this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2023
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Reddit became too America focused. Most of the posts were about America or assumed everyone reading was American. It felt very exclusionary.
I think this will remain a problem on any platform that includes enough Americans. The general public in America just seems unaware of anything outside America.
I think this stems from their education system, what they (don't) broadcast on mass-media and how normal and even laudable they consider fanatical nationalism to be (did you know they require children to swear devotion to the nation state every day at school!?).
In any case, I don't think this is a problem that any platform that wants to include Americans can avoid.
Untrue. Happens in some areas, but far from universal. However, it is weird (self-loathing american reporting).
It's also that it's legitimately unusual to travel to another country more than once or twice before you're an adult because of the geography.
I mean, the same geographic constraints are true of Australia, New Zealand and Canada but they don't have anything near the level of insularity.
Geographic constraints yet, economic constraints not as much
Well I think ideally that's what different instances should help. I'm on a Canadian instance with a lot of Canadian specific communities. I've seen instances of many other specific countries. That should theoretically counter that whole experience on Reddit
Lemmy.ca is full of em!
Which honestly has been one of my favourite features of Lemmy so far. I can browse All to see what everyone is talking about, I can browse Subscribed to see what I care about and I can browse Local to see what Canadians care about.
That's just a demographics game. Most reddit users live in the US.
Depends how you define user. If I am googling for answers to a problem and find it on Reddit, am I a user?
It's also a company that's based on the US.
I saw this complaint on reddit a lot, but at the end of the day, it was a US based site. Of course there will be mostly Americans and they will default to that understanding.
Also, the US is a large country. It's not like Europe where you're a day trip away from 5 other countries. Most Americans can't afford travel outside the US, so they only have exposure to the many cultures within the US.
The hate Americans get for not catering discussion on a US based site to the global community is really what's strange.
You can travel in a straight line over land 2700 miles from Washington to Florida without leaving the United States. Make a foray into Canada and you can travel a 4300 mile long straight line from Alaska to Florida without leaving a country that speaks majority English.
I haven't heard that before, but yeah, the US is huge.
I'm pretty sure that if you visit all states and provinces, it would be a lot more than 4300 miles
True that. I was just looking at straight lines (or what "straight line" is when you're traveling across a sphere)
My other irk is the next group that assumes everyone who isn't American must be from Europe.
Europe was just an example, though they do tend to be the most unjustly hateful of Americans.
I just want y'all to stop saying shit like "oh xyz is like 20$ right now" like it's just as cheap everywhere else in the world.
Thanks for your 2 cents.
I appreciate that. What bugs me is when people don't read the name of the sub they're in though - if it's askUK or casualuk then maybe it's not the place to talk about America, particularly when it's an advice thread about laws for example.
Just some self awareness would be good.
This comment itself is ironically filled with American exceptionalism mythology.
I'm curious, which part is a myth? I only see facts and not all of them paint America as great.
These things exist elsewhere, besides. Just not always in "the West."
Americans size doesn't excuse their ignorance and a lot of other countries don't believe they are the only country the way americans do.
Let me simplify this. Would you go to a forum with an address in .ar and complain that the discussion doesn't pertain to you? You wouldn't, but you are just blindly hateful of Americans for whatever reason.
Fine if you want your websites to be an american echo chamber you do you. Thats what you want not me and thats not what sites you probably claim to be american advertise themselves as either.
America is far from a monolith. Our states roughly equate to different European countries with vastly different cultures, foods, rights and laws.
We just speak dialects that are almost all the same and roll up under one political entity. It is not so dissimilar than the EU, otherwise.
We are, in many practical terms a forced confederation with a shared Constitution. There are those, like in the EU, who want out.
Edit: the shared single language is one of our under-recognized super-powers. I can travel this huge land mass and communicate viably everywhere. It is key to our cultural impact. It is accidental, but helpful to us. Except when we have people who dislike our impact and become hostile.
Except that's not true states are no where near similar to countries. Hell a lot of european countries are arguably more diverse internally by far than america examples include the spanish regions, french regions, italian regions and so many others. To argue the US is like the EU is to completely ignore the independence of EU counties and how each of those organizations work to a delusional level. The US throughout its country is very culturally similar with most differences on racial and economic basis.
Sounds like we're both wrong, then.
If I drive 45 minutes east, I'm in something akin to the US south. Extremely conservative in specific ways. North a few hours and everyone distrusts anyone who didn't grow up there.
45 minutes west and I'm in everyone's favorite (not) failed city, San Francisco.
And those very conservative places I mentioned.. are quite different from south conservative. They drive the same vehicles, wear the same hats, but don't hold the same values.
California, for all its notoriety as being overly accepting has known pla es POC are advised against visiting. Some areas are very non-church and others are profoundly Christian or other religions.
We have enclaves of near-pure ethnic/cultural people tracing back to wherever. I'm not simply talking about Chinatown or Japan town.
We're not a monolith even within a small area. I didn't assert that the EU was. Only that we are more diverse than credited.
Particularly when the topic arises by people comfortable talking others how to be when they know nothing of the person or people.
Okay but comparing it to the whole EU is nonsense especially when you compare its "diversity" to only spain and find it wanting comparing the examples you gave to Catalonia vs Basque county vs Galicia and you can find similar major differences in many individual EU countries. The US is not a monolith no but compared to a multiple country alliance is insane.
I may have deleted the post, but I have posted nothing that said the EU lacked diversity nor did I start discussing the various regions of Spain.
You continue to assert I, or others, are saying things we are not. I have not alleged that the EU is lacking or "wanting."
I'm saying the US is far more diverse than is often credited. People are moving from one state to another because of that very reason. It is a confederation of states, by law. And our SCOTUS is making that more true each year.
I am not saying "parity" but I am saying it's far closer than your broad brush comments.
Okay but the confederation of states has one of the strongest centralization in the world so pretending the US is some bastion of local autonomy is nonsense.
Which Americans are you talking to? We know there are other countries and cultures. We just aren't responsible for learning deeply about all of them. No one is.
You're using some strong, broad strokes that aren't reflective of my experience at all.
You should learn about experiences outside your own that you are not is not a good thing.
I am learning those things... hell, I'm studying a completely different language and learning the history.
I think I'm not who you think I am.
The above is one example.
You don't have a high ground, here.
And the arrogance about it was unbelievable, it was extremely common behaviour.
Christ, yes. Every other comment or post was something that assumed everyone was in the USA, or that they were the greatest most perfect wonderful nation and all others are basically hell on earth.
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Literally full of shit lmao. Who on reddit mainstream is talking about how the US is the greatest place on Earth.
Usually its the entire other way around where Reddit is acting like the apocalypse is about to start at any point.
Here's a new one for this thread. "People who complain about Americans over the dumbest things". It's straight up like you have a chip on your shoulder.
Complaining about Americans is possibly the most reddit thing ever, lmao, regardless of where the user is from.
The norm on Reddit was that american superiority though outside of niche subreddits.
But that were some good opportunities to dunk on the world epicenter, i've always took them
What id like to see on Lemmy is less America-hate... Or just hating on countries in general. Hatable humans live in countries, let's talk about them instead of everybody in that country. "Gunshot story? Must be America!" Gets old really quick
I hate many countries, USA included. But not the people. Heck I even hate my own country.
The thing is, the people don't run those countries.
But, also I do need to mention that the laws that are being made do affect the society and their ideas.
This, nationalism is just the worst. You've achieved nothing by being born in a certain country, waving that flag around proudly thinking you're superior to anyone else is just something i can't understand.
Countries that import imperialism abroad should be disliked and hated though that shouldn't be a controversial statement.
Nice try, American person.