I don’t know how to explain this phenomenon, but a Knicks championship might trigger a butterfly effect that reaches far beyond sports. In the largest city in America, a moment of collective joy could ripple outward, accelerating unity, restoring hope, and briefly making people forget the divisions that separate them
Every *single* euro I’ve ever known who has visited the US has described something as mundane as walking into a gas station as “like being in a film/tv show”
When I was there, everyone wanted to see photos of my high school and hear stories about it. Because it was “like being on tv”
Drive down a wide-open desert highway. “It’s like a film”
Drink a cup of drip coffee out of a porcelain mug. “Just like on tv”
Red solo cups in the store. “Just like high school films”
Packed high school football game on a Friday night. “Just like tv”
Subdivisions with big houses, double garages, large yards “just like in films”
Go to a shooting range. “I THOUGHT THIS WAS MADE UP FOR TV”
Even the “America is retarded” crowd get like this when they finally experience it
I will fault Hollywood for a lot but selling America as an insanely cool and desirable place to be is not one of them. At least not through the 00’s. All of these people in some way or another emulated what they saw on tv and in film in their own lives as teenagers and at university, whether they realized it or not. The way they dressed (particularly early 00s SoCal fashion), the food they ate, the kind of parties they threw.
Once the ice was broken and we became friends, I never met a single person that didn’t confide that the banality of my life growing up was incredibly cool, even “the dream,” just by virtue of being in the US. We’ve maybe lost some of that cred recently. But it’s still there. It’s still the dominant feeling whether they’ll admit it or not.