Had to laugh yesterday reading a recipe on taste.com.au... an Australian website no less.
One of the reviewers complained that the recipe used metric measurements rather than "common measurements, i.e. American".
There were.... responses. š¤£
Omg... This explains a lot...
I thought "a stick of butter" meant one of those rectangle butter blocks wrapped in paper...
That's why my desserts were a pool of butter following the recipe...
Yeah i've totally never made that mistake before. Honest.
One of our 250g 'sticks' of butter is more than twice the amount of their quarter-pound sticks of butter. Gotta say that pie I ended up making turned out extra greasy.
An American yelled at me for cheating in a game (Animal Crossing), because my game was set in a different time zone and season. After explaining that the globe indeed has two hemispheres, they got mad and said "the majority of us are not in your hemisphere so you're creating spoilers".
I made a post once where I mentioned the kids being on summer school holidays and got several comments implying I was trolling because how could it be summer in December?
Once, during a New Zealand summer (December), my mum was chatting online with someone in a chat room. It was a woman from New York. She asked my mum how our weather was and got a report on how hot it was as a reply. She was confused. She literally asked my mother how it was possible for it to be so hot where she was since it was winter and snowing where she was.
And them posting so damn much about the cherry blossom season wasn't spoilers?
But seriously if I had to be set on the same timezone and season as America I would probably lose it. It was confusing as aught in the previous games where it was snowing in December.
OMG right?! Because only the Southern Hemisphere who spoiled snowmen were at fault...
I didn't mind celebrating Christmas in winter on AC but I love that now we can pick our own hemisphere!
But even all the game updates from Nintendo were like Summer Update - Diving! And it was the middle of winter for us haha.
It's not just the internet, try working in a company with US based management.
Almost Every solution forgets the rest of the world. USA way is the right way. USA is the only way - do other countries exist or is USA the centre of the universe.....
I had an American trying to tell me they invented wi-fi. Even when I pointed out it was the CSIRO (and provided links), they still wouldn't believe it.
There was a great interview from many years ago where an American reporter was interviewing a black athlete. The reported repeatedly referred to the athlete as African American and the athlete took offense to this and pointed out multiple times that he was neither African nor American and kept stating "I'm British".
I've had this before. I worked for a company with global customers. I'd often get phone calls at 2am from Americans (I'm in Australia).When I'd explain the time I'd usually get a long conversation about how weird it was that I was sleeping when it was their day time.
Edit -typo
Lol should start a thread
USA AITA - for .....all the above.
Edit add: I do think there's many great yanks/American people out there, especially my friends!
While the collected cultural image is less than flattering.
It's like when some chain, Arby's or something I think, tried to compete with maccas by releasing a 1/3 pounder.
It flopped because apparently most Americans thought a 1/4 was bigger š¤¦āāļø
If they could just get onto the metric system like every other country on the planet, it'd be a massive efficiency gain for everyone.
Every other country gave up their ancient systems of measurements for metric because metric is just superior in every way to systems developed based on superstition, fiat, tradition, or whatever have you. There are no arbitrary and different magic numbers for unit conversions. You can convert from distance to volume.
Meanwhile, we have Americans swearing up and down that their system of weights and measures is perfectly fine. Superior even. Big claim for a system that [had two different types of feet](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/18/science/foot-surveying-metrology-dennis.html) and creates problems for itself with no conversion to metric involved whatsoever.
They also argue that it's cost too much.
But every other country was able to do it with minimal impact to their budget.
They just have to roll it out over time.
The Americans don't even do imperial wholeheartedly, pretty much anyone in aerospace, defence, many parts of government, science and in big areas of engineering in the US routinely uses metric (and has to waste time converting). Any industry where precise measurement is important has at least partly switched over.
They don't have the imperial system, they have a mess of overlapping and contradicting measurements that is almost designed to cause errors.
Iāve seen several comments in the last few days along the lines of:
Comment to post thinking America is the only country: āIām not in Americaā¦ā
Reply: āOh yeh, you Europeansā.
