Surbhi Gupta and Danny Postel write:

The owner of Parkwood Deli in Midland Park, New Jersey, Roger Schnorrbusch — known to his nearly 830,000 TikTok followers as “the deli guy” — has been serving sandwiches for over two decades. A viral personality due to his hyped-up, theatrical videos featuring him whipping up a chicken parmesan sandwich or an eggplant parm stacked with hot peppers, his videos rack up thousands of views, and customers come in from as far as California to grab a bite.

Last month, however, he started drawing a different kind of crowd, as soccer fans from countries such as Norway, Scotland and England began treating the deli as a pit stop en route to FIFA World Cup matches. As clips of their friendly banter began to get millions of views, Americans in the comments, genuinely moved, called it the “best PR the country has produced in years.” Others were reminded of “the America they grew up in,” seeing proof of a still warm and welcoming American hospitality.

Schnorrbusch’s own theory was less sentimental. He told the local news that visitors were amazed purely by scale, since a lot of countries just don’t make sandwiches that big. But, to many people, Schnorrbusch represented an America that was friendly, local, unbothered and generous by habit.

In the last few weeks, as fans from across Europe and other parts of the world traveled through the United States for the World Cup, following their teams from city to city, they discovered an America that tends not to make it into global news headlines, at least not in recent years. They met friendly strangers who offered rides to and from stadiums, discovered big portion sizes and free refills in American restaurants, and developed an unexpected fondness for ranch dressing, wanting to take it back home as a souvenir. (Sensing an opportunity, the food company Kraft Heinz, in true American fashion, released a “TSA-Compliant Ranch” kit after the Transportation Security Administration repeatedly reminded visitors that full-size bottles could not be carried through airport security.) They felt relief at the near ubiquity of air conditioning in the summer and came face to face with the largesse and abundance of suburban America as they ventured outside the tourist hotspots of New York City, Washington and Los Angeles.

As visitors marveled at America and their reactions went viral, Americans watched them marvel and, in turn, found themselves looking at their country differently, through that foreign prism — recognizing, even celebrating, everyday aspects of life here as uniquely American. This outsider’s gaze offered a version of America that stood in sharp contrast with the one both Americans and people around the world tend to encounter through doomscrolling and the relentless churn of the news cycle. [Continue reading…]