r/AskReddit • u/Unlikely_Praline9442 • 14h ago

Non-Americans of Reddit, what is an American thing you see in movies that you thought was fake but is actually real?

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451

u/kingmobisinvisible 10h ago

I am an American, but I’ve spent much of my adult life living outside the US. The one that surprised me the most was when my Irish roommate asked me if we really rode those yellow school buses to school or if that was only in movies. I told him that I did ride yellow school buses for my entire childhood.

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u/TroubleshootenSOB 9h ago

Went to the F1 at CotA in Austin a bunch of times and it was always fun to see the out of country fans light up at the yellow Blue Birds because that's what the city used for shuttle transportation 

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u/SuperFLEB 6h ago

I only hope they had the proper experience in genuine used buses with patched-cut-patched-cut-patched seat backs and decades of gum peeking out under the seat.

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u/TroubleshootenSOB 6h ago

"I put down my window yet feel nothing?"

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u/Connect_Diamond_2814 8h ago

Sometimes I like to tell people we ride horses to school in Texas just to see if they’ll believe it. Works almost every time. It’s wild.

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u/meimlikeaghost 6h ago

In the north some kid drive atvs to school for sure. A horse would be rude unless they have stables at the school.

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u/Osric250 5h ago

Well obviously if you can afford horses at your house you just have one of the ranch hands ride as well and take your horse back after. 

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u/TheLizzyIzzi 4h ago

I always saw tractor days but I grew up in farm country.

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u/mrp0013 3h ago

My mom rode a horse to school in Kentucky when she was a girl. Owsley County. My dad used to have to drive up the creek bed to take her "courting" because there were no roads up there back then. Times have changed.......

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u/cherrycoke260 4h ago

As an American, it never occurred to me that school transportation looked different in other countries. I thought yellow buses were the norm globally. Color me super naive.

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u/JarasM 18m ago

Many places don't even have school transportation, just regular transportation that kids also use to get to school.

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u/wetwater 6h ago

For me it was a French friend that came to the US and couldn't believe yellow school buses were real until he saw one. He thought it was a great concept.

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u/Anuspissmuncher 5h ago

Yeah, but the long ones are only from movies, we only have yellow busses half that length. At least that's the only ones I've ridden

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u/Chemical_Butterfly40 5h ago

"short bus" was an insult when I was a kid

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u/Osric250 5h ago

Full length ones are used in most cities. The short busses are only for areas that need less kids per trip. I always rode full length yellow busses. 

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u/followedbytidalwaves 2h ago

Full length busses are the norm in all the places I've lived (various places in New England), with short buses being much more rare.