There’s a certain degree of truth to it. Americans seem fine with being the butt of a joke as long as the person joking is American and not far left/right. If you offer any doubt about the political or geographic origin of your joke, it’ll often be taken poorly. I enjoy being flamed and so was eager to figure out the political joke context puzzle. +2/-16 and 6 replies, babeeee
Politics is one of the most divisive subjects you can bring up. People react emotionally because it’s an emotional science. What’s “right” comes down to your ethical perspective. I don’t think that should be grouped in with this conversation.
It’s less that I put out an overt political view or location identifier and more that if my post seems agnostic, inferences will be made and a coin will be flipped. The funny thing is, I sometimes win the flip in one place and lose it in another. I can be +5 on lemmy and -10 on kbin because of ambiguity. I’m just like “kids getting shot is bad” and I can feel the hatred pointed at my British self. (I’m not British)
I do believe that’s the response you get, people do like to assume the worst. Do you have any solid proof that any hostile response you get is from Americans? I’m still very skeptical it’s a problem specific to one nation.
It’s far from unique to the US, people from India, France, China, and Russia often despise seeing outside criticism as well and they comprise over half the population of earth. And it’s mostly the topic of conversation and time of day. Were you not to have identified as American earlier, I’d have assumed you to be German or British at this hour.
🤷 As far as I’m concerned, as long as people are laughing with me and not at me I don’t give a shit. I can’t speak for the rest of my countrymen though.
That’s probably because the loudest and most overly defensive ones are the Americans you’re most likely to encounter and remember in online arguments and on American news, so that colors the perception. Especially when you don’t live amongst the more reasonable majority of Americans 🤷
That is not my experience at all. Most Americans get extremely defensive when someone criticizes the US, even people who know better. Many are ok with specific criticism (like, healthcare sucking), but it doesn’t take much for them to revert to 'murican mode.
I have been living in the US for over a decade and been to 2/3rds of the states.
Most Americans have their talking points ready to go around certain topics: healthcare, guns etc. But if you get anything that attacks the capitalism, building the country off of slave labor, or the country being the product of a genocide, that’s when the propaganda really kicks in.
Oh and if you call it propaganda, then the denialism gets even stronger.
Spaniard here, you get very, very similar reactions here from a lot of people (possibly a lower percentage) if you dare to question the process of colonization or call out the barbaric behavior of some historical figures that have become a part of the national myth. Nationalism is a brain disease.
That’s really interesting. I’ve lived in 9 states and I can honestly say that outside of the southeast, it is legitimately difficult to consistently find people that dont think the us is a flaming sack of shit or at least headed that way. Seriously, I’ve heard waaaaaaaaaaaaay more negative talk on the us from Americans than anything positive. Especially in like the last decade. But this place is so damn big that anyone’s experience would vary a crazy amount so that makes sense.
If you’re going to accuse me of lying, at least have the decency of doing it in a reply to my post. I lived on the East Coast and traveled up and down some, then I moved to the Midwest, I got into politics and canvassed in several states plus I went on a few road trips for fun. Then I moved to the West Coast, which somewhat limited my ability to go on road trips to other states, but still, I went as far as Colorado, I spent a month there doing backpacking and visiting a few places like Denver and Aspen.
Why do you think it is so unlikely I could visit 3 states a year?
Are you in tech or some other field that doesn’t involve interacting with different socioeconomic groups?
Most of not all states guarantee some “interesting” encounters if you leave the cities. In California I have seen Confederate flags flying, met neonazis, and plenty of Trump supporters. Trump got over 34% of the vote in California, almost 39% in Washington and over 40% in Oregon. Those percentages are not a majority, but I think it sets a floor, since Trump supporters are not exactly trash talking the US.
I have spent a lot of time doing canvassing and other activities that mean I encounter people with very different ideas, so that would definitely explain the different experience.
well if an american does respond to this it proves them right if they dont respond it doesnt prove them wrong its a bad argument for an otherwise pretty dumb claim
unless americans do care i hate america and am american so idrk
If we say “Capitalism is ruining our lives”, it’s fine, but if someone from Russia says “Capitalism is ruining your lives”, folks are ready to throw down.
