I have a vivid memory of a girl I knew coming to school with red white and blue clothes and wearing U.S. flag facepaint while she walked around sobbing, this was on the west coast and I'm almost positive she knew no one who was there.
I remember being on sites like Neopets, and they were full of people drawing pictures of their digital animal characters saluting the American flag while a single tear drifts down their face. It was utterly bizarre.
In the before times you would only really see the US flag at post offices and schools. Maybe a flagpole in a strip mall. But only because McDonald's wanted to fly their flag and it would be weird alone.
As a zoomer I'm kinda shocked by this. Americans being weepy flagwavers who display it anywhere they can just feels in-character to me, I never would've thought it wasn't in front of people's houses and shit back then.