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Please do not get health information from the CDC for the foreseeable future. If you are an American, depending on your state, the state health department may have more accurate information. States in the Governor's Public Health Alliance are relatively trustworthy.

I've personally been using Dr. Kaetlyn Jetelina's newsletter as a less-grim way to keep up with US public health news. It's on substack unfortunately, but the information is solid.

Yale School of Public Health's POPHIVE is also a good way to track population health trends in the US.

I notice there's a rarity of jyuratodus content where it's actually bare of mud. So I drew Leaf raising 3 of them in the one pool of the ancient forest before you set up camp there. Trust me bro.

I chat a lot with people across the world and a lot of them are Americans. And here’s stuff that either I found as a culture shock or THEY found as a culture shock.

Americans were shocked that yoghurts in Sweden were in cartons.

When I posted a Swedish pancake I got a reply from Americans saying ”you call that a pancake?” - because it’s not thick and large like American pancakes are (I explained that pancakes look different around the world and they didn’t believe me because apparently to them, pancakes can only look like theirs?). Gotta say, this kind of offended me because Swedish pancakes is something that I often consume and is one of the best dishes from my country so to hear ”you call that a pancake?” kinda hurt a bit 😅 (even if it was meant in a light hearted joking way)

People who don’t know what a cheese slicer is. This is not only Americans but I’ve found people in other countries too. They just don’t know what a cheese slicer is?? And that is wild to me because I myself don’t eat that much cheese but I STILL KNOW WHAT IT IS?? AND EVERYONE HAS ONE IN THEIR HOUSE WHERE I LIVE?? I THOUGHT IT EXISTED EVERYWHERE?

One time I told a childhood story about a guy who had been mean to me and his mother went to scold him about it. I got the response ”He definitely got spanked over that!” - I explained that spanking children is illegal in Sweden and it both shocked me that a child getting spanked was something they assumed would happen, and it shocked them that spanking was illegal here.

Americans who assume that we use cake mix when we bake is actually something that has happened several times, and not only online but also irl. Like my mom has told stories about her friends who had invited Americans over once and had baked the classic Swedish mudcake. The American had then asked: ”This is so good! What cake mix did you use to make it?” - Heads up: Don’t assume people use cake mix. Like I’m someone who doesn’t even bake that much but I’m offended that someone would even assume that I don’t bake from scratch????

The shock from Americans that in Sweden (and also in like. The rest of the world) we can’t just name our kids anything. Like we have to get the names approved.

I myself am quite shocked that not in every country you can just walk into the forest for free, cause our forests are under all-man’s-right and thus no one owns them. Meanwhile my North American friends (Canadians included) told me stories about how they were threatened with violence as little kids because they trespassed in someone’s forest.

Oh yeah. That in America everyone just has guns is wild to me.

Calling the 24 hour clock ”military time” is so confusing to me. What do you mean military time it’s just normal time???

I once explained in a group chat that Sweden doesn’t really have ”republicans” - we have left and right centered parties and they’re all called ”democrats”. Like our most right leaning party is called ”The Sweden Democrats”. I got the reply ”bro how does things even work if you don’t have republicans?” ….

Honestly the way Americans speak in shortenings of words not only in text but also when they speak irl. My cousin who lives in Los Angeles I remember verbally went ”T.O! T.O!” (This meaning ”time out!”), and I was so confused why she couldn’t just have said ”Time out”. The problem with this is that I have to learn what all these random letters mean. If I see ”MIA” my immediate assumption is that someone is named Mia, not that it means ”Missing In Action”.

The extreme anxiety over nudity in some parts of the world. Like I’ve grown up in a ”nudity is natural” society, but I’ve seen online (especially on instagram) people who are terrified that their kids even are gonna learn that naked people exist. They find it really weird if a parent showers with their toddler because ”a kid shouldn’t see an adult’s naked body” and make it seem inappropriate. These people would FAINT if they were at the daycare I worked at where a 3 year old rolled some playdough into a worm and giggling came to tell me that she had made a penis. To me that was just a normal three year old thinking that body parts are funny (kids that age LOVE to show butts and genitals simply because they find it hilarious), but those people online would think that it is horrible that a young girl that age even knows what a penis is.

Adding to this, an American once told me that they think kids shouldn’t learn how babies are made until they are 12 because ”they’re too young to deal with it” before then. I learned how babies were made when I was a toddler. Like my parents didn’t give me explicit details but I knew the basics? And I didn’t exactly get ”traumatized” by it? My reaction was ”ok 👍” and then I moved on.

Honestly getting ”the talk” always felt like something they only did in American movies but apparently they actually do that? Like I never had ”the talk”, because I just gradually got to know more and more as I grew up. To be fair, I was also a curious kid and I remember asking my mom what a clitoris was when I was 9 and she answered what it was. I even asked my grandmother what ”jerking off” meant and she explained exactly what it was (my grandma was an adult during the 70s in Sweden, she has NO problem talking about those things). And I didn’t feel that affected by them being honest. I simply asked, I got a reply, and then I moved on and didn’t think about it anymore. It was never a big deal.

However, this can also not necessarily be a cultural thing, but just an individual thing. Like there’s plenty of Swedes I know who are very puritan too (and people who didn’t know how babies were made until their teens simply because they had never been that interested to find out). Our sex ed is actually threatened because our government is more conservative and puritan right now. I guess I just have a stereotype that some parts of the world are more afraid of sex in general than my own country.

Carbonated water is not the norm in the US and most people there hate it. I grew up exclusively drinking basically nothing else. I switched to still water now - just because I've come to like it. But I'd drink carbonated too. But.. fascinating. ???

Saying "Happy early birthday" is normalized. Where I live, this is considered wishing someone bad luck.

Subtext is really intense. When I say something, it has little to no subtext. People tend to interpret things into my words (which I really fucking hate and do not appreciate) because of how severe that cultural difference is. I don't do well with subtle hints, I never have, and I find actually people from the US tend to be the most "trying so hard to never offend anyone they say things so subtle-ly that I can't pick up on it and then they get mad suddenly" group from everyone I've ever interacted with.

But, like everything, this comes down to... individuals. Everyone is different. You get the latter part everywhere too. Here too.

Graceful ocean dance,

Blue blubber jellyfish drifts,

Beauty in the deep 🪼