Fake Canadians

“Fake Canadians” are Americans who pretend they are Canadians.

This is because Americans are perceived as being less cultured and more belligerent than their neighbors to the north. Also, Americans and Canadians have – to most people – nearly indistinguishable accents.

Many Americans are afraid of being targeted by anti-American pickpocketing syndicates and turtleneck-wearing intellectual debaters, so they pretend to be Canadian by putting Canadian flag patches on their backpacks.

This way, when people check them out after hearing them speak, they see the maple leaf flag and think: “Oh, they’re Canadians, so they must be okay.”

To this day, I know of no other country that shares the “fake Canadian” syndrome.