What has the United States ever done for culture?

Happy meal, Windows ‘98, Fabric softener, Jimi Hendrix, nuclear power, Pop-Rocks, the Simpsons, the movies Jaws, Halloween and ET, Jolt Cola and Chevy Camaro!

Hollywood movies, Elvis Presley, and McDonalds. I’ve traveled a bit internationally, and these are the top three items that seem to exist everywhere.

Gershwin, Bernstein, Porter, Berlin…

Mark Twain
Oliver Hardy
Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers
Jazz
Miles Davis
Dave Brubeck
Morgan Freeman
James Earl Jones
Baseball
Football
Michelle Kwan
Cajun Cuisine
Barbecue
Surf Guitar
Buddy Holly, Elvis, Patsy Kline, Jerry Lee Lewis
Judy Garland
Shirley Temple

Blues
Zydeco
Coca Cola
Levis

Where else in the world is there a cultural institution of NASCAR‘s status?

Musical theater. (I think that’s an American thing, but I could be wrong.)

This is an actual game you play, or were you being sarcastic because people like to beat up on the US?

The Marx Brothers (especially Groucho)
Charlie Chaplin
Star Wars
Star Trek
Tv shows that give you 24 episodes a season and have several seasons – none of this 4 series of 6 episodes and we think it’s a success crap!
Frank Sinatra, Glenn Miller, Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald
Pulp Fiction
Hemingway

I’m always surprised how much of US entertainment is watched elsewhere. Movies, music, even television shows and major sporting events (Super Bowl, World Series, etc) really are followed around the world. For example I remember talking to someone from Europe about The Dukes of Hazzard even before the latest movie came out.

I’m not saying the fact that T-Pain is known worldwide is necessarily something to hang our hat on, but it seems the majority of entertainment for English speaking audiences is produced in the US. Regardless of personal preferences you have to admit that’s a huge contributor for “culture”.

Also, some answers here might help

For those outside the US, what are some recognizable symbols or traits of the USA?

Jazz, CJ Chenin, Crazy glue.(He just croaked.)

Baseball
Jazz
Gershwin
Movies
Edgar Allen Poe
Hunter S. Thompson
Quentin Tarantino
Blues

Star Wars
Steven King
Robert Redford
Paul Newman
Saturday Night Live (Pre 1985)
Apple computers

EA Poe?? The one from Boise?

Ansel Adams

You mean stuff like rock & roll, jazz, blues, movies, and television? Those are all pretty big contributions to culture, I reckon.

The First Amendment.

Langston Hughes
Emily Dickinison
Robert Frost
Toni Morrison
Hemmingway I may hate the bastard, but he still counts as culture.

Can I just say, I hate it when people claim that the US has no original culture, it kinda pisses me off. Just because the basis of some American culture is an amalgam of other cultures doesn’t mean it’s not a culture.

@KatawaGrey All cultures after prehistoric times aren’t entirely original. So, exactly what you said (100 lurve).

@MyNewtBoobs: Right? No one whines about how Spain is filled with Islamic architecture.

@KatawaGrey One of the top reasons for me to visit Spain…

@KatawaGrey: not to mention, as such a young country, we’re still in our cultural infancy.

I kind of think the whole idea of culture is divisive and insular and problematic. It’s difficult to preserve your culture without actively excluding outsiders, and it promotes the sort of in-group/out-group mentality that can, in extreme cases, lead to violent conflict. Eventually we will probably have just one world culture, anyway.

@MyNewtBoobs, it is not a game I enjoy playing, but it seems like every time I meet someone from Europe or Canada I have no choice.

@nikipedia I hear that. I’m a big critic of American policy, culture, economics, all of it, but I get real sick of people just dumping all over America instead of thoughtfully weighing the upsides against the downsides in a nuanced, rational conversation.

Skateboarding and the skateboarding culture and industry started in the United States. It is a culture that is still growing and progressing really fast here in the United States and now is part of a world wide culture and billion dollar industry.

Pretty much every major technological advance in the past 150 years.

Practical railroads and automobiles, telegraph, telephone, electric power, the phonograph, practical light bulbs, motion pictures, airplanes, computers, and the Internet come to mind.

Also ROCK AND FUCKING ROLL doi

Just thought of some more examples:

Native American music and Native American ideals regarding nature/earth/humans/spirituality
Hawaiiana (hula, polynesian cuisine, ukelele music, Hawaiian song/singing, surfing, the aloha spirit)
Jonas Salk
Rosa Parks
Frank Lloyd Wright
Charles and Henry Greene (synonymous with craftsman style architecture)
Irving Gill
Irving Berlin (born in what is now Belarus, but known as an American songwriting icon)
Eleanor Roosevelt
Beverly Sills
Scott Joplin
Etta James
Julia Child
John Steinbeck
Davy Crockett
John Muir
San Francisco
New York
New Orleans
Miami
Napa Valley wines
Wisconsin and Vermont cheeses
The farm to table cuisine movement
Jacqueline Onassis
Barbra Streisand
Bill Cosby
Amelia Earheart
Ann Landers
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Margaret Sanger, Gloria Steinam, Geraldine Ferraro, Hilary Clinton, Sandra Day O’Connor
Marian Anderson
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Louisa May Alcott
Oprah Winfrey
Mary Tyler Moore (turned a whole generation of houswives on to capri pants, and showed that a young single woman could be sucessful and happy without being married)
Katharine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart
Country/Western Music (Glen Campbell, Willie Nelson, Roy Clark, Loretta Lynn, Johnny Cash)
Folk Music (Woody Guthrie, The Weavers, Peter Paul and Mary)
Marilyn Monroe
Betty Boop (a cartoon, but highly influential regarding flapper syle)

Oh my goodness! How could we have left out Mickey Mouse and all things Disney?

@Kardamom I love your list, but I do think that France and Italy might take issue with The farm to table cuisine movement as an American concept when they’ve been eating that way for centuries. lol
Even today’s Slow Food movement originated in Italy.

@breedmitch You are probably right that the French and Italians have been doing the farm to table thing all along, but I think that the Americans have turned it into a “movement” if you want to call it that. Because most of America is all about the corporate factory farms and junk food. Which is one of the reasons that our poor OP had to ask this question in the first place. We’ve got a lot of culture, but we also have a lot of crap.

Dang it, now I’m hungry again. Wouldn’t some fresh red leaf lettuce from the local farmers market with a little drizzle of balsamic vinegar (grown from grapes in Napa) and extra virgin olive oil grown from Olives in the Santa Ynez Valley hit the spot right now?

No Ma’am. I’m going to have some local Berkshire pork Sopressata, Hudson Valley maple smoked cheddar, and a glass of North Fork Cabernet Franc. :)

Hey you two. Why don’t you get a room in the meta section. ;) Now, can someone point me to the fridge please?

Gumbo, chili, macaroni and cheese (Thommy J style is still delicious!)

The best food I ever ate was a homemade Texas style chili (sort of, it had beans in it). And that is the last good thing you will ever hear me say about Texas.

National parks.

Jazz and New Orleans.

@mattbrowne Good answer and general conservationism as a whole. Thank the legendaries who ignited interest in the general public, John Muir and Ansel Adams comes to mind. The importance of implementing sound coexistance with the environment is how the US still looks so sexy from satellite maps.. despite our most unparalleled consumption rates.