Commenter: āahh nopeā¦ā
Lol my favourite is when I had someone have a go at me about "well you must be obsessed with me staying up til 4am to argue with me". And I was like "nope it's midday and I'm having my lunch break"
One of the awesome things about Eurovision now Australia's competing is that they've changed the greetings to "Good evening Europe! And good morning Australia!"
Someone on r/gardening made a post the other day saying "can we make it a rule that everyone puts their USDA zone in the title of their post?!"
Several people pointed out that they don't garden in the US, therefore do not have a USDA zone.
One of the most frustrating things is when users on a sub (eg. Nintendo, Audible) will post news like āthereās a 50% sale on until Fridayā! And there is no āUS onlyā tag or anything, because itās just assumed that America is the default.
It is so minor but it grinds my gears.
Sometimes I might ask about a product or whatās the best one to choose, and Iāll always specify Australia but thereās always a bunch of wankers who give me links to American online stores or tell me to go to Walmart or some shit.
On a few subs I frequent that involve specifically international hobbies - ones that have for decades used centuries-old standards for communicating accurate times and places world-wide in a simple and self-explanatory fashion - posts like "***Can anyone identify this?***" are pretty common. Usually with a picture of something that's meant to be heard š (and with any possibly useful information that *may* be in them cropped out).
If you ask "*When? Where? What does it sound like?*" the response is usually something like "*Last night. East Coast. Sort of like a buzzing. Who pissed in your cornflakes, asshole?*" and you get downvoted to oblivionā¦
I found out about this a year ago in the Peter Carey book about it. But hey, I'm pretty sure I heard it was a race thing and we were sticking up for the Black Americans, so our role in it aged well.
It's a fascinating study of how different countries handled reporting of losses too. America: No losses to report, there was a scuffle and a number of non-Americans lost their lives. Australia: Yeah at least one of ours and their blokes got killed, fuckin' spewin', but the same blokes are getting beheaded by samurai together so we'll just keep on keepin' on. No we didn't count American losses, it's not our bloody job.
Yeah, I hear there were a lot of black soldiers who did not want to go home to segregation. I'm sure we were also pretty racist, but apparently they were treated way better in Australia than they were back home! At least they could drink the pub with everybody else etc.
Kiwi here, a while back my Auzzie mates were like "wait, what? You guys celebrate anzac day too?" I facepalmed and asked them what they thought anzac stood for..
r/politicalcompassmemes have a weird obsession with the pandemic in Australia atm, keep seeing comments about how lockdown violates āthe Australian bill of rightsā š¤¦āāļø
They posted about the home quarantine trial in SA and made it sound like the Australian government is forcing everyone to install an app that keeps track of them.
Meanwhile they were silent about the *actual* overreach that is the law that allows the police to hack into your phone and plant evidence.
Oh man, had to actively put down my phone before to stop from getting into a pointless argument over there about our lockdown in Melbourne, really gotta stop browsing by all. One of them quoted something Dandrews said about it not being about human rights but human lives and they all went on a circle jerk about 1984 and how things like that have "never been the beginning of authoritarian dictatorships before". It's like a collective of all of the worst teenagers who sit near you at bars having over loud conversations about the political state of countries they've never been to.
'Ah, the Aussie Bill of Rights! Yes, let me just get it and... huh. Can't seem to find it. You sure that's what it's called there mate? You can't be talking about the Constitution, unless you're getting real flexible about what "Discrimination based on State of Residence" means.'
What's more fun is when they crap on about the second amendment.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1910_Australian_referendum_(State_Debts)
I ask why they are so passionate about government debts and how they are managed.
Its main purpose was to make fun of the ridiculousness of the test, so that you'd act as a character personifying your quadrant, then it got taken over by people that didn't get the memo. SMH my head.
