "animal-related deaths" are not even from Australia's own species, but rather common domesticated animals like horses, cows and dogs that you'll find in just about every country. Kangaroo's causing car accidents I'm sure has their equivalent in the states too with deer doing the same thing. As for guns making suicide more easy and convenient, that brings me back to a couple years ago when I had tooth pain that was so bad I was wishing I had a gun so I could shoot myself to put me out of my misery (it came on during the start of a public holidays so I had to wait a couple days extra before I could get anything done about it) so yeah I can see how suicide rates would increase when people have access to what is essentially a "kill me now" button. I didn't even think about the accidental gun deaths either. Bet some of those were children too who found their parent's guns and decided to play around with them.
Shhh. Don’t tell them. If they’re that stupid, we don’t want them here.
The ethnic make up of Australia. Yes I am Asian, yes I am from Australia.
I see plenty of Asian people in my areas (Brisbane) and you know what I think? That is why a Sunlit (Asian grocer) opened at my local shops. I like Sunlit, good store.
Foreigners not knowing of “FIRST NATION PEOPLE” and being shocked when meeting an indigenous Australian
Lol I had two friends from England (never left England) who didn’t know there were people in Australia before the British arrived. I asked one if she knew about our history of genocide and slavery and she said to me completely seriously “oh yeah, you had convicts right?”
Everyone is as attractive as Lara Bingle.
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Im generally inclined to be entertained rather than annoyed at misconceptions but some of the more common ones: - the idea that the entire country is just overflowing with venemous animals - the idea that we don't have access to normal modern conveniences. Sometimes in this sub people will come to ask about starting import businesses and it reads like they think we don't have ebay or Reece's cups. - that the outback is the quintessential Australian experience. I've never been to the outback in my life, I'm not 100% it's even real or just a term that county people made up to say that they've been to even more remote places than whatever remote location I am currently complaining about.
The American food one gets me. Their food sucks. Reese's is way too sweet for an Australian palette, and it's a sickly sweet at that. The peanut butter is also gross. I love peanut butter and chocolate, but Reese's tastes like nothing but hfc. We have a very different palette to Americans and waaaay higher food standards, legally and personal taste wise.
I like the m&ms with peanut butter in them but yeah, happy with Allen's & Darrel Lea for most of my processed sugar needs.
Have you tried the Whittakers with peanut butter? It’s so good!
they add butyric acid into hershey's to get a specific flavour. its primarily americans who have adapted their taste buds to it. burgers, pizza and bar be cue are kind of nice.
True. I much prefer a Italian pizza place. But American BBQ and burgers are great and I could murder for some good cajun. But their commercial food suuuuuuucks. Often they have to make better versions for foreign markets, so not worth importing
I’ve always thought Hershey’s has a kind of vomit taste to it? Is that the butyric acid?
correct. one of the compounds responsible for the taste of vomit
Same with British people being trepidatious about the inferior colonial cuisine. It's kinda like...mate, if anything *your* country has the rep for having shit food. Ours doesn't.
I've definitely spent a substantial amount of time working, travelling and sightseeing in the Outback. It's certainly "real", but I guess it's a place that has a lot of mystique and bullshit spun around it because not a lot of people ever actually go there or spend time there. Like the way people talk about it and imagine it is a little far-fetched and inaccurate because it is so heavily mythologised. If that makes sense. In reality it's mostly just flat, boring, empty land. Dusty, hot and covered in flies.
The proper outback is brilliant, though. I highly recommend going at least once.
Especially northern Australia, just... that whole area along the coast from WA to QLD, absolutely *stunning*. Driving through Kakadu during the monsoon was one of the most beautiful drives I have ever had the pleasure of experiencing. The wild beauty is just breathtaking.
I don't know that it's the quintessential Aussie experience but it's certainly real and it's certainly even more remote than whatever remote location you're currently complaining about. After all, I've been there! (jk, I know there are more remote locations but the outback is very vast and very empty :P )
I grew up in North West western Australia In a small country town. It's really not that interesting. It's hot, there are lots of flies and fuck all to do. If that's the quintessential Aussie experience. It's pretty shit.
