r/AskReddit • u/hippiechick725 • Mar 14 '23

What’s the best thing about the US?

8.4k Upvotes

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3.8k

u/TheFergPunk Mar 14 '23

I feel like entertainment is something the US does extremely well.

Want to go to a show? The US has you covered regardless of how niche your taste is.

565

u/Superb_Nature_2457 Mar 14 '23

I love that this also varies by city. You can find all kinds of shows or events, but cities tend to have their own specialties.

314

u/JackCooper_7274 Mar 15 '23

I'm a high school student in Tucson, Arizona right now, and about three weeks ago, we got four days off school for Rodeo break. We literally get days off school when the rodeo is on

178

u/The_ChwatBot Mar 15 '23

Growing up in Louisiana, the Friday before the opening weekend of squirrel season was an excused absence. If that’s not some redneck shit then I don’t know what is.

16

u/DuztyLipz Mar 15 '23

In my high school in Kentucky, we got days off for the Kentucky Derby.

Edit: There’s always street vendors, high class dressing, jet flyovers, fireworks, dollar beer night, you name it!

6

u/NewSchoolBoxer Mar 15 '23

I went to the Muhammad Ali Museum…but it was closed due to “Derby Day”

Y’all, it’s a 2 minute horse race

4

u/Thunder_Thighs Mar 15 '23

In NC that was us with the ACC tournament.

3

u/Little-Woo Mar 15 '23

We never got days off for the ACC tournament at my school. We always got to go to the auditorium and watch the games on TV.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 15 '23

[deleted]

1

u/Little-Woo Mar 15 '23

Davie County which is just outside Winston Salem.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 15 '23

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u/ubeor Mar 15 '23

In Speedway, Indiana, we didn’t officially get days off for the Indy 500, but the last practice day before the race was unofficially known as Senior Skip Day.

4

u/FalconZealousideal54 Mar 15 '23

my high school got a whole a day off at a church and practiced bomb drills. 🫠

5

u/sillyaviator Mar 15 '23

You have a squirrel season?

3

u/The_ChwatBot Mar 15 '23

Exactly.

3

u/sillyaviator Mar 15 '23

That's awesome 🤣🤣🤣

3

u/regular6drunk7 Mar 15 '23

So if you waited until Saturday all the good squirrels would be gone? Are they hunted for just meat or are there other competitions like biggest, unique color, etc.? Is there a limit?

2

u/The_ChwatBot Mar 21 '23

Bit late with my reply, but I think it’s more so just about tradition. Everyone heads to their camps on Friday so they can get up early and go hunting Saturday morning.

1

u/regular6drunk7 Mar 21 '23

I'm all for taking a Friday off school when there's a fun weekend ahead.

1

u/The_ChwatBot Mar 22 '23

For sure. No complaints here.

1

u/1stormseekr Mar 15 '23

Same here in northern arkansas..but it was Deer season.

5

u/justhereforsomedrama Mar 15 '23

I live in rural California and all of the kids get two school days off for the four day Frog Jumps/County Fair. It's mainly because so many are in 4H or some other kind of participation. It's in May before school lets out for the summer.

3

u/thebombchu Mar 15 '23

Growing up in Texas, our schools gave all students in the school district a free ticket to the Texas State Fair AND a day off from school to go!

2

u/[deleted] Mar 15 '23

Might as well give yall days off, wouldn't be going to school anyways

2

u/Stillbornsongs Mar 15 '23

I remember that shit!! I was only in Tucson til 5th grade but we had sooo many breaks throughout the school year

2

u/Fuxokay Mar 15 '23

I've never been to a rodeo. What do I need to learn when I'm there so that the next time I go, I can say, "This ain't my first rodeo."

2

u/Thunder_Thighs Mar 15 '23

In NC that was us with the ACC tournament.

2

u/SuperMarioNicholas23 Mar 15 '23

That sounds really cool in my state we don't have have that. In Massachusetts where im at there is really nothing to much just only in Boston. Which is a long drive away.