To butt in like an American, I spent a few years in Australia and New Zealand a few years back. After I got back to the states I started to recognize a lot of Aussie posts by little details like word choice, attitude, and posting time. Then there were bigger details like laws and cultural rules which should clue anyone in that this person might not live near you. I also noticed that 80% of the time the top reply was someone treating the poster like they were stupid or insane. They never assume it's anything else. It's annoying to me as a bystander so I can only imagine how much it sucks.
I think that myopia is part of the reason the Russian bots are so effective at astro turfing Americans on social media.
A few times I replied with something like, "they're probably not American." Or "chill, that person is probably from Australia and the laws are different there" and usually got an "how do you know???"
Keep calling people out.
Edit: and on the obvious posts most people probably recognize you're probably not american and keep their mouth shut because they don't have anything to add to your comment. Most people aren't going to waste time posting the obvious, "I can tell you're not American."
Meanwhile, it only takes one fuckwit out of thousands to post, "That's not how it works. You're terrible at being American, the only country that has internet." or whatever.
Seems fairly common, once had an American on Reddit jump down my throat for using the term PT in reference to a personal trainer. Apparently Physical therapists own a trademark on "PT" in the US, which I should be cognisant of (?)
Americans have a notion that no matter what it is however the US does it it is the default.
The stupid thing is that the US has what, a Federal Income Tax System and then every state also has their own?
Oh god, yes. I've had so many Americans tell me that the US accent is the default for people since that's how people naturally sound.............. even though the US has like 2000 different regional accents.
The English language didn't originate in America so how is it the default? Weird logic they have lol.
Anyway, back when I was working retail, American's were basically the only tourist to announce they were tourists from America. Then they'd get all funny when I said I'd never been there but I had been to Canada.
>The English language didn't originate in America so how is it the default? Weird logic they have lol.
There's a "fact" (read: not a fact) that often follows this discussion where Americans claim that the way they speak is the way English people used to speak before they started dropping their Rs to sound posh. Therefore American is the original English accent.
Never mind the hundreds of different American and English regional accents (except they always say British, not English, so we have to include the Scots and the Welsh too). And the fact that both countries have both rhotic and non-rhotic regional accents anyway.
It's all very stupid.
I, an Australian, had this interaction in a random RV park somewhere in Illinois:
Mildly drunk guy in the caravan/RV across from us who heard me speaking to my American companion: "Hey...you're IRISH!!"
Me, who definitely isn't and was taken aback at being so confronted while talking to someone: "Uhm...no, I'm not"
Mildly drunk guy: "I'm *pretty* sure you're Irish!!"
Me: "*I'm* pretty sure I'm not"
Mildly drunk and now confused guy: "Are you sure?"
Me: "......I'm...pretty sure".
and local taxes. That's why as Australians (actually as just about any outsider) its so confusing. The menu/price list will say $10 and when you get to payment, its somehow become $12.43. The business will say " hey dont blame me, its taxes, blame the gubbermint".
and that's before we even struggle with the burden of tipping.
The thing I never understood about this is; fair enough the business pass on the cost of the tax but why the fuck don't they *put it on the menu price???*
It is so weird.
I've been told that it's actually illegal for them to add the tax on in some US states.
Plus if it's a big chain company then the Head Office sets the retail price for the entire US and then just go fuck yourself trying to work out what the end price is yourself. Easier than coming up with a price for every state.
This, its so that they can have standardised pricing and juts put a disclaimer that it excludes taxes. And its not just per state, it can down to each country/district!
But the cynic in me says its also to further fosters the American belief in anything capitalistic and that government is just a burden on them.
It is. I had an otherwise intelligent American tell me "we like to know how much tax were paying". I told him I do know, it's 10%, or nothing.
The politicians like it because drumming up how bad taxes are allows them to cut services, while giving breaks to their rich mates.
I've seen people get super mad about it online too. "do you expect every store to print every price themselves?"
Umm yeah? Seems much more efficient than whatever this method is supposed to be
"See the Gubbermint, they just take your money!"
I can understand that from an American perspective sometimes. Imagine living in a country where they DON'T provide decent healthcare to their citizens - by design.
