Podcast - When ignorance becomes funny
February 1st, 2007I conducted this podcast in my college campus. It’s about 10 minutes long, and I assure you, it’s worth a listen.
They all think I’m being serious, when really, I’m making a joke out of their cluelessness of current events and geography. Let me know what you think.
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hahahahhahaa… too funny
Kinda sand considering these are Americans university students. Ahh the great American education system they gloat about 24/7.
Why do people say America got the best education system in the world?
Ohh… Rick Mercer will be proud.
Actually some of these weren’t Americans. At some point I told a Brazilian guy that Bahrain is the second biggest city in Peru and he said, “true but I’ve never been there.”
And not all believe me, either, I just record the ones who do. Every now and then I would try my luck with a nerd.
I only did this because the majority kept believing everything I say. I should go around and ask the staunch pro-Iraq war supporters to name the countries that border Iraq. Oh man, I’m laughing already.
Haha, that was rediculously funny! I can’t believe you didn’t burst out laughing during at least half of those. I think the conversation about the Iraqi invasion of Canada was possibly my favorite. Nice job!
You are amazing.
Though I disagree with people throwing insults at Americans, most people are pretty ignorant of other people’s cultures, Americans just happen to get a worse rap for it.
Keep up the amazing work, I’m off to offend some useless New Yorkers.
Thanks Justin.
I think this is a stereotype. Like I said not all of these people were Americans, I’ve seen worse from other countries.
The thing about making fun of Americans is because they claim to be superior to everyone else. If they are superior, shouldn’t they know more about what they are involved with than the rest?
So Im from north Korea and occupied by Jap’s from saudi?
Tell me that one of them figured out that you are bluffing?
Alia, I have to be too serious for this. If I do as much as smile, the whole thing can blow off. I look stressed, serious, and I actually have a typed sheet (in Arabic) with lines so it looks like I actually put in the effort. It’s very hard to doubt me!
This one was over-funny - you can make believe & sign them ‘anything’ - (said the devil to the student: “please sign here to bequeath your soul to me to help the poor starving children of Bangladesh & Danmark” - said the young innocent student “of course - on which line should I sign?”) -
Anyway this was the first time a podcast made me really laugh here in mideastyouth…
No Jina - my expecience in the USA & with a lot of average Americans was, that they feel too superior & proud of their own country, to care to know about all those other banana republics of the world, like old fashioned Europe & all those other fairytale countries - There is USA with frontiers to Canada & Mexico - what else does an American citizen need to know? .
-A friend of mine (here in Germany) she had a lover from the American army (GI) & once she was so shocked, that this’Jack’ didn’t even know where Russia is situated. - She wondered: “What do they learn in school there?”
This is so hilarious. You should turn this into a big radio show. I’d pay for it!
LOL this is so damn hilarious!
It’s so amazing that many of them actually had no clue. Unbelievable! I mean seriously I don’t understand how such people managed to get into university.
Only requirement you need to have to get into a university is that you must have money. Knowledge or intelligence have nothing to with anything.
Most Americans I met think Canadians speak Canadian. And great majority can’t tell if Canada is in the north or the south, yes they mix up Canada with Mexico. Kinda sad.
This reminds me of a conversation I had with a 17 year old American kid few years ago
It went something like this.
Him: where you from?
Me: Canada
Him: wow your English is good
Me: ….
Him: Don’t you guys speak Canadian?
Me: there is no such language called Canadian
Him: Then what’s that language… (he kept on going on)
Me: French?
Him: YES
Me: Only about 1/3rd of us speak that, majority speak English
Him: I hate my history teacher, she taught me this crap…
This is the thing, his HISTORY teacher? Shouldn’t a history teacher know more? If you study history, you’ll know that Canada or what was before it has always been America’s best friend. How the fuck do you not learn this shit.
Anyways… another incident… several years ago a couple pulled up beside several of us with their SUV and asked us for direction to a good skiing spot. My friend got all smart ass about it and took out a map and told them to drive north. He was talking about the North Pole obviously and they didn’t realize it so they thanked us and left… this was during summer time btw.
