That... substance is cheese?

The technical terminology is “cheese themed edible product”

American cheese is technically made of cheese, but unlike the jokes, it's mostly just processed cheese with sodium citrate, a common food additive to make things easier to work with in cooking called an emulsifier. Nile Red covers it extensively in his Nile Blue channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aGNAxN5Z-o

Pla-stic Notes

That stuff will turn into plastic and take part of the wall off with it if it gets left it up there.

I know this because some asshole kid stuck a slice of cheese on my lamp post glass and I had to scrape it off with a razor blade when I found it who knows how long after.

In most countries east of the Atlantic that stuff is not allowed to be called cheese.

Yes yes america bad, we get it.

Yes, of course America bad. But specifically on the subject of food standards Canada also quite bad, for the rest Canada is mostly good.

Buddy, there is a whole lot you can criticize us on but American cheese is a god damn global national treasure and i will not have it slandered in my presence. Sorry.

This. I've tried many cheeses in my life. From imported gruyere, all the way to velveeta. White American is genuinely one of my favorites. Much like white chocolate to standard chocolate, it may not truly be considered cheese, but that doesn't make it any less delicious. And I will die in this hill

The "it's not technically cheese" people are exactly the same as "the rules don't say a dog can't play on the team"

On the cheese spectrum, it's on the far end that's almost plastic. Only by law and in certain countries this would be considered cheese.
Serve this in France or Italy and they'll proper shame you for your ignorance.
Most of Europe probably.

The US is one of those countries.

And I will die in this hill

Likely of cheese related heart disease. As the good lord intended.

Whatever that is, it's not cheese.

"cheese"

You ever tried taleggio? I very rarely eat cheese, but I once got a portion of this for my wife and our friend. They described it as "good, but weird."

I got it because of an old reddit post which featured a gif of it being used to make a grilled cheese. They used some for that and some for mac and cheese.