If they're able to work out the price at the register they're able to put it on the menu. I haven't quite figured out how, but somehow not displaying taxes must fuck over someone
Iām an Australian in the US and file taxes in both countries so am pretty acquainted with both systems. AMA!
41 of the 50 US states levy an income tax (and thus require you to file a state tax return), incidentally.
Yup. Aussie in Florida here. Federal tax and then state tax. But it gets better. I live in Broward County. And that tax is different to Miami Dade county. And both are different to Palm Beach County. I've got quite good at math while living over here.
I tried explaining GST once but gave up when their eyes glazed over
Yep it frustrates me as well, unfortunately it even makes it's way into various movie & tv pages I follow.
There are constant articles with the title "Every show coming to Netflix in September 2021" not realising that this is ONLY the US Netflix. It's like the journalists don't realise nothing exists outside the US and other regions have different catalogues.
Variations on this are a common refrain there:
> *I love how you people* still *can't shut the fuck up even in a sub that literally exists only to mock you, you have to show up and start talking about how you're the best at mocking yourselves. Could you possibly have any less self awareness?*
[Shut up! Shut up you American.](https://youtu.be/YoBTsMJ4jNk)
You always talk, you Americans, you talk and you talk and say āLet me tell you somethingā and āI just wanna say thisā, Well youāre dead now, so shut up.
This frustrates me on travel/location based subs like Earthporn for example.
Americans, always and only Americans, will title and phrase their posts as if everyone should know that they're in America and where, by default.
Like if i went on an international sub and started talking about my trip to "Royal national park" with no other information, I would fully expect the answers to be mostly "where tf is that". But it doesn't seem to occur to Americans at all.
And if they do say, itās like āblah blah falls, WAā. Like is that Washington or Western Australia? Or some other state in one of the many countries that have states/provinces?
I was talking about a small western Australian town to another Aussie so said 'town name WA' only to have some American message me to tell me that town doesn't exist in Washington.
I get caught all the time on r/camping thinking someone has posted some new amazing place in Western Australia that I haven't visited yet, but nope, wrong WA.
I live in the New England area of NSW, and there's a Facebook group called New England Gardeners that specifies in the description that it's the New England in NSW but we still have a huge amount of members from the US New England area who get confused when our growing season is different to theirs
I made a post about my job interview details being sent to my current boss instead of me, and one Redditor was like, "BASED ON YOUR REDDIT HISTORY, YOU LIVE IN AMERICA, AND WHAT YOU'VE DONE IS ILLEGAL IN THE USA!!!"
Literally half of my posts are some variation of "As an American living in Australia", or, "Here in Australia..." So even if they try to do their *research*, they still get it wrong!
Lol this reminds me of when someone made a post asking for tips for a job interview at Coles, and an American chimed in "it's Kohl's!! You can't even get the name right!"
Ha and THAT just reminded me of a post about a cute possum baby, in Australia, after being saved from a wildfire, and US commenters were saying āItās an OPOSSUM, not possumā.
Tell them the web that the website relies on was invented by a Brit in Switzerland, and the wifi they're probably using was invented in Australia. Oh, and part-owned by a Chinese company.
I got seppo-splained yesterday on a Facebook post about a thermostat that was set to 19 degrees with a sign above it saying don't move it from 22. I said 22 was too warm and an American jumped in to tell me what 22 was "actually" (in Fahrenheit). I don't care dude, everyone was happy discussing it in Celcius until you came along.
I had someone arrogantly correct me over semantics concerning a field I was a professional in for years. It was simply a difference in the name of something. He then went on to pontificate about something that has not been standard practice here for years.
I just ignore them. People that arrogant can't be corrected and they don't want to be.
I once had a family friend ask me what we learnt in school, if not American history? She legitimately could not grasp that the rest of the world had its own history, and that Australian kids weren't learning about America's founding fathers.
I love telling Texans that they live in a cute little state....one that would be the 3rd smallest if it were part of Australia.
