Has Europe "Americanized" throughout the 00s and 2010s?

[darklordoftech]

In the beginning of the 00s, most of Europe had a drinking age of 16, didn't bother IDing for alcohol purchases, allowed women to be topless on the beach, allowed breasts to be shown on tv, parents didn't subject their kids to much surveillance, porn magazins were on open display in stores, and parents let their kids drink. However, all that changed throughout the 00s and 2010s. Now, tv censors breasts, beachgoers are rude top topless women, the drinking age is a strictly-enforced 18, governments run ads saying that your kids will die if they drink, their media freaks out about "binge drinking", porn magazines are hidden, etc. Is the American media eroding their culture? Are American "experts" influencing European governments and society?

Also, I went to Paris in 2011 and there was nothing telling me that I was in France besides the Eiffel Tower. Everyone spoke English, the food was the same, the tv stations were in English, everyone dressed the same, etc.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

You're talking absolute rubbish.

[Middle-aged Europe]

You're talking absolute rubbish.

This.

[Tender Branson]

I don't exactly know where to start here, but ... we still have Krampus !





America can't kill the Krampus !

[Tender Branson]

If anything, the US has Europeanized lately ... playing more football (not the American version) and full-heartedly embracing our traditional far-right populism which led to the election of a fascist President.

[parochial boy]

You're talking absolute rubbish.

yeah, wtf? driking age is still 16 in Switzerland and France; topless women on beaches are fine - where are you getting this bollocks from?

[IceAgeComing]

Also, I went to Paris in 2011 and there was nothing telling me that I was in France besides the Eiffel Tower. Everyone spoke English, the food was the same, the tv stations were in English, everyone dressed the same, etc.

All of these points are quite clearly rubbish - the former is only the case in the tourist bits and its especially silly to say this about France of any country, French cuisine has had a strong impact on general Western cuisine (plus there quite clearly is a difference, even between Belgium and France); hotels will naturally offer English language television more than additional French language stuff, especially if its a tourist focused hotel - its not like your average French person is watching the BBC World Channels at all regularly - and what on earth are French people supposed to wear?  Its a bit like going to Scotland and complaining that you see no one wearing a kilt...

Besides, generally big cities are... different from the country that they are a part of.  London is very different from the rest of England; Berlin from the rest of Germany - hell, even Glasgow from the rest of Scotland.  To use an experience in one city and applying it to an entire continent is incredibly stupid - its a bit like using a week in Toronto to talk about all of North America.

[Consciously Unconscious]

Visiting a big tourist city in one country in Europe is a horrible way to judge the entire continent.  I've lived in Euope the past five months (a small town in Germany), and while there is definitely a large American/English language influence, your analysis is flawed.  I don't believe Europe is censoring nearly as many ads the US, and drinking culture is definitely very different. 

[vanguard96]

If anything, the US has Europeanized lately ... playing more football (not the American version) and full-heartedly embracing our traditional far-right populism which led to the election of a fascist President.

Millennials here in the US are similar to Europeans in supporting hate speech laws like those in Germany and the UK. They were behind the Bernie phenomenon here and the SJW on campus are getting so much undue attention for issues that many people consider as vacuous, first world problems - like bad Asian-inspired food at the cafeteria, Halloween costumes that young adults chose to wear, or wearing hoop earrings.

The phenomenon which is a major concern to me and others here is when you see right wing social conservatives on the same side with center left moral police - you see this in the War on Trafficking - largely an overstated a clamp down on consensual prostitution that ties everything back to protecting children to get people to pass more laws against behavior between two adults.

In the US some on the left talk of cigarette bans despite all the issues with alcohol prohibition and the current war on drugs. They have soda taxes - and pile on sin taxes even though the poor bear the brunt of it.

The current opioid epidemic is fueled out of criminalizing painkillers - doctors are so restricted in what they can give now and since other drugs that do the same thing are illegal they are not controlled for what is in them and thus many have died. The attitude taken by moralizers on the right and left is to 'do something' about it - that means keeping the status quo on street drugs and increasing penalties and reducing the supply of legal painkillers. I like what Portugal did in this regard by decriminalizing all drugs but so few countries are taking this tack. It is an uneasy alliance of the moralizers.

In Europe you see this with the burqa bans in Belgium and France where anti-Islamic nationalist right wing social conservatives ally with feminists against the persecution of women by traditional Muslims in their countries.

Basically - state authoritarianism and group think mentality - the left's petition, protest, shame, and share attitude combined with the nanny state. This is not an American thing or a European thing - it comes out of paternalism and viewing society in aggregate as more important than individuals.

