I’ve heard it called “US Defaultism” where most Americans online seem to assume that everyone they interact with is from their country and all US news is considered significant even when it really isn’t.
I hate how anything without "world" in its name is just about the US
Submitted 1 month ago by dch82@lemmy.zip to [deleted]
https://lemmy.zip/pictrs/image/aa2b245e-567f-41a6-8944-02fe1c0e164e.webp
Comments
poo@lemmy.world 1 month ago
TootSweet@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I do this sometimes, and I hate when I catch myself doing it.
200ok@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Imagine if different fonts represented different accents.
𝓗𝓸𝔀 𝓭𝓸 𝔂𝓸𝓾 𝓭𝓸𝓸𝓸𝓸𝓸𝓸𝓸?
disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I’ve been guilty of that- commenting before checking what community the post was in. Thankfully, I’ve found that most people outside of the US prefer gentle correction. Unfortunately, I doubt the average person from the US would show the same courtesy if the roles were reversed.
OpenStars@discuss.online 1 month ago
I find that it correlates more with education status than nationality… but therefore it surely is more rare among the set of average Americans who have access to the internet than globally.
Kolanaki@yiffit.net 1 month ago
If I was using a website called “Facebloke” that was well known to have been made and ran in the UK, I’d assume everyone on it was British.
WhatYouNeed@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Or the Australian version “Matebook”, full with Aussies.
Mate.
Tja@programming.dev 1 month ago
I’m ready to discuss maple syrup on HoserLoonieSorryEh
f314@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Ah, yes! The 3 billion Americans on Facebook!
And why would you make that assumption? The internet has no borders, so it doesn’t really matter where or by whom something is made. Especially if the language is English, which has somewhere between 1.5 and 2 billion speakers worldwide.
Kolanaki@yiffit.net 1 month ago
The internet has no borders
Except that it actually does. See: China, North Korea, etc.
NateNate60@lemmy.world 1 month ago
To be fair, the US has the largest number of English-speakers of any country in the world. As a first language, it has five times as many native English speakers as second place (the UK). It also has one of the highest Internet penetration rates in the world, meaning most of those English-speakers are also Internet users.
The US is a single country that is three-quarters the population of the entire continent of Europe, and nearly all of its inhabitants speak English and use the Internet. So yes, if you pick a random user on an English social media page, odds are very good that person is an American. If you were to guess any random English-speaking Internet user’s nationality, “American” is the best possible guess. But go on a Spanish language forum or a French language forum and nobody will assume you’re American.
zerofk@lemm.ee 1 month ago
I’m sorry but this is nonsense. I’m in a lot of online communities where everyone uses English, despite it being nearly nobody’s first language. It just happens to be the only language that everyone there knows. Language is no indication of nationality, especially online.
And to be honest, in those places the assumption is usually that everyone is European, which I can imagine is just as annoying for the stray American.
NateNate60@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I think you misunderstand.
What I am saying is that of all Internet users that use English, Americans are by far the largest group due to it being a very large country, (third most populous in the world) with a high Internet penetration (97%), and whose residents almost universally speak English as their main language (78.3%).
bstix@feddit.dk 1 month ago
Americans generate the majority of English-language Internet content.
Doubt.
There are 1.3 billion people who use English on the internet as a first or second language.
NateNate60@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Not all Internet users generate the same amount of content. In addition to Americans being proud blabbermouths in general, people from wealthy countries generate more content than those from poorer countries. The US is among the wealthiest countries in the world.
Although it is not the most representative, nearly half of all Reddit users are American. American media outlets have immense global reach. You can probably name four or five American media outlets just off the top of your head, even if you’re not American. The USA’s geopolitical power means people are always talking about American politics or what America’s leaders are doing, which draws engagement from Americans like a lamp draws moths. 7 out of the top 10 English-language YouTube channels are American (fully or partially).
It’s pretty much impossible to prove, but I think the claim that Americans generate most of the content on the Internet is likely true or very close to true.
Oaksey@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Consequently, Americans generate the majority of English-language Internet content.
False. Yes, it is larger than any other individual English speaking group but accounts for less than a fifth of the total English speakers.
…wikipedia.org/…/List_of_countries_by_English-spe…
I wouldn’t have guessed Nigeria is the third largest English speaking group.
NateNate60@lemmy.world 1 month ago
This point was plainly addressed. Read carefully before going in guns-blazing.
Do you think Nigerians use the Internet as much as Americans?
uienia@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Again, you are completely missing the point of the internet and English usage on it. People are using English as a lingua franca. There are a lot more non-native English speakers on the internet than native English speakers.