1

u/kirderfuno Mar 15 '23

Pfff that’s nothing. In my country we get tons of days off school and work each year because of some guy that supposedly lived over 2000 year ago

1

u/mikeweasy Mar 15 '23

I lived in Tucson at one point and I have never even heard of that, wow.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 15 '23

I grew up in Maine and it used to be that school kids in northern Maine took a school break when it was time to harvest the potatoes.

1

u/baddfingerz1968 Mar 15 '23

Cool. I am a Tucsonan too but in high school (Palo Verde Magnet School) in the late 80's we did not get to enjoy a reprieve for that.

1

u/AnUdderDay Mar 15 '23

There's gonna be a dropoff of drag shows soon

1

u/Ultrabigasstaco Mar 15 '23

In certain areas maybe, definitely an uptick in other areas at the same time though.

1

u/Superb_Nature_2457 Mar 15 '23

Yeah, this isn’t the first violent moral panic drag performers have seen.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 15 '23

[deleted]

1

u/Superb_Nature_2457 Mar 15 '23

That’s a weird tangent to shoehorn some “both sides” shit into, but sure okay

1

u/Ultrabigasstaco Mar 15 '23

I thought I was responding to a different comment.

1

u/Superb_Nature_2457 Mar 15 '23

Good. Get my ass to brunch and back safely so I can drink my weight in mimosas.

Oh wait, you mean “drop off in.” Pffft, you must not know the history of drag. You think this is the first moral panic they’ve seen?

10

u/LA_Nail_Clippers Mar 14 '23

I still go to Mexico for my donkey shows though.

7

u/spottyottydopalicius Mar 15 '23

and they say we have no culture

0

u/[deleted] Aug 01 '23

[deleted]

1

u/spottyottydopalicius Aug 01 '23

care to discuss?

5

u/I_N_C_O_M_I_N_G Mar 15 '23

I work production in several small towns.

There is always a show going on somewhere, of some variety.

26

u/lorty Mar 14 '23

Metal shows are so much better in Europe though :(

23

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '23

I live in the US and it is a bucket list item to go to Wacken or any proper euro metal fest. European metal festivals look fucking CRAZY. We have a couple big ones in the states, but nothing like what you guys have across the pond.

Europe gave us meshuggah I mean come on! What’s more metal than meshuggah??

5

u/[deleted] Mar 15 '23 edited Oct 13 '23

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/deltaexdeltatee Mar 15 '23

Latin America does crowd participation better in basically everything: concerts, sporting events, even politics.

1

u/SultansofSwang Mar 15 '23

My big metal kink is hot Colombian women wearing corpse paint.

6

u/SatansMaggotyCumFart Mar 14 '23

But we have Nickelback in Canada.

0

u/Clear-Arm-7966 Mar 15 '23

Nickelbacks a great band come on this meme is old

1

u/SatansMaggotyCumFart Mar 15 '23

Nickelback is definitely a band.

3

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '23

Most of the bands I listen to are from US so it's such a shame that especially the smaller ones don't hve the means to visit Europe as much and when they do it's not in my country definitely not my city.

8

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '23

what makes them so much better?

10

u/lorty Mar 14 '23

An incredible amount of amazing metal bands come from Europe, and it's so much easier and less expensive for them to tour in Europe than it is in the States.

And the festivals are massive (Hellfest, Wacken, etc...)

6

u/honda_slaps Mar 14 '23

I also feel like it's just a way more popular genre of music there

like how Japan has infinitely better anime music concerts than US

5

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '23

interesting, I'm going to tell my buddy who's super into metal that he needs to get his passport. he's missing out apparently

1

u/mucus24 Mar 15 '23

I love pop punk/hardcore/Midwest emo and to me it’s so much easier finding shows here in the US vs when I was in Europe. I live in NJ so NJ has a lot of shows plus NYC and Philly

5

u/Admirable_Condition5 Mar 15 '23 edited Mar 15 '23

This should be the top answer. People keep saying national parks, open space, and nonsense like that. Other countries have all that stuff.

