Aussie stereotypes we’re all sick of

SUMMER is here which means so are the travellers and their outrageous ideas about Aussies which, quite frankly, we’ve all had it up to here with.

Tourists expect us to look like Chris Hemsworth but most of us look more like Tony Abbott.

SUMMER is here which means so are the travellers.

As Australia ramps up for the busiest tourism time of the year, holiday-makers from all over the world arrive on our shores, and with them their (often incorrect) perceptions.

So to clear things up, we’ve highlighted some of the major misconceptions about our country and locals that annoy the crap out of us and we encourage you to share your most hated Aussie stereotypes below.

News_Image_File: Home and Away’s Pia Miller. News_Image_File: Home and Away actor Matt Little.

We all look like models

Regardless of what the bronzed, beach-bound Home and Away characters suggest Aussies don’t walk around in nothing but bathing suits and thongs nor do we all surf. Sure, we love the beach and when it’s damn hot we’ll go for a dip but tourists expecting us all to have chiselled six packs with waves of blonde hair and tanned dimples are sorely disappointed. In fact, the long-running soap has a lot to answer for as scores of overseas visitors arrive looking for Miranda Kerr and Chris Hemsworth look-a-likes and leave having met, well, the rest of us.

News_Image_File: Despite appearances, Aussies are actually very learned and effluent.

We’re dumb down under

Thanks to Crocodile Dundee’s famous blank stare and failure to grasp American slang and humour in the cult 1980s movie, many Americans assume Aussies are a few short of a sixpack in the brains department.

But it should be noted that Australia has produced 15 Nobel Laureates, which is the highest number per head of population of any country.

The youngest ever Nobel Laureate was actually from South Australia. Lawrence Bragg was just 25 when he received the Nobel prize for Physics with this father William Bragg in 1915, for their work developing X-rays.

Plus Aussies can lay claim to inventing Wi-Fi, Black box flight recorders, ultrasound machines and most importantly dual flush toilets!

News_Image_File: Aussies love to indulge their feminine side.

We’re a nation of blokes

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics fifty years ago “the average” Australian was a 29-year-old male (he probably drank Fosters and drove an EH Holden, too).

Today the “average Australian” is a 37-year-old female, married with two children, who lives in a three-bedroom house in one of Australia’s capital cities.

That’s right, women outnumber men in population and while any attempt to define a nation by one type of person is going to be grossly inadequate, the truth is Australia is becoming a more female country.

Just look at our last Prime Minister, Governor General and richest woman as recent examples.

News_Image_File: ‘Let’s sing it, I am, you are, we’re not Australian.’News_Image_File: ‘My name is Gladiator, and I am not Australian!’

We’re the same as Kiwis

Our accents may sound a little similar and we’re both below the equator but that’s no excuse for mixing up our nations entirely.

In a perfect example of this ongoing faux pas, earlier this year a Chicago newspaper referred to the All Blacks rugby team as Australian sparking an apology from the editor which read: “In the Sunday editions of the Sun-Times, the New Zealand All Blacks rugby team was incorrectly referred to as Aussies. The Sun-Times apologises for the error.”

Similarly, Russell Crowe is not Aussie, he’s a Kiwi. Keith Urban is a Kiwi, too. So is Phar Lap and Crowded House and while our flags look pretty similar, let it be known that New Zealand has far less stars than us, so there.

News_Image_File: Warning, warning, danger, danger, everywhere!

Our country’s full of things that can kill you

It’s true that we have some devastating disasters such as cyclones, floods and bushfires but when NBC produced a graphic that showed the whole of Australia on fire last year, you have to put your hands up and say hang on a minute.

Despite the fires being largely contained to NSW, NBC pretty much assumed vast swathes of Cape York, the entire Darwin region, and vast portions of Western Australia’s Great Sandy Desert were burning.

Similarly stories which claim Australia a plethora of deadly assassins poised to stalk and kill you are grossly exaggerated. This year two people have been killed by crocodiles. More people die each year from falling out of bed!

News_Image_File: Chill out Phil, not everything is out to kill you. Picture: Modern Family

We talk like bogans

Let’s be clear on this one. No one. Absolutely no one says, ‘Put another shrimp on the barbie’. In fact, if we could get this Paul Hogan commercial eradicated from history, we would. Other phrases that should be put in a burn book include ‘Gidday mate’, ‘Bloody oath, mate’ and ‘Flaming Galah’.

What Aussie stereotypes annoy you? Leave your comments below.

Original editorial commissioned by news.com.au in partnership with Disney’s Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.