notjustbikes

notjustbikes, 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago)

@helma @photovince I love it when you're doing a tour somewhere and the guide asks where everybody is from. Everybody will say a country except the American who will say "Iowa" or some shit.

Who outside of America knows or cares where Iowa is? Why do they expect that people will know this?

But it doesn't really matter because everybody in the group already knew they were American already by the fact that they were talking 10 times louder than everyone else. 😂

notjustbikes, 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago)

I'm releasing a video this week about Berlagebrug in Amsterdam and I've had Americans tell me that this is inappropriate, because of Baltimore.

These people are literally implying that the entire world should stop talking about THE TOPIC OF BRIDGES because a bridge collapsed in the United States.

I honestly cannot comprehend the level of delusional arrogance that is required to make that statement.

notjustbikes, 1 month ago

What's most frustrating to me is that there are now dozens of urbanist content creators out there, about 95% of them are American, and they make content that is almost exclusively American-focused.

But I am still constantly inundated with Americans demanding that I make more content about the US and issues that only apply to the US.

I met up with another non-American YouTuber recently and he summed it up perfectly: "I wish I didn't have to think about the United States anymore."

notjustbikes, 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago)

I've also realized that one of the reasons I now post almost exclusively to Mastodon (despite my issues with it) is because it has a primarily European audience, so we can discuss issues here without every conversation having to revolve (or devolve) around America.

That is impossible to do on Bluesky or Threads.

It also helps SO much that I can block American Mastodon instances at the server level, which I have done several times. A nice benefit of running my own Mastodon server. 😉

notjustbikes, 1 month ago

@martin_ueding have you ever watched cable news in the United States?

Almost every story is about the US and, the rare times they talk about international issues, it's in the context of what the US did to create it, or what the US needs to do to stop it.

There are literally no news items presented that do not involve the US in some way.

notjustbikes, 1 month ago

@BartWronski well this why I don't want to talk about "fixing" American cities: because the US has unique problems that simply don't exist at anywhere near the same level in other parts of the world.

So this content would need to be very American-specific, and completely irrelevant to the rest of my audience, the majority of whom are not American.

An ultimately I still don't understand why a Canadian living in the Netherlands should be the one to make that kind of content in the first place.

notjustbikes, 1 month ago

@tuckerteague well, I guess I can wipe my tears with the Google AdSense cheques, paid for by car companies advertising to Americans.

notjustbikes, 1 month ago

@BartWronski the last time I was in Poland I saw some of those "commie blocks" that were recently renovated and they were looking REALLY nice.

And of course, they also had good public transit and everything you'd need on a daily basis within walking distance.

notjustbikes, 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago)

@CelloMomOnCars @BartWronski omfg don't even get me started on North American "advocates".

The amount of grovelling they do to drivers and suburbanites is so off-putting to me.

I take a very direct and blunt approach on my channel specifically because I was fed up with the passive, spineless, and ineffective methods of these people.

I have no patience for people who say that my "tone" is inappropriate.

Meanwhile, this is how Amsterdam fought back against cars:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9U6DxNR4ZE

notjustbikes, 1 month ago

@TheDJ nah, the Dutch people are usually happy with my videos but just respond with, "but we have a housing crisis here!" as if Canada isn't experiencing exactly the same thing. 😂

notjustbikes, 1 month ago

@Kadsenchaos yes, I know why that is the case (I briefly lived in the US in '98 and '99), but that doesn't make it any less infuriating for me.

notjustbikes, 1 month ago

@haentz I actually can't. I've tried.

This is only possible with access to YouTube Studio Content Manager and YouTube only makes these tools available to large content providers.

Trust me, if I could geofence my videos I would. Not for all of them, but there are several videos that I would make off-limits to Americans if I could.

notjustbikes, 1 month ago

@tenkoman possibly, but my travel possibilities are limited by the fact that I need to be in Amsterdam for my kids.

notjustbikes, 1 month ago

@supermanifolds seems reasonable.

I'm going to go unlist all my train videos. Let me know when it's all fixed up! 🇳🇴

notjustbikes, 1 month ago

@Jubo lol! Don't worry I don't have any plans to stop making content.

I love making videos and it's still the best job I've ever had, despite these irritations. 😉

notjustbikes, 1 month ago

@toolsontech haha yes absolutely. Thankfully I have learned how to fill out that stupid US withholding tax form that every American service makes you complete, so that I get the 0% withholding rate as a non-US corporation with no activities in the US.

It's still obnoxious that I need to fill it out at all, but I guess it's a small price to pay in order to extract money from American companies and bring it into the EU, where I'm happy to pay taxes on it to get the good life we enjoy here. 😂

notjustbikes, 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago)

@ednl nice!

I think the difference is that that option keeps you from seeing posts from that server, while blocking it at the server level prevents them from ever seeing my content in the first place.

So the Americans on the servers that I've blocked will never see the thread about me complaining about them.

That is, until some asshole screenshots it and posts it to Twitter. 🤣

notjustbikes, 1 month ago

@hey 🤦‍♂️

notjustbikes, 1 month ago

@alda lol! At least you will only have that problem when writing, not speaking.

When people hear me talk they definitely think I'm American because my accent is basically the same. 😭

notjustbikes, 1 month ago

@Mai9 did you not read anything that I've said in this thread?

notjustbikes, 1 month ago

@nyancatflies I am very familiar with several Asian countries and I used to live in Taiwan.

I will eventually make some videos about Asian cities, starting with Japan, but I do not run a "Wikipedia and stock footage channel." When I make a video about something I go there in person and film it, and I don't want to change that, because it makes for a much better quality video.

That does mean however that I am limited to the places that I can talk about because I have to physically travel there

notjustbikes, 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago)

@soviut they probably deleted those comments, you know.

If you see a comments section on the Internet that isn't complete garbage it's because somebody has spent a lot of time moderating it.

notjustbikes, 1 month ago

@ThunderDohm Americans make up less than 30% of my audience (and dropping).

There are over a billion English speakers in the world and the majority of my audience speaks English as a foreign language.

I'm fine with Americans going and watching other channels instead of mine. There are dozens of other urbanist channels out there and the majority of them are run by Americans. Their content will probably be more relevant to them anyway, which frees me to talk about other things.

notjustbikes, 1 month ago

@chutten I think so, yes. Canadian media is a lot more internationally focused, but growing up I also could get access to US TV and see the drastic difference.

notjustbikes, 1 month ago

@alda it's so true about the accents.

I guess I should start working on my "Dutch person speaking English" accent. 😁