I call BS. I feel it’s more popular than ever to dunk on the US. Like, there’s still a sect of 'MURICAN PATURYOTS that get big mad, but most of us are well aware of reality.
I think it’s definitely true that Americans get defensive when you criticize the US. I also think it’s true that a huge reason for that, is because the only thing the internet seems to enjoy doing at the moment is complain about the US—no one likes to hear their country that they’re living happily in trashed on constantly.
And I say that as someone who deeply enjoys complaining about the US
So I work with a lot of people from a variety of countries. Some of those countries have really bad governments. When we joke about each other’s countries, it’s about the governments. I remember this guy who used to work with me from the Philippines. It was near the beginning of lockdowns and just after Duterte was elected. He made fun of the shit Trump was saying and doing, and I got to joke that they had their own Trump(maybe worse) coming. Australian co-workers laugh along when we joke about their shit politicians.
What we don’t do is joke about the people or the culture. That’s shitty. All those people are just as much victims of their own circumstances as we all are of our own. But we’re adults who work with each other every day and it’s easy to remember that we’re all real people. The internet however…
I haven’t noticed Americans getting upset when people criticize shitty government policies or decisions. At least not from people who aren’t boot-lickers from jump. The problem is when people make fun of American stereotypes. Americans are fat and loud and whatever. Like, if all you heard was people talking about Canadians being stuck up about needing things written in French or topped with poutine, it would probably get old, right? “Go cry at your Tim Horton’s and take your polar bear for a walk.” (okay, so I had to google Canadian stereotypes and it’s a short list.)
I don’t like America’s gun culture either. And I hate when it comes up there’s always someone who comes in and preaches the gospel of the 2nd amendment. It also doesn’t feel great when people make that generalization about me. This thread is full of people saying Americans are dumb and racist. That’s just shitty behavior that no one bats an eye at because it’s normal to make those jokes. If I started making comments about like, French people smelling bad or (insert some other offensive thing. I don’t keep track of bad stereotypes and I’m done googling it) then that would also be bad and it’s a thing I think we should start calling out across the board.
You’ve absolutely nailed it. The problem is when people use the faults of a country to generalize or reinforce predijuce about individuals, and it is interesting how quickly some people just accept it.
I also work within an international collaboration, and the xenophobia on the internet is so shameful. There’s no way any of it would fly in real life. You have to develop respect for people as individuals to work closely/effectively.
Americans (and Canadians, we’re not above this problem): “I hate our government! They lie about everything and have no regard for human rights or even basic integrety! But also I uncritically believe everything they say about other countries that they already hate and have a massive political and economic incentive to smear because their governments are obviously way worse, I know that because my government told me so.”
Lol, what? You can make fun of us. We’re pretty fucking funny… But like, in a sad, defeated kind of way… Like, we’re sleeping in the gutter and pretending we’re fine, but at least we are looking at all those stars.
We don’t need to move. This is fine. We’re fine. Fuck off, we’re fine. You can’t help us, anyway.
A good analogy to this is the emperor of America. He was just some homeless crazy dude in San Francisco in the 1860s. He attempted to price gouge the Chinese during their rice famine but shortly found himself under water on his rice contracts. This left him homeless and bitter so he named himself emperor of the United States. He somehow started printing his own money and some places feeling bad for him took it.
That’s how the world sees America. Oh, the crazy folk are just down on their luck. They’ll likely either die or end the world in a few years but at least they’re making record profits.
Yeah especially if you happen to be south of us in the Americas. America works very hard to make sure the current status quo is maintained. That status quo originally won by govt agencies on behalf of the political elite’s rich friends.
The highest estimate for US emigrants is 9 million. Since there’s no perfect way to track emigrants, the Dept of State uses available numbers from multiple sources and extrapolates it. The UN puts their estimate at about 3 million, but their data comes from censuses which can be inaccurate or non-existent.
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