So no, odds are not that it is an American you are speaking to, just because that person speaks English. You are literally regurgitating the fallacy that OP is about.
MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 1 month ago
We should really be counting English literate people, since nobody here is talking, and literacy is more reading/writing.
Literacy is pretty broad too. It doesn’t imply that it’s your native language, nor if you can speak the language (whether you can do that very well or not).
Literacy is going to be a bonefide requirement for most of the internet, with some exceptions, like text to speech and speech recognition stuff, people with disabilities who may not be able to see properly or at all… Stuff like that.
Hossenfeffer@feddit.uk 1 month ago
lingua franca
I love that lingua franca, a term from both Latin and Greek roots, literally meaning the language of the Franks (French) is English. Plus, also, fuck you Esperanto!
pixelscript@lemm.ee 1 month ago
The more egalitarian principle would be to not assume. I won’t deny that. People from more minority locales have every right to be upset at being marginalized.
But at the same time, whenever I read passive aggressive comments on socials from crown countries or from EAASL people around the world bitching about US defaultism as if people are doing it just to be ignorant dicks, I can only think to myself, “Uhh, hello? What do you think the demographics of this space were? What did you expect?”
Americans are hardly the majority of the world’s English apeakers, but for all the reasons you listed, they tend to remain a massive plurality, if not an outright overwhelming majority, of any mainstream online English language platform. No, that’s not a license to perpetuate US defaultism. But like… read the room, people. Your good fight is far more uphill than you seem to think it is.
hessenjunge@discuss.tchncs.de 1 month ago
FYI
According to Wikipedia the percentage of English speakers located in the US is lower that 20%. Does this mean that only 1 in 5 users is from the US?
Population of the US: 334.914.895, Population of Europe: 745.173.774. 334.914.895/745.173.774 = 0,449%
English Speakers in the US: 297.400.000. English Speakers in Europe: 260.000.000. So you have about 37,4M more English speakers in the US than in Europe.
NateNate60@lemmy.world 1 month ago
The average American uses only English language forums.
The average European who speaks English will probably spend some portion of their time using whatever their native language is.
The average English speaker in Africa is not as likely to have an Internet connection.
The average English speaker in China is likely to not be able to access English social media sites (great firewall).
Many English-speakers in India post online in a mix of English and Hindi that non-Indians find difficult to comprehend.
You’re correct that the claim that the US is ¾ the population of Europe is erroneous. But it is ¾ the population of the EU. I’ve corrected this.
dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 1 month ago
…Anything written in English, and you can usually filter that even more by just looking for people using too many U’s.
dch82@lemmy.zip 1 month ago
people using too many U’s
You mean people using British spellings right?
jballs@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
One day if we are brave, we will get rid of the U in a lot of British words like color and armor, but by God we will keep the British U in the word glamour!
Ziglin@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I think you’ll find most of the time the British use precisely the number U’s they intend to though typos may afflict even the best.
RandomVideos@programming.dev 1 month ago
What if i use “color”, " gouvernment", “dialogue”, " humor", “armor”, " and “honour”
Walk_blesseD@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 month ago
I see you like to keep 'em guessing.
fushuan@lemm.ee 1 month ago
Self leart second language, so it could be anything.
TheBat@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I’d think ‘who’s this foucker?’
vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
Im gonna assume youre from the coast of Virginia and are transcribing your accent.
OpenStars@discuss.online 1 month ago
Finally your edumacashun is compleute, go fourth and enjouy your freedumb! 😜
lvxferre@mander.xyz 1 month ago
And when you do use those ⟨U⟩ (I do), people assume that you know what’s going on in the UK (I don’t.).
jimmy90@lemmy.world 1 month ago
and an aversion to Zees - I mean Zeds!
slickgoat@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I’m from Australia and don’t mind engagement with the (mostly) US content.
Let’s face it, the US election is the most interesting event on the planet anyway.
stebo02@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
also one of the most concerning ones
DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 1 month ago
My favorite answer when internet Nazis asked “How could the Nazis have won?” used to be “Be America.”
It’s not as funny anymore. They listened.
DillyDaily@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I just wish Americans would have a little self awareness when engaging in foreign content.
I was in a comment thread for a video on a report by the ABC about ADEs. Now I will give Americans the benefit of the doubt, we both have ABC networks, but ours clearly says “Australia”, the news presenter has a Australian accent, and was talking about the Australian minimum wage, there were references to Centrelink and the Australian government repeatedly. If you watched the video and couldn’t tell me what country the video was about, you need to go back to primary school, your media comprehension level is dysfunctional .
