Canadians Understand Americans, But Americans Are Ignorant About Canada
Canadians get mad at Americans for not knowing anything about us. Can we blame them? We don’t care about our own things. Americans don’t know anything about our politics, but we know all about theirs. How rude! The least they could do is find out who our Prime Minister is. Sure. But how many Canadians know ANYTHING about our Prime Ministers policies? Do most of us even care? Could a lot of Canadians point out exactly where Medicine Hat is on a map without much thought? I doubt it. And still, we’ll get upset when Americans don’t know these same things. It doesn’t make sense.
Canadians know more about American politics than our own. Why? Because America is a show that Canada watches daily. Everyday, America is on Canadian television. People sit around and talk about what is happening in America. Some conversation happens about what’s going on in Canada, but not NEARLY as much as talk about America. Canadians talk constantly about what is happening in America, but get upset when America doesn’t know anything about Canada. We don’t even spend much time talking about us. Why should anyone else do it?
Most Americans don’t know where The Maritimes are, or how far Toronto and Vancouver really are from each other. So what? The Maritimes are a fantastic part of the world. Vancouver is a gorgeous city. Who cares if anyone knows anything about these places!? A lot of people do, and they love it! I don’t know anything about Sweden. Pretty much nothing, and that doesn’t change how Sweden is. Also, there are people in CANADA who don’t know anything about The Maritimes. When I lived in Toronto, people said to me countless times, ‘I’ve been out East. I went to Montreal.’ Montreal is not ‘out east’. There is a lot more east of that city, but some people in Toronto thought that past Montreal there was just fog. My old manager at a job I worked at said, ‘You’re from Nova Scotia? Doesn’t everybody fuck their cousin out there?’ That’s people in the country not knowing anything about parts of it. People who are an hour flight away knowing nothing about a part of their own country, and we want another country to know things about it?
If countries were people, America would be Vince McMahon. America is the greatest promoter on the planet. It gets its name to every corner of the world constantly. It tells us this person or that person is the best singer? Then that’s what we believe. And Canada hinges a lot on America for that type of thing. We don’t big up our own people until America says they’re cool, then we’ll run right behind them and say, ‘Did you know he’s from Duck Latte, Saskatchewan? Well he is.’ If Justin Bieber had not been discovered by Americans, he wouldn’t be close to as big as he is now. Not even in Canada would he be big! Same as Drake. It took American’s telling us that they are great to get us to say, ‘Yeah! They are! And they’re also Canadian!’ If Justin Bieber had stayed in Canada he’d be a super talented person who worked during the day at a Roots store. He’d be singing at the grand opening of a mall, then walking into a store to fold shirts.
One reason Americans don’t take our stuff seriously? We don’t. CANADIANS make fun of Canadian television. CANADIANS. We make fun of our own stuff and we expect other people to pay attention to it? A lot of Canadians don’t watch Canadian television simply because it’s Canadian. That’s it. Not because it’s not good. Some Canadian shows have been great. But a lot of Canadians won’t watch it simply because it was made in our country. Sometimes, if the same show had been made in America, Canadians would have loved it.
“Ah, god. I’m not watching a show called ‘Canadians doing Canadian things’. This is terrible.”
“Yeah. It’s a weird show. It’s about Canadians, but it was made in America.”
“Huh. America, eh? I’ll give it a shot.”
Turn on a TV in Canada. What will you see? Even on Canadian Networks? About 95% of the programming is American shows. Of course we know about America and they don’t know about us! We’ve been stalking them for years!
It’s very strange that we want America’s approval so bad. Why do we feel we have to be America’s little brother? Always watching what’s America is doing, personally hurt when we find out that they don’t care about what we are up to. Why does it have to be that way? Canada is an amazing place. It’s a beautiful country that I’m happy to be from. Why does it matter whether or not America knows or care about what happens there? WE should care more about it! We should on our own!
America is not going to care about, or know anything about Canada probably ever. One reason is that in America, America is taught to love America. Fine. Other reason? Canada doesn’t really care about what it’s doing. If you don’t care about something you’re doing, nobody will. That is how things work. If you don’t care about your appearance, nobody else will. If you don’t care about something you’ve created, nobody else will. If you don’t believe in what you’re saying, people don’t pay attention to you. Canada has to care about Canada before Americans will.
Why do we in Canada care what America knows about us? If you knew a bunch about someone in real life, and they didn’t know anything about you, would you be mad? No. You’d continue to focus on what you are doing. Who cares what they know about you? It doesn’t change anything. We all know a lot about Miley Cyrus. Anyone mad that she doesn’t know anything about us?
“I know who Miley Cyrus’s dad is, and I’ve seen her fallopian tubes, and she doesn’t even know that I just got a promotion at work?! What a horrible person.”
America is not a terrible place for not knowing about Canada. It is what it is. Canada is a beautiful place that should be more into what it is and what it’s doing.