Actually, Texas is fatter than average as far as states go (as are most Southern states) and Texas cities such as Houston, Dallas and San Antonio are some of the most overweight in the country.

Hey, I can only tell you what I've seen.

Though it does make sense that Houston would be the slobbiest place ever. Frikin' Houston....

Australia has just the heaps of stereotypes, but it gets way overused in movies and whatnot. I cringe every time

:lmao: < That was exactly what my face did when i saw that, well done, sir.

:foodndrink:

Stereotypes are fun.

Wonder why San Diego is in the top twenty-five fattest? You'd think being in such a great spot would make people less fat more fit.

Luckily, my city is the 17th most fit

Damn, Miami....you really let yourself go...

And New York, bro, you're worse than Houston. But better than San Antonio. That's ok. San Antonio is a tourist trap anyway.

As far as stereotypes go I actually enjoy and embrace the English one. Unfortunately it couldn't be further from the truth. >_>

So... British people aren't tea drinking snobs or Bowler-hat wearing thugs that participate in the fine sport of Ultraviolence? And Germans aren't the country, second only to Japan, known for exporting mega weird pormography?
I have learned so much.

(I really don't think anyone actually believes stereotypes. Even if they do they're idiots, whose opinion shouldn't matter to you anyway )

Anyway, I only really read the OP, so if this has been posted before, forgive me

Yeah. Still I find the whole 'local commercial' thing that America has going on rather weird, there's nothing like that here.

Stereotypes are distasteful and rude? This is news to me. I'm an equal opportunity offender.

I meant the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NRS_social_grade economic groups, which form the overwhelming majority of the population. Only 2% of the population is "upper class", and only a proportion of those would be able to afford to live without working.

My point being that Americans view Brits as being either posh people living in castles and having their own butlers, or loveable Cockneys with gorblimey accents like off Eastenders. Statistically speaking, the characters in The Office most accurately represent the average British experience.


So long as everyone resolves their differences with http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aS-gGYaA8F0 then we'll all be happy.


Nah, the rest of the world thinks of Californians as a sappy bunch of hippies.

I was having this conversation with Dan Ross the other day, and illustrated it by comparing two conversations I'd watched on television: the first was the Red Hot Chili Peppers describing how they welcomed a departed member back into the fold:

"And then he was crying and I was crying and then we hugged, and we prayed, and I said, 'I love you, man, come back into the band.'"

... and the second was Iron Maiden, telling a similar tale:

"So I took him down the pub, and we had a beer, and I said, 'Do you want to come back?' and he said, 'Yeah'."


http://www.visitbritain.org/mediaroom/pressreleases/welcome.aspx

We do hold true to the guy in yellow wooden clogs and denim overalls. They're kinda common around here.
And we like cheese, raw herring and super salty licorice..

..oh yeah, http://www.euinfrastructure.com/media/media-news/news-thumb/100428/wind-turbine.jpg, they've changed.

What I find weird is the presentation of the advert - 90s fonts etc.

That's just propaganda in the vein of "you've never had it so good". Most of those people are only one generation rmeoved from the factory floor, and would fit quite comfortbly into Orwell's "shivering army of clerks and shopkeepers".

:lol: I think it's been about a hundred years since most people worked in factories, though the "army of clerks and shopkeepers" description fits fairly well, but it's hardly Orwellian, is it? My friend loves working in a shop (only been there about ten minutes and they've already promoted him), and while most clerical/admin jobs are basically alike, there's nothing much wrong with them either. The worst thing you'll face all day is a papercut (or some absurd deadline from your David Brent of a boss) but if you went up to some chimney sweep from Victorian times and dared to complain that you spend all day typing emails to pass on requests from other people and making little graphs in Excel ("Gorblimey, Guvn'r, what's ecks-ell?") they'd think you're quite, quite mad.

Oh, and if you're shivering, for heaven's sake call maintenance and tell them the air-con's on the blink again.

I think all types of stereo-types are funny. wether their morally wrong or not(not), their still hilarious and people just need to take that poke-stick out of their ###.

The phrase was Orwell's, he was describing the people who are working class, but delude themselves into thinking otherwise because they presently own suburban homes and speak with more upper class airs. And I'll have you knwo, many of u still do work in factories, and those who mock papercuts have probably not realised just how sharp paper can be. Some of that industrial stuff can shear your thumb off if you're not careful.


The point was, many people sterotype the working classes as being manual labourers, and anything above that as being middle class. This is an American imported idea, while anyone wise to the differences in class can point out idiosyncrasies that go beyond mere wealth and accent.

Hellmouth and Rhekarid gave good examples of commonly accepted stereotypes I see in current media.

That's because your definition of "class" has been outmoded for 20-30 years.

Here, "class" is defined almost entirely by your job, but may indicate things like home ownership and education. What your parents did for a living is entirely irrelevant because that has almost no bearing on what you do for a living.

For example, my friend's parents were very "working class" and lived on a council estate. She speaks with a strong Cockney accent. However, my friend has a degree, owns her own home, does a technically-demanding job at management level ... there's no possible way you could describe her as anything but "middle class".


A statistically insignificant proportion. Most factories are largely automated, so they don't employ that many people. For example, during a previous economic crisis, car manufacturing was reduced, and about 6,000 people from that industry lost their jobs. Similarly, about 100,000 people from the banking industry lost their jobs.


Quite the reverse, in fact: the American model of "class" puts people as "working class" who in the UK would be "middle class".

The demographic model almost universally used these days in the UK simply says that anyone who is not a. unskilled/manual labour or b. unemployed is, by default, middle class. If you work in an office, you are middle class.

So, bringing it back on topic, whatever the stereotype of the average Brit is - of being posh with their own butler, or some Cockney like in Eastenders - the statistical, actual, average British person is probably a marketing assistant working in the insurance industry.

Spoken like a true Irishman.
Honestly, we're not offended by that stereotype, that is why. Has to do with the mentality - just like Jewish humour, the Irish one relies on the stereotypes of the country of origin as much as those of others.
(And I'm not offended because I'm from a pretty rural area and quite a bottle fairy, so there's that... ^^

http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs49/f/2009/195/c/c/No_invitation_by_humon.jpg ^_^

:laugh: But why is the German a Frenchman?

On the contrary, you can quite easily identify people's class independant of their income. With people working in the same job, you can pick out the ones who came from working class backgrounds, because they tend to maintain the accents and colloquialisms from their youth, while those who came from what were middle class families prior to 1970 will speak with plummier accents and generally use fewer swearwords, tending to hold themselves straighter. Those aspiring to middle class status will often look with some disdain on working class pastimes, while those who have been brought up working class will not be aware that their pastimes would be considered as such. If you are aware of these subtle differences, usually unique to the British class system, you can exploit them for your own benefit.



That is precisely the sort of person Orwell was referring to when he talked about the shivering army of clerks and shopkeepers. People who pretend that their lack of manual labour makes them middle class. Far from being outdated, the class system survives in the same form today as it did when he wrote that in 1937.

Either way, why put so much weight on class differences? It's not the 19th century any more.

Subconsciously, many do, especially in Britain. Especially in the white collar majority who cling to Heston Blumenthal as they once clung to their aspidistras. You can see it in the difference in clientele between coffee shops and pubs.