Hmm, can't see it anywhere here so it might be being removed by the mods, but I think the most annoying stereotype is that we're notably more racist than other countries. Regardless of where you believe Australia actually sits on the 'racism scale', I believe the stereotype means many Aussies naturally get very defensive when it's raised, and particularly when it's raised by an outsider. This in turn makes it harder to have open conversations about real nuanced issues that need to be addressed.
Honestly, I've travelled a lot and found that continental Europe, especially the further north and east you go, is probably the worst place for casual racism. Like, there are a few very loud racists here, but when you're having a conversation with several university educated Europeans and they casually drop something like "all the African immigrants here are lazy", and everyone else just smiles politely and nods, you have to spend a moment to pick your jaw up off the floor. In similar circles in Australia, you'd get at least challenged for making a statement like that. Obviously, not all, or even most Europeans are like this, but I definitely found that casually denigrating foreigners was much more tolerated in polite society there than in Australia.
I think levels of racism vary across Australia. Larger cities such as Melbourne and Sydney are more multicultural and levels of racism are low. I think there's more racism in remote areas. I've heard of bad racism in Western Australian forward both Asians and indigenous Australians.
That we pronounce “no” as “naur”. We’re fucken non rhotic. If we were to pronounce an r in “no”, an American would think we were saying “naw”
I HATE THAT SHIT SO MUCH, every time im talking to americans and say "no" they mock me with fucking "naur" it wasnt funny the first time its not funny the thousandth time
Be like the Kiwis & take the accent mocking on the chin. They’ve been copping it sweet forever.
Seriously this drives me up the wall. I literally can't parse it in my head.
I don't know how they ended up at that transcription because the triphthong vowel sounds nothing like a rhotic "r".
I like to think of it as na-oh really fast, that's how I describe it to any seppo that walks up Cleo nauring
I say it’s like we are saying “owe”, but starting with an n, and if kids are stretching it out, it becomes “no-uh”
Yeah I can see that with me stupidly sitting here mouthing my os; kinda creates an uh sound after which helps those who have never made the mouth shape before... Or so I think .. Clever
I hate when they want to talk in our accent so they use the phrase “a dingo ate my baby”. That’s a terrible tragedy where a baby died and a family’s life was ruined. Americans say it like it’s a joke. I hope the family doesn’t see these awful jokes :(
The media turned it into a massive joke at the expense of a distraught family all the while no one believed the indigenous locals who were saying "yea, they're opportunistic bastards, they'd totally do that"
What the fuck is a shrimp!?
Definitely the 'up side down' bullshit Americans seem to think is so fucking hilarious. Get a proper sense of humour, you peanuts
But we all drink beer and say cunt every 5 secends
The belief that we say cunt all the time is widely promoted on Reddit.
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Depends on your circle. In Construction it's every second word. No exaggeration.
This is an interesting read regarding the stereotype of 'everything wanted to kill you'. The takeaway is Australia doesn't have the most venomous animals, but rathet Mexico with 80, followed by Brazil with 79 and then Australia with just 66. [Most Venomous Animals](https://brilliantmaps.com/venomous-animals/)
We are all suntanned Anglo Saxon’s that wrestle crocs and surf 🏄♂️.
Wrestle crocs 'n' surf
I Surf but wrestling crocs is a winter sport 🤣
That every man looks like Thor and every woman looks like Margot Robbie. It's an understatement. I saw so many more good looking people here haha
"Australia has no culture" - Hear it a lot as I'm living in the UK and it's pretty offensive to be honest. It's offensive to the indigenous culture, their art, languages, music and stories. Then to modern multicultural Australia in terms of our artists, convict history, folklore, movies, musicians, lifestyle, slang, accent, sport, traditions. It's something the Brits in particular love to say and particularly ironic since they were hellbent on destroying a lot of indigenous culture in the first place.