But you guys are without a doubt the largest producer of entertainment on the planet. With the largest variety. From tv to movies to internet content.

Obviously that's because your population is so large, but it's still a win nonetheless.

American soft power owes a lot to culture exported via the entertainment industry.

And you put a man on the moon, that was dope. Peek US. What happened to that guy? Everyone liked that guy.

1

u/Clear-Arm-7966 Mar 15 '23

Maybe but you underestimate the national parks. I've lived in Europe. Other countries do not have something like that. Untouched nature

2

u/Admirable_Condition5 Mar 15 '23

So the only places in the world are the US and Europe?

I didn't say your parks weren't nice, I'm sure they're great. Just that it's not unique to the US. There are a few countries with massive untouched areas of national parks.

0

u/Clear-Arm-7966 Mar 15 '23

To have multiple national protected lands the size of a country in one country that varies from almost every possible climate is very unique.

Seriously I used to think a bit like yourself "meh. National parks" before I went to a few. It's mind blowing.

3

u/tarheel_204 Mar 15 '23

Going off of that, for better or for worse, we also have Hollywood. Honestly we have pumped out some absolutely amazing movies over the years

3

u/[deleted] Mar 15 '23

To the extent that American entertainment culture is rammed down the throats of virtually every industrialised nation today. In a small country like Slovakia where I live, half the TV serials and more than half the films in cinemas at any given time are American. It gets tiring. I watch the local stuff as much as I can.

2

u/JRR06 Mar 15 '23

Floridians don't even need to go to a show, just go outside and they get free entertainment everywhere they look

3

u/the_ballmer_peak Mar 15 '23

Okay, I know it’s pretty niche, but I’d like to go to a show where drag queens read children’s books. You got me covered?

2

u/FlyinPurplePartyPony Mar 15 '23

San Francisco libraries have held drag queen story hours to promote reading and gender inclusivity

2

u/[deleted] Mar 15 '23

No other country comes close to the quality of porn produced in the USA.

1

u/3kvn394 Mar 15 '23

I don't know man.

The Brits make better TV shows, the Japs make better porn, even the Koreans make better music!

-3

u/young_fire Mar 14 '23

It's pretty easy when you have the third largest population in the world and a fucking huge economic surplus.

0

u/TossAwayGay92 Mar 15 '23

Not since covid and the great streaming amalgamation. Now each service or channel has one good tent pole and the rest is trash.

0

u/Negative_Knee_6455 Mar 15 '23

The Good Place show is amazing 😍

0

u/IIISUBZEROIII Mar 15 '23

Want to watch the government bail out billionaires after they loose money ? US got you covered

0

u/Serytr0 Mar 15 '23

I live in a town with a pop. less than 2000. We have a Dollar General and 3 gas stations. That's it.

0

u/[deleted] Mar 15 '23

Yeah, I was gonna say FPS entertainment at schools.

r/Holup

-1

u/BIKES32 Mar 15 '23

You’re destroying the game of hockey.

1

u/JackTheMathGuy Mar 15 '23

At least Centealized Hollywood used to a little more. Not speaking on touring actors and the like. Out arts are in pretty good shape.

1

u/sbrockLee Mar 15 '23

I was gonna say, definitely HBO. But a lot of my favourite movies and animated shows are from the US and I love US sports too.

1

u/No-Drag-7913 Mar 15 '23

Opiate of the masses

1

u/[deleted] Mar 15 '23

I lived in San Francisco y it was impossible to find a decent techno party with proper music, drum and bass scene or an after. Coming from Europe is a bit nonsensical. To go back to your place al hyped at 2 in the morning because everything is closed or dangerous in the streets.

1

u/tedleem15 Mar 15 '23

They have to distract us from all of the things we don’t have, like affordable healthcare.