The Hillbilly Viking

If you spend any amount of screen time reading news feeds and your algorithms indicate a travel bias, you’ll likely come across clickbait articles dissecting the differences between American tourists and European ones. And although admittedly amusing in part, the sites like Buzzfeed probably do more to reinforce cultural stereotypes than an ICE recruitment interview. Granted, one mentions ranch dressing and cargo shorts a bit more, but it still feels like a strawman, “them vs. us” setup. You can go back on this very blog and read posts where I engage in those same tactics for a cheap laugh, so I’m definitely not preaching from the mount here.

So why am I preaching at all? Well, maybe I’m a tiny bit wiser. I sure as shit feel a whole lot older. Maybe now that I’m facing the real prospect of becoming an immigrant, I’m beginning to get a glimpse of the opposing perspective. You know, “shoe on the other foot” and all that. Maybe I’m still a bit stoned from the tizanidine tablet I washed down earlier with a shot of Irish whiskey for back spasms, and I won’t even remember posting this.

Regardless, yes, differences do exist, but do they always need to be mocked? Acceptance hasn’t really caught on. Ever. So maybe we can just agree to ignore them. Most are just so insignificant in the first place. We all know that no group is homogenous nor perfect, but ironically, gross imperfection is the one thing that does seem to unite us. It’s our most accurate human stereotype. Why do we pick at it until it bleeds?

I regularly rave about how nice the Portuguese are (a bias of my own concoction), but I’ve certainly bumped into a few who have made me want to gamble my immigration eligibility for a quick throat punch. That says more about me than “them,” but if I dropped a random Portuguese into an American Walmart, I suspect her reactions might run the gamut from abundant friendliness to barely suppressible urges of violence as well. Details really don’t matter. We can all suck. It’s not about whether Americans talk too loudly or if Europeans really like wearing track suits? Maybe we should just be trying to live our best lives and trying even harder to keep a lid on our inner ass-face as much as possible? Our differences are far less distinguishable when we zoom out and lose focus of the details and the devil making mockery of them.

Sadly, that kind of holistic, Buddhist-y, woke shit doesn’t garner web clicks.

I’m done. Church is over. Enjoy these pretty pictures while we pass around the collection plate…