We didn’t talk about this until few hours later when we realized it and laughed our asses off. That was bizarre.
I used to work in a restaurant in a tourist location. American tourists always ask me when it’s going to snow. Again it was in the middle of a summer.
What the fuck wrong with Americans? This is not about geography, do they expect the fucking temperature to drop to minus gazillion when they cross the fucking border?
Have fun
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhTZ_tgMUdo
Americans are so ignorant, they don’t know anything other than the stuff that concern them DIRECTLY! For example, watch this video too…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCkYfYa8ePI
man you were just soooo good doing this … i didn’t know people have an American accent in Switzerland!!!
and yeah i believe Bahrain was reallocated from japan and japan has been occupying china for 35 years so please sign this petition for liberating china which is part of Korea and Korea belongs to Bahrain LOL
[...] 26th, 2007 by d. I stumbled across this podcast from a great site called Mideast Youth. In this podcast, Esra’a asks a number of students in [...]
[...] stumbled across this podcast from a great site called Mideast Youth. In this podcast, Esra’a asks a number of students in [...]
[...] was listening to this podcast today, it’s about a college student making interviews with American students, it’s [...]
Hey Esra’a, thats some funny stuff. Although the “America- Fuck Yeah” in me says that I shouldn’t laugh at the ignorance of some of my fellow countrymen, I just couldn’t help it. Is it sick that I laughed harder because I recognized a couple of the voices?
Esra,
Are people ignorant and stupid? Or do they just not care? Experiments in psychology show that we tend to not think rationally and go with biases, stereotypes, heuristics, and what have you when you’re not in a cognitively ideal position (e.g. you’re in a hurry, you’re distracted, you don’t care, etc.). So blindly accepting what someone says to you - especially when you put on a very sad and serious face asking them to do something trivial to them - is the natural reaction when 1) you don’t care about what someone says to you; and 2) you might hurt someone’s feeling by doubting him/her.
Also, people are in general trusting of others, especially of peers. So when you go up to them with a serious face and ask them to do you a quick favor of little importance to them, of course they’d say, “Sure!” Is that ignorance? Maybe. Or just good ol’ trust? The problem here is that you have two variables at work, and you can’t just conclude, Oh they are stupid/ignorant/etc. If you had instead asked straightforwardly, “True or false: is Bahrain…?” and had them answered, that would’ve been more indicative of their knowledge (or lack thereof) of current events.
Anyway, it seems more reasonable to conclude that Americans just don’t really care about what’s going on in the world. But does that tell us anything about their intelligence? (which segues well into the next part…)
Jina,
Why do you suppose that the knowledge of current events and geography is indicative of one’s intelligence? You can imagine, for example, a mathematical genius so wrapped up in his world of mathematical theorems and problems and doesn’t know and doesn’t give a shit about current events. Is he therefore stupid? Just because he doesn’t know something that most people know? As an illuminating anecdote, Einstein had a problem distinguishing his own house. And because he doesn’t know what most people should know (his own house’s location) is he thereby stupid? Obviously not. You shouldn’t make sweeping comments especially when the assumption you’re making is a faulty, untenable one.
Alina,
You should be a bit careful when referring to races; e.g. the Japanese, instead of “Jap’s” [sic].
I don’t think any of this has anything to do with trust. Half of the people I asked were total strangers. So where does “trust” play a role in this? Do you trust anyone with a serious face who asks you to sign a petition in order to end a non-existent war somewhere?
The podcast is meant to be humorous, not stereotypical. I am unsure why people are making this about Americans since it wasn’t only Americans who were involved in the podcast - there were also Swedes, a French girl and a Brazilian.
Finally, this was hardly about intelligence. The podcast title reads, “when ignorance becomes funny” and not “when stupidity becomes funny.” I am aware that “stupid” and “ignorant” are not the same thing, but for me, both are equally hilarious. There’s no need to take this podcast seriously and try to analyze it beyond belief. The point is just to laugh and move on.
