I'd rather be nice and loud than quiet and rude

Enough with the tired stereotypes

One of the most enduring, insulting, and frankly unhinged anti-American stereotypes is that Americans are sooo much louder than everyone else. You hear it every time you travel, especially in Western Europe, parroted on social media and declared with smug certainty by xenophobes the world over. Worst of all, thanks to our absolutely insufferable national shame kink, Americans insist on agreeing with and repeating the lie.

Anyone who thinks Americans are uniquely loud is telling on themselves. Tell me you’ve never met anyone Latin American, Irish, Italian, Balkan (or German, British, or Australian after one drink) without telling me. As someone who once spent six months attending government meetings in South Africa, trust me: if you think Americans are the loudest people in the room, you haven’t been in very many rooms.

Are Americans louder than the French? Or sober Brits and Scandinavians? Sure. So is everyone else. So let’s fully and finally dispense with the idiotic stereotype that only someone who’s never been to a Quinceañera could believe.

But let’s do a thought experiment. What if it were true? What if Americans were always the loudest people in the room (because, obviously, a nation of 300 million people can be summed up by one personality trait). Americans are also known, on both sides of the pond, for being extremely friendly and kind. I refuse to engage with the bizarre-yet-common claim that we are both outwardly warm and universally emotionally repressed. Only the most broken kind of xenophobe could believe that drivel. To them, I say: seek help.

I recently saw a reel (yes, I’m old, I watch Instagram reels instead of TikToks) showing the French flag as a bar graph of reasons to visit France. The blue was food, the green was people, and the red was wine. Get it? And this reel was made by a French guy, so don’t come for me.

There are plenty of countries that have reputations for being notoriously rude and unwelcoming, but they don’t get mocked nearly as often as we do for being “loud.” As if being joyful and friendly and happy is somehow worse than being cold or unpleasant. I once had a Scottish man scream at me—scream—because I said I liked Miami, even though it’s not walkable. And buddy, if you can’t have a good time in Miami, there’s something wrong with your soul. That wasn’t the first time, and it won’t be the last. But I’ll tell you this: I’d rather sit in a room with a hundred tables of loud Americans experiencing joy and camaraderie than endure one more person listing all the reasons they hate me based on where I happened to be born.

Mostly, though, it just makes me sad. Because they could be having a good time, too.

I spent a Saturday night in Vienna once and walked through the city center in silence. You could hear a pin drop. It was beautiful, sure. But it was also kind of depressing. Then I hopped on a train to Budapest and discovered life again- music, laughter, dancing, people actually living. There’s a reason every Reddit thread that asks “Vienna or Budapest?” gets the same answer: Budapest or nothing.

Why spend your life judging people for having fun when you could just join in? You will never regret drinking with the lads in an Irish pub (that’s a lie, you’ll regret it deeply the next morning, but you’ll still be glad you did it), going to a Chicano beach party, or quietly eating your pasta while an Italian family argues about literally anything. Life isn’t meant to be lived in whispers. It’s meant to be lived out loud.

And I’d rather be loud, friendly, joyful, chaotic, and full of life than silent, miserable, and rude any day.

Loudly yours,

Kat

PS. The Texas floods were devastating and the damage will take years to fix. HERE is a list of places you can donate to support the survivors.