Every country is different and not everyone who lives in those countries necessarily thinks the same. It might be the norm to love football, but some people find the super aggressive fans embarrassing or aggravating.
*Content Warning: this article contains discussion of violence*
Reddit user u/Fededillerjohn asked:
"What makes you feel embarrassed by your own country?"
Switzerland
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Swiss people can be very close minded and behind on the times, yet people (especially online) always act like it's a super progressive and perfect country. But then, homosexual marriage is still not allowed, and in some parts women couldn't vote until the 90s.
Australia
That we lost a war against emu's. I mean seriously we are nation that produced the only force that had any impact at Gallipoli, the rats of Torbruk and we captured 100,000 Italian troops in WW2. But some large flightless birds? Nope didn't stand a chance. We were so desperate we asked the British for artillery.
A long list.
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It's a long list.
We're one of the most religious countries on earth; it's a dangerous place for women and we're homophobic AF. Our education scores are consistently at the bottom of the world rank. We sabotage sex-ed reform initiatives, which accounts for out high teen pregnancy rate. We have yearly 'cold' crisis in which the children living in the poorest areas literally freeze to death due to a lack of infrastructure, and we're patriotically blind about all of the above.
UK
It's a small thing, but I dislike how many British people enjoy showing how 'British' they are online. Making memes about the weather, politics, drinking tea, queuing etc, all playing these things up for an American audience. It's no great crime, it just strikes me as cringeworthy.
EDIT: I've just remembered when I lived with a Spanish roommate, and due to my being born near Birmingham he used to call me a Peaky Blinder. I fully leant into it. So I guess I'm the wanker after all.
Guess
The amount of people who harrasses and asks for 'Bobs and vegana pics' online.
P.S : No award to guess what country I am from.
We're all in this together.
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Every country has skeletons (frequently literally) in its closet. The world ought to be united in utter embarrassment at the way we have conducted ourselves at different times.
This is coming out less uplifting than I meant it to.
Scotland
This is a thing from history but I'm from Scotland and at one point we thought we would raid England while they had the plague so that they were weaker, but then we caught it and brought it back to Scotland and killed half the country. We're not a hell of a lot smarter now to be honest.
Shhhh
The thing that didn't happen at that Square in that year on that day.
We all remember. It's in our history books...even if it isn't in yous.
Italy
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The politicians and how people treat monuments like sh*t, also the school system
(Italy)
Algeria and Bulgaria
Algeria
Mafia is leading our country.
Bulgaria checking in. We even have a saying about it - "Other countries have a Mafia, here the Mafia has a country".
Salvador
There's so many lol, I'll go with the latest.
Last week a 'solidarity fridge' was placed in a street in Salvador (4th biggest city in Brazil) this is a project where they leave a fridge where people can donate food and the homeless can take it.
It was stolen less than 24h after being placed.
Kuwait
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This happened a few years ago in Kuwait. We were hosting an Olympic tournament and during the medal ceremony, instead of playing Kazakhstan's actual national anthem we played its parody from the movie Borat. The guy playing the music downloaded it from youtube and didn't pay attention it was a parody full of insults. I had to apologize to a friend from Kazakhstan when this happened even though he thought it was hilarious.
Ireland
Northern Ireland:
the sectarian conflict, the rampant illicit drug use, the fact that we haven't had a functional government for over 600 days now over a disagreement on a pointless law.
Ours?
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People here loveee to show off by saying Nikola Tesla is "ours". Our blood, our intelligence and so on.
Meanwhile the Tesla museum in our capital is a joke, it's basically 2 rooms, and in high school when we visited it our class literally had to be split in 2 parties because we couldn't all fit in it.
Mind you it is getting slightly better now but only because of the tourists.
Scotland
The state of our roadsides and towns. For such a "proud" country, collectively we have a really funny way of showing it. I'm actually genuinely embarrassed when tourists have to see some of the filth, especially in cities like Glasgow.
Wonder who it is?
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We don't always win in hockey
We used to!!! Our teams ruled the world for decades! sobs into cup of rink beer
Scotland... again.
Scottish people can be really aggressive and rude. Especially in the more populated areas and especially with what we call "spice boys".
Like, a group of guys were making fun of me for moving past them and says sorry. Scottish girls can be as rude too. People always think it's just the English but no, Scotland is full of really rude people.
Heart Breaking
When I saw news articles about a mass shooting, I initially skipped over them because I thought they were talking about yesterday.
They weren't.
@mikejstarks/Bluesky
@kidringo/Bluesky
@westieworld/Bluesky
@mztee8107/YouTube
@KarenPost-n7/YouTube
@h17636/YouTube
@drandrealove/Bluesky
@thebulwark/Bluesky