Faux Canada!
American travelers hoping for more favorable treatment overseas are choosing to hide behind the Canadian flag — arousing ire north of the border.
Their behavior is part of a popular trend known as flag-jacking — which sees tourists abroad displaying the flag of another country on their bag or clothing, as a way to disguise where they’re really from.
While not a new phenomenon, it’s become popular once more as anti-American sentiment is said to be rising abroad — and Canucks aren’t happy about the resurgence of the practice.
“Every time America breaks something overseas…suddenly you can’t swing a baguette in Europe without hitting a backpack with a fresh Canadian flag sewn on the back,” fumed Canadian Tod Maffin, a former public radio host, in a video that recently made the rounds on social media.
“It’s like clockwork,” he said. “The world gets mad at America and Americans go ‘Oh no, quick! To the maple leaves!’”
While he said that his countrymen in the land of Tim Hortons and milk sold in bags are “flattered” to see Americans choose to disguise themselves as Canadians, he said that Canada is not to be used as an “invisibility cloak.”
“The Canadian flag is not some magical device that makes people forget which country invented monster trucks, or deep fried butter, or war for profit,” he joked.
Maffin also tut-tutted at attempts to mimic the country’s distinct dialect — saying you can always tell an imposter when, for example, they pronounce the second “t” in “Toronto.”
“I mean it’s adorable — it’s also deeply unconvincing,” he said in the video, which now has over 100,000 views.
“For some reason, Americans think that we are their backup passport,” he said.
The travel trend hit the headlines once again just days ago, after CNN told the story of an Upstate NY woman who reportedly resorted to flag-jacking — after a “heated confrontation” in a bar while on vacation in the Dominican Republic.
“A Canadian couple screamed at me, saying that America is selfish, and ruining everything for Canada and the world,” Chelsea Metzger, 33, told the outlet, which reported that Canadians were “livid” over the trend.
“The girl started crying, and said, ‘I don’t think Americans realize that what’s going on is really affecting us here’,” Metzger recounted.
Experts blame the tariff wars, annexation fears for the recent wave of True North tantrums that have boosted Canadian nationalism.
“External threats are what stimulate nationalist responses,” said the University of Toronto’s Robert Schertzer. “It’s what sociologists call collective effervescence, a spontaneous bubbling to the surface of sentiment.”
“Canadian nationalism at its core has an element of anti-Americanism,” the associate professor of political science said, telling CNN that the emotions involved with nationalism, for some, can be as intense as religious fervor.
“So when an American pretends to be Canadian, it’s understandable why a person who is feeling this national pride and is stimulated by outside threats would respond emotionally to that,” he explained.
Canadian response to the article was slightly cooler on a busy Reddit thread dedicated to the subject.
“Americans have been stealing goodwill by pretending to be Canadian and giving Canadians bad reputations by still acting like Americans abroad for decades,” a commenter said.
“We’re not livid, its just kind of pathetic,” another explained.
“If anything, we’re probably a bit flattered as it reaffirms our belief that we’re more well liked around the world than Americans,” someone chimed in.
Others just shrugged — saying people should do what they want.
“America sucks. But not every American does. As a Canadian, I have no qualms with good Americans borrowing our flag to have a beer in peace,” one person pronounced.
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