A popular venture on YouTube is to interview random people on the streets regarding a whole range of topics. As a viewer it’s interesting and often times funny to see what all the different characters that live among us have to say.  

An especially trendy video theme is interviewing people who have no idea what the heck they’re talking about — a well known example being Jimmy Fallon’s Lie Witness News. In these videos people embarrass themselves, to the viewer’s delight, by claiming to have heard of fake news being reported to them. The perfect word for these scenarios is “schadenfreude” which is German for “enjoyment obtained from the troubles of others”. We take pleasure in these people’s gullibility and unintelligence, but really should we be worried about the intellect of our nation?

In the video below, Mark Dice quizzes beachgoers in California on basic 4th of July Trivia, and the results are astounding.  

When one interviewee couldn’t even say what country America broke away from, Dice prompted her with “Ch-”. “CHINA!” the poor woman exclaimed happy to have found the answer. It shows that these people are really being set up for failure and one also wonders how many other interviews were conducted that aren’t shown where people actually knew the answers.  

In this second video, the interview style is different; these interviewees are not purposely mislead. They also seem to know a whole lot more about the 4th of July.

So what’s the truth? Do Americans know the history behind the 4th of July? How many of these questions could you have answered?  

Some Americans, as the first video points out, really do need to crack open a history textbook to learn why the U.S. is the country it is today. On the other hand, not everyone loves history and instead have their own passions and trivia that would stump the rest of us. Altogether, if you think the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1973 you should probably remedy that, but if you can’t remember the names of all the individual battles it’s not the end of the world.