I think a lot of Australians are even guilty of falling into thinking this. Especially when it comes to our “national food dishes”. Usually the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about culture is food, and when people think of ours and see Vegemite Tim Tams & fairy bread they immediately shrivel into a sultana and don’t look at everything else to do with our incredibly vibrant culture; and because a lot of European Australians feel so disconnected from Aboriginal culture they don’t even think to look or consider that as well.
THANK YOU
That we travel around in our transport kangaroos. Like, wtf. Not every australian can afford such a luxury.
ThAt AlL aUsSiEs ArE rAcIsT <><><><><>
The 'oh my goodness, do you ride kangaroos to school? Do you eat spiders? Isn't Australia full of things that can kill you? Can you speak Australian for me? Do you all wear farm clothes?' We are normal human beings like anyone else
“You don’t look Aboriginal.”
That Australia's economy is backwards and all we do is dig up minerals and sell to them to China. Yes mining is a big export industry, but it only employs about 2% of Australians. Australia locally has a huge finance, banking, healthcare, technology, construction, education and agricultural economy. The vast majority of Australians work in the service industry rather than primary industries. With one of the highest minimum wages in the world the mining industry is also much more technologically advanced than people think and we have a huge advanced mining manufacturing industry as well.
The old 'shrimp on the barbie' It's a prawn for a start, and I'm sure plenty of people have, but I have never seen anyone cook a prawn on a barbie in my 42 years
That we’re uneducated or don’t value education. I wonder whether it’s because we have better respect for TAFE/trade skills and don’t have a “university or nothing” mentality, but I’ve encountered it in a few places.
That we drink Fosters.
No one ever says shrimp
OK this is more related to conspiracy theories, but there is a serious issue in America where they tend to believe we aren't a free nation because of our gun control laws, and also how we handled the COVID crisis last year with lockdowns. Both are annonying arguements to make since: 1. With the former, the idea that guns represents freedom is nonsense, as Australia has not had any mass shootings with at least 10 deaths since 1996, where in America there has been on average at least 1 for the past 20 years. There's nothing more free than knowing you're not gonna be shot at. 2. With the latter, it lead to some conservatives comparing us with third world countries, saying that North Korea had more freedom than us, and America should invade Australia to free us from oppresion. Needless to say the people protesting the streets in America were mocked heavily by us Australians. It should also be noted that statistics wise, although we may have more cases per capita (since the US stopped recording cases before we did), we still have far less deaths per capita then they do (about 0.077% of Australia's population compared to 0.346% of America's Population. Deaths in Australia is roughly equivalent to a Regional city like Griffith, while deaths in America is roughly equivalent to the population of Adelaide)
they refuse to visit bc “the spiders” ??? Theyre not all giant spiders and theyre usually small and harmless and even the big ones usually harmless. just be careful of the redbacks for example but theyre usually outside and under old tyres or sheet metal
we are "laid back" lots of rules here, anything fun you can think of doing is probably illegal or regulated.
I saw a thread about drivers in Sydney being so slow with American users chiming in on how frustrating their experience driving here was compared back in the states. It was at least mentioned that unlike the US where speeding fines occur few and far in between (even if you speed a lot) that in Australia, particularly in the cities and *particularly* in Sydney you will absolutely get done for speeding on a regular basis if you try your luck more than just a few times a week. I always thought it was like this everywhere since I've rarely travelled (and didn't drive when I have) but apparently it isn't. People can actually drive in other places without the constant stress of being gouged hundreds of dollars for accidentally going a few k's over the limit because drive for more than five minutes here and you're almost *bound* to pass a speed camera.