I mentioned a clarifying point in the the comments about ADE being different from DES and giving numbers for each (you don’t need to know anything about these acronyms), and someone starts arguing with me that when they were in the disability program they got xyz and they didn’t have to do any of this. I replied saying that these processes have been unchanged for 20 years, I don’t know how they’re getting what they’re getting, they have a unique case. They come back telling me everyone gets that, that’s how it is, I need to do my research before I make stuff up. I explain that I work in the sector, I’m looking at the cases software, if they are indeed getting those services through that program, they are the only one of 40,000 people in the program getting that, because that’s not how the service works. They tell me 15 million people people use the program. I finally realise what’s happening. “there are only 25 million people people in Australia…you’re a lost American aren’t you?” and sure enough ,they politely reply with “oh yeah, I’m not Australian so I don’t know, maybe it’s different over there”.
And I just can’t with that level of American stupidity.
You can came into an Australian forum and assumed I wasn’t Australian, assumed I wasn’t talking about Australia, then came to the conclusion that “maybe it’s different over there” when I had explicitly just informed you that ,yes, the law is different here.
Now many times could I have used the acronym DES before the American thought to themselves “maybe this person isn’t talking about SSDI”.
And this is just the example from the last hour. I end up in a lot of international PD sessions for my work, and something like this is a daily occurrence, only with the Americans.
Canada, you are sadly not excused from this, nor sure why but it’s always "okay, where are we all from? “Australia” “Belgium” “Brazil” “Indonesia” “Fort Freedom” “Edmonton”
Those are cities and provinces, clearly the rest of us are doing countries, some of us are big enough that we could name states if we wanted to, but we’re being polite, you’ve got 50 (10+3 🇨🇦 ) of them and we didn’t memorise a silly song in school to learn your states.
The fact that I know how many states the US has and how many provinces and tertories Canada has, but an American would be stabbing in the dark to guess how many states and territories Australia has, even though our biggest state is 3x bigger than Texas and Australia as a whole is a comparable landmass to the contiguous 48.
gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
And I just can’t with that level of American stupidity.
Not just Americans, most people don’t read/watch the link
The fact that I know how many states the US has and how many provinces and tertories Canada has, but an American would be stabbing in the dark
Not surprising given our influence on your culture is far greater than the other way, landmass is worthless when it’s full of the Outback (a beautiful place for sure)
And you’d be surprised how many of us know it’s 6, I bet. Californians get to play with you guys online if we stay up past our bedtimes, after all.
The more fun part is going to be me trying to name them and see if I still can: Queensland, New South Whales, Western? Australia, Northern? Australia, Victoria (you already HAVE ONE NAMED AFTER THE QUEEN THOUGH), Tasmania? Is that one you guys?
azulavoir@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
My stab in the dark is 8. That feels about right
eager_eagle@lemmy.world 1 month ago
oh god, no
I find a squirrel climbing a tree a more interesting event
slickgoat@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Not to worry, I’m sure that there are websites around that cater to your squirrel tastes
MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 1 month ago
To be fair, squirrels are pretty interesting.
nikaaa@lemmy.world 1 month ago
the default country
OpenStars@discuss.online 1 month ago
Tbf it seemed to make more sense for the likes of Reddit, Facebook, etc. Similarly if I go to a Chinese forum I would not assume that everyone there was from the USA.
StopJoiningWars@discuss.online 1 month ago
Assumed by Americans which is an important detail.
YeetPics@mander.xyz 1 month ago
There are tons of tankie subs where you can masturbate to false expectations of the planet and openly hate people who you’ve never met before, check it out!
Donebrach@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Haha. Like anyone lives outside the US
Feathercrown@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Maybe you should try posting more often then ;)
MedicPigBabySaver@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I don’t care where y’all are from as long as you’re not a dumbass dickhead.
MBM@lemmings.world 1 month ago
I wonder if a news community with a “no mentioning the US” rule would work. Not out of any hate, just as something arbitrary like “don’t use the letter E”.
todd_bonzalez@lemm.ee 1 month ago
I mean, we did invent this cursed network. It’s our job to ruin it.
aBundleOfFerrets@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
I mean the us dwarfs other english speaking countries
RoidingOldMan@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Aren’t the majority of English speakers from the US?