[SNJ1985]

The whole world has been ''Americanized'' to some extent, given the influential position we've held for decades.

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

What

[Zinneke]

Also, I went to Paris in 2011 and there was nothing telling me that I was in France besides the Eiffel Tower. Everyone spoke English, the food was the same, the tv stations were in English, everyone dressed the same, etc.

All of these points are quite clearly rubbish - the former is only the case in the tourist bits and its especially silly to say this about France of any country, French cuisine has had a strong impact on general Western cuisine (plus there quite clearly is a difference, even between Belgium and France); hotels will naturally offer English language television more than additional French language stuff, especially if its a tourist focused hotel - its not like your average French person is watching the BBC World Channels at all regularly - and what on earth are French people supposed to wear?  Its a bit like going to Scotland and complaining that you see no one wearing a kilt...

Besides, generally big cities are... different from the country that they are a part of.  London is very different from the rest of England; Berlin from the rest of Germany - hell, even Glasgow from the rest of Scotland.  To use an experience in one city and applying it to an entire continent is incredibly stupid - its a bit like using a week in Toronto to talk about all of North America.

It says a lot about our big cities though that when the Americans come here it reminds some of them of home...

[IceAgeComing]

Not sure about that actually - makes sense if a person was brought up in a big city when you think about it.

Besides I think that its totally wrong; for me all of the European capitals I've been to (Berlin, Brussels, London, Paris) feel different to each other - especially Brussels and Paris although part of that might simply be living there versus being somewhere for a week.  The former feels a lot smaller; a lot more compact which I actually liked.

[parochial boy]

Not sure about that actually - makes sense if a person was brought up in a big city when you think about it.

Besides I think that its totally wrong; for me all of the European capitals I've been to (Berlin, Brussels, London, Paris) feel different to each other - especially Brussels and Paris although part of that might simply be living there versus being somewhere for a week.  The former feels a lot smaller; a lot more compact which I actually liked.

Not just that, but American cities can feel wildly different to each other as well. Somewhere like Boston resembles London to a freakish extent, but the difference between Boston, and say Oklahoma City is way bigger than between Boston and London.

I always feel that a lot of European cities feel somewhat alike though - if you go to Zagreb from Zurich, you get surprisingly little culture shock in terms of what they look and feel like, and they are very, very definitely not American cities.

[rosin]

In the beginning of the 00s, most of Europe had a drinking age of 16, didn't bother IDing for alcohol purchases, allowed women to be topless on the beach, allowed breasts to be shown on tv, parents didn't subject their kids to much surveillance, porn magazins were on open display in stores, and parents let their kids drink. However, all that changed throughout the 00s and 2010s. Now, tv censors breasts, beachgoers are rude top topless women, the drinking age is a strictly-enforced 18, governments run ads saying that your kids will die if they drink, their media freaks out about "binge drinking", porn magazines are hidden, etc. Is the American media eroding their culture? Are American "experts" influencing European governments and society?

Also, I went to Paris in 2011 and there was nothing telling me that I was in France besides the Eiffel Tower. Everyone spoke English, the food was the same, the tv stations were in English, everyone dressed the same, etc.

Well, you have a point in that drinking (and especially smoking) rules have been tightened many places in Europe in the last decades. But the rest of your post is exaggerated, to put it mildly

[darklordoftech]

In the beginning of the 00s, most of Europe had a drinking age of 16, didn't bother IDing for alcohol purchases, allowed women to be topless on the beach, allowed breasts to be shown on tv, parents didn't subject their kids to much surveillance, porn magazins were on open display in stores, and parents let their kids drink. However, all that changed throughout the 00s and 2010s. Now, tv censors breasts, beachgoers are rude top topless women, the drinking age is a strictly-enforced 18, governments run ads saying that your kids will die if they drink, their media freaks out about "binge drinking", porn magazines are hidden, etc. Is the American media eroding their culture? Are American "experts" influencing European governments and society?

Also, I went to Paris in 2011 and there was nothing telling me that I was in France besides the Eiffel Tower. Everyone spoke English, the food was the same, the tv stations were in English, everyone dressed the same, etc.

Well, you have a point in that drinking (and especially smoking) rules have been tightened many places in Europe in the last decades. But the rest of your post is exaggerated, to put it mildly

I left out smoking because America's smoking rules and laws have been tightened in the same time period and therefore I don't consider it "Americanization", but I do consider the tightening of drinking rules and laws to be "Americanization" because Europeans perceived Americans as prohibitionist puritans for so long.