Memes

For all their talk about how they're the freest country in the world etc, the US is honestly weirdly rule-oriented and there's a lot of surprising restrictions in different aspects of life – at least from this particular Finn's perspective.

High school is an interesting example. I did an exchange year in South Carolina, and I was really struck by how strictly regulated school was. So things like needing a pass to go to the bathroom during class, or needing yet another pass that you have to get from an office if you're even a minute late from class, not being allowed to be in the hallways between classes, not being allowed to leave school grounds, and so on. And don't get me started on the whole pledge of allegiance thing.

Work seems to also be more regulated, with some companies having stricter controls on how employees spend their time, and for example policies on appearance (and I don't mean just the service sector) and apparently some even have "fraternization policies" that forbid romantic or sexual relationships between coworkers.

Then there's the Homeowners' Associations – HOAs – which seem to have surprising amounts of power to regulate things about eg. the appearance of houses, or what you can and can't have in your yard.

Varying levels of censorship in movies and TV has also been common through the years, some of it official and some just "this is how we do things". Censorship of cursing and nudity is somehow especially odd since often violence is totally OK in the same contexts, but somehow showing a nipple or saying "fuck" will lead to the degradation of the moral fiber of everyone who's exposed to that smut. I still remember the moral panic caused by a few hundred milliseconds of Janet Jackson's nipple during some Superb Owl (🦉) thing or another.

And just as some background, on top of that exchange year I've spent probably a half a year if not more in the US, from vacations to eg. a zillion work trips I had to do at least once a month when I worked for a company headquartered in SF. Haven't been to all that many states though, but more than just one anyhow; off the top of my head I'd say New York, Michigan, California, Florida, South & North Carolina, and Georgia.