Esra,
Taking each of your paragraphs in turn:
1) It has everything to do with trust. Maybe I wasn’t clear on the term “trust.” When people communicate - either between strangers or acquaintances or friends - we are disposed to believe what they say at face value, unless the person you’re interfacing with looks suspicious/sketchy/etc. All other things being equal, we tend to believe other people and not doubt them. And as for “a non-existent war somewhere,” like I said, there’s always that lingering possibility that you might be wrong, that you might not be aware of such a war. And hey, it’s just signing your name, right? Believe what this person says and do a quick favor, or try to get into an argument with her and risk being wrong and/or hurting her? Obviously people would do the former. So the point is that it may not be just ignorance that’s making people behave as they do.
2) Well then the reasonable conclusion to draw from this is: college students (in the U.S.?) don’t care about current events.
3) Intelligence. I was responding to other people’s comments. But there is something iffy about laughing at people’s apparent ignorance when, as 1 above shows, it could be a result of “trust” in taking your words at face value. I don’t have any problem with the podcast - none at all, really, and I rather think it’s clever and entertaining- but I did have problems with some of the comments here that are sadly and unnecessarily biased, intolerant, and hostile toward Americans (and no, I’m not an American) and it makes me think that those commentators found this “funny” and “hilarious” because they just hate America (which, btw, is understandable) and it gave them an opportunity to feel superior to those American college students (who, btw, are not responsible for what America is doing in the Middle East and elsewhere) for knowing something they didn’t. And I’m not insinuating that’s the case with you, of course.
that’s all
1) To me, it has nothing to do with trust, and everything to do with sheer ignorance. Do you trust anyone who comes up to you and talks to you about China being blown up, or Saudi being the capital of Japan? If so, then I think it’s absurd, don’t you? Wouldn’t you expect people of this status to know more than they do about the world around them?
2) “college students (in the U.S.?) don’t care about current events.”
This podcast was not recorded in the US.
3) I personally think there’s nothing wrong with laughing at ignorance. Why should there be? Because people have “trust issues” with strangers? Do you also blindly sign every petition people give you because you “trust” them? Just makes no sense to me. I don’t believe this type of ignorance should be justified at all, especially if they are college students who have a duty to keep up with these sorts of current events, and of geography in general. I think what’s worse than this ignorance is people attempting to justify it. Instead you should wonder why people have gotten so comfortably numb when it comes to knowledge and the happenings of the world around them, especially people with a lot of access to education (i.e, average college students.)
Esra’a, you’re a freggin genius! I especially liked the part about your shoephobia haha classic!
Btw, what country/region was this podcast recorded?
[...] this podcast has moved to this new site, the podcast’s comments were previously listed here.] Ignorant people are funny [10:12m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | [...]
Well done on the geography thing,good for you.Personally I struggle knowing left from right most days,humour is different tho from place to place and it was in no way offensive,well not to me,Im not American-im crap at geography tho
How many didn’t fall for it? What percentage did? And is that percentage any different from say, Bahrainis, or Nepalese, or… when confronted with similar fake news from other countries? I find these types of things to be funny, but also mean-spirited, offensive, and often so tendentious and biased as to be meaningless. Granted, US geographic knowledge is bad, but what is to be gained, what good is done, when people are humiliated like this?
Sangi the answer to your question had already been expressed somewhere within the comments. If you found it offensive, that’s fine, I can see why, but it doesn’t make me hesitate to publish this. I in fact would love to work on a sequel.
This is, purely, for the laughs. Did I acknowledge it was mean? Yes, I did, several times during the podcast. Was the target “Americans?” No, the student body was international.
Was it supposed to be FACTUAL? No.
But the leval of ignorance was a bit high. Come on, Canadian invasion of Iraq? You don’t have to laugh along at this, you can be offended and claim this is “meaningless,” but it at least inspired me to pick a book and read it.