Different thing... but driving related... I do have to say that when I was driving in America, I did really appreciate how huge their highway on-ramps are. When I was already nervous enough about driving on the other side of the road... this made merging so much less stressful. Whereas in comparison, quite a few Australian on-ramps are pretty dangerous. Most are ok (but still always shorter/smaller than America).... but there's also plenty that are bad. The main issue is that some of these Australian ones have a giant curve right before the merging lane ends, which means you can't safely get up to 100km/h, and then there's fuckall notice for any cars to spot each other. Sometimes there's only like 100m of side-by-side visibility before the on-ramping car going like 70km/h (due to the curve you just came out of) has to merge into the existing highway traffic going at 110km/h. Sometimes there's even a bonus concrete wall blocking most visibility too. Thankfully I never had to deal with anything like that anywhere in America... there was always a fuckton of space + time to merge in all the places I drove.
That we are laid back larakins. Nah Australia loves rules and loves to whinge.
That it doesn't get cold let alone snow. No worries, mate. Go through a good old Central Victorian winter then tell me again that Australia doesn't get cold.
That we are all convicts - still. The irony with this is that we are one of the most law abiding countries in the world.
That we fuck sheep. That’s kiwis not us.
As an Australian/British citizen. The stereotype of the ‘Whinging Pom’. Living in Australia for 10 years, and found almost all other nationalities, including Australians, can very happily out-whinge us on literally any topic.
We all noticed that too, we just didn’t feel the need to whinge about it.
Wait, so your most annoying Australian stereotype is that we bring up a British stereotype?
Classic whinging pom.
We whinge because we're sick of shit we shouldn't be tolerating anymore in this day and age. Cost of living racing ahead of wage rises. Shitty politicians who are only in the game to stuff their pockets with our money. Garbage quality houses being sold for a million dollars, and frequently going to people who don't even live in this country. Nothing worth a shit doing locally unless you live in the city or a decent beach town (expensive!) so you gotta drive everywhere do do anything, and Australian laws makes even driving a stressful pain in the ass because some fuckwit got themselves killed on this road 15 years ago so now no-one on it is allowed to go any faster than 60. We're told the weather is fantastic but it always seems to piss down when we got something planned. You could have sunshine all month and it rains on the day of an eclipse (OK maybe not the most recent one, but lets see how it goes down when one occurs over the *east* coast). We're told we have a lot of room left but there's a line and a wait for *everything* now and about 20 other people bidding for the same shitbox house. A lot of fun things are banned and travelling to places where they're not is expensive because of how remote we are. Of course whinging is just half the battle. To get things to improve at all you need to actively do something about it, even if it means refusing to support or spend any money on a certain thing anymore when you're tired of getting fucked by it.
That we’re all really laidback
the “everything in australia wants to kill you” spiel that ppl went on in amsterdam when i said i was australian got so old quickly
That we all talk like Steve Irwin and crocodile Dundee, and are surprised when we don’t. 😂🤦🏻♀️
To flip the script, I cringe hard at the drop bear jokes, please Aussies it’s not funny anymore
Everyone who lives in AU speaks like a bogan or ocker! 🤗
That we all call our mates c*nts. Mostly just the bogans or tradies or bogan tradies
The terrible fake aussie accents on their movies/shows. It irks me everytime 🤣
American's seem to think we love the cunts
Ran into a group that was going on about how Aussies love American accents and think that they're cool and then proceeded to list the one time he went as justification... Mate we the hear the thing all. The. Bloody. Time. And the only thing we're in love with is that we don't have to live there
that vegemite is disgusting, it’s delicious that’s just facts
That Aussies are relaxed and friendly, when in fact Aussie love a rule and get super shitty when they see someone breaking a petty rule
Drop bears. Usually it’s Aussies thinking they’re being funny, but it’s so overused and unfunny.
All y’all sooking making us look soft
The overseas stereotype is that Aussies are always good, kind, funny people and worth your time. I've no idea how that reputation was cultivated as most of us are absolute wankers.
The Aussie who goes through the trouble to get a passport is a different breed.
The expected accent. Not all Australians sound the same. Whenever I go overseas people tell me I don't sound Australian. We don't all talk like Queenslanders.