Juice@midwest.social 1 month ago
Jimmy Eat USA
SPRUNT@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I hear you and am guilty of it myself. I feel like it’s due to the anonymous nature of the internet. I think everyone immediately falls into the category of “peer” before putting a touch more thought into who the actual person (bot/ai) is that wrote the reply. Add that to the fact that most Americans see themselves (as a country) as the king of the world.
Maybe you can try typing with an accent, but I think that’d probably just be seen as a racist American.
merari42@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Howdy y’all bros. My name is Todd Bonzalez and I am from one of the great American places foreigners know from your TV shows.
Henry@lemmy.ca 1 month ago
Don’t be so self-involved. Try visit China for once and you will get sick of the word “China”, it’s literally in everything there :), like communist party’s intelligence service :)
JoYo@lemmy.ml 1 month ago
i live in DC and we get tagged for everything world politics.
forgive for not caring if fvey countries get lumped into uspol.
AA5B@lemmy.world 1 month ago
As an American who just wants things organized clearly, I find it annoying too
buzz86us@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Well Al Gore invented the internet so the internet is more a.USA thing 🤣🤣
occultist8128@infosec.pub 1 month ago
as a person that came from 3rd world country, i relate T_T
callouscomic@lemm.ee 1 month ago
The SMX “World Championship” just finished. It only takes place in the US.
Sam_Bass@lemmy.world 1 month ago
its just the loudest voices that seem to drive the world.
circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org 1 month ago
I completely understand the sentiment.
I also understand the sentiment that the internet is effectively a US invention dating back at least to ARPAnet.
I guess what I’m suggesting is: can’t we all just get along? At least we can now all communicate with each other.
credo@lemmy.world 1 month ago
This is lemmy.world, you would have to join lemmy.{country} for lands beyond the fruited plains and purple mountains majesty.
abbadon420@lemm.ee 1 month ago
Not on Lemmy. Om Lemmy you’re 50% German, 50% American unless proven otherwise.
elvith@feddit.org 1 month ago
𝕯𝖎𝖊𝖘𝖊 𝕶𝖔𝖒𝖒𝖊𝖓𝖙𝖆𝖗𝖘𝖊𝖐𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓 𝖎𝖘𝖙 𝖓𝖚𝖓 𝖟𝖚 𝕱𝖚𝖊𝖓𝖋𝖟𝖎𝖌 𝕻𝖗𝖔𝖟𝖊𝖓𝖙 𝕰𝖎𝖌𝖊𝖓𝖙𝖚𝖒 𝖉𝖊𝖗 𝕭𝖚𝖓𝖉𝖊𝖘𝖗𝖊𝖕𝖚𝖇𝖑𝖎𝖐 𝕯𝖊𝖚𝖙𝖘𝖈𝖍𝖑𝖆𝖓𝖉!
stoy@lemmy.zip 1 month ago
I have boocked sooooo many german communities and several german instances.
I browse all to get as much new content as possible.
But I have to block a shitload of stuff I am not interested in seeing.
HK65@sopuli.xyz 1 month ago
SPRICH DEUTSCH DU HURENSOHN
weker01@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
Tja, da verpasst du was…
Just learn German. Just do it
anzo@programming.dev 1 month ago
I have filtered out some terms: elon musk and donald trump
5714@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
There was a fair amount of French language posts too, not sure how much quality and engagement they have.
Iron_Lynx@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Well, then have some proof:
G E K O L O N I S E E R D
stebo02@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
zeg makker
abbadon420@lemm.ee 1 month ago
Als een warm bad
lvxferre@mander.xyz 1 month ago
Du irrst dich, Brudi - niemand spricht Deutsch hier.
abbadon420@lemm.ee 1 month ago
Yo no hablar alemàn
OpenStars@discuss.online 1 month ago
Da hast du wohl recht, ich habe noch kein einziges “du hast mich” bis jetzt (Verwenden Sie für den zitierten Teil nicht Google Translate)
lugal@sopuli.xyz 1 month ago
SPRICH
Siegfried@lemmy.world 1 month ago
ESPAÑOL
almar_quigley@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Just like Reddit was back in the day.
SassyRamen@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Alter… das kann nicht sein
abbadon420@lemm.ee 1 month ago
Ja ech waar, ik maak geen gein
modifier@lemmy.ca 1 month ago
Ja genau.
Hossenfeffer@feddit.uk 1 month ago
I’m Scottish and don’t know what the fuck % I am.
I’m guessing 67% German, 22% American at this point.
fushuan@lemm.ee 1 month ago
I assume 70% European 30% whatever else, although that depends on the instance. Of the instance gives any indication I just assume that.