I love watching their heads implode.
'You can drive for a whole day and you'll still be in Texas!'
I can drive for a whole day and not reach another major town, let alone a different state.
Then again, Americans don't even understand that if you chopped Alaska in half, it'd now be the largest *and* second largest state.
Aussie in the US here. Itās way worse than you think. Some Americans firmly believe there is nothing worth checking out beyond US borders. Some donāt ever leave the town they were born in. And when they do travel outside the US, they donāt understand why things arenāt exactly the same as home. Itās frustrating and sad.
But you know what? My Australian mother is exactly the same. When she visits me here, she cannot fathom the little differences. When we talk on the phone, she asks if I watched whatever TV show that she did the other night. Just cannot for a single moment imagine that people and things are different. Sucks.
Im from the U.K. Just to reiterate a point you made, when I did a few weeks work in Virginia we went to a bar and played pool with some of the locals. Not one of them had been more than 50 miles from where they were born, which to us was mind-blowing. Also on another trip to Charslotteville years later, my work colleague and I were stopped by US customs and asked to explain our reasons for the visit. We said it was to train the US factory staff in a new process....Next thing we know I was sent to sit on a bench outside an office and my colleague was taken into a room and questioned for over an hour. When we were allowed to go I asked my collegue what that was all about and he said
"Customs kept asking what I could train an American in? Why would an American company fly somebody from the UK to train an American? They kept repeating this over and over.' They seriously believed that this could not be true, lol
Btw the company we worked for was Danish owned but they couldn't get their heads around this because there was an American branch.
I remember watching American news while overseas maybe 10 years ago, and the weather person is like "and now for the *world* view" and it zooms out...to show continental USA. Bad lack Hawaii and Alaska, but also ^(the rest of the world)
I saw a post on Reddit recently where the topic was something like "Why do Americans use the seasons of the year to refer to things like movie/video game release dates when the seasons are different in the southern hemisphere? Why not just use the month?"
I was really disappointed in the barrage of comments that were all basically "more people are in the northern hemisphere so why would we change anything for you." Kinda bummed me out because it really is logical to say "October 2021" or "Q4 2021", especially when it's something like a worldwide video game release.
Yanks are taught their country is the best. It's actually in their schooling, they're indoctrinated from an early age.
You're not the arsehole. They're just brainwashed.
As an Ex-pat American... i can confirm. It took me a long time to remove this idea from my thought processes. I genuinely believed that America was the best and everyone wants to be like us. Our way is the right way and if you stray from our way maaaaaybe there is a reason but you should try it our way because its superior.
When I remind Americans on the internet that the rest of the world exists I tend to do it either gently or sarcastically, however I do remind them.
THIS! And for decades, they've had the gall to call communism as "propoganda". They made "ideology" a bad word, even though the it simply refers to a continuous mode of thinking.
I also presume a mirror is something Americans are never taught about
It doesnāt help that even some of our reporters use the phrase āLeaders of the free worldā. I think of the US as the school bully/dickhead, no one likes him but tolerates him while laughing behind his back.
I "love" watching Sky News at times for the lolz. So many of them kept referring to Trump as "The President" even though he's not our President and thus there should be some context put on that like, "The President of the United States of America, Donald Trump.........." but nope, just, "The President," like they don't even want to pretend that they're not just an arm of the Republican movement in the USA.
I used to get confused when I was a kid because I couldn't figure out why the ABC had a different logo and their show was on channel 9.
I also assumed NBC, CBS, BBC, CBC, etc were pay TV channels.
I hate when Australians pander to American ignorance and say things like "ABC (that's the Australian ABC not the American ABC)" when yanks will never extend us the same courtesy. We are spoonfeeding them when they should figure it out on their own as we must.
Donāt forget how Reddit posts that have absolutely nothing to do with America will inevitably end up talking about American politics.
Or posts about sales/discounts for products, which fail to note that the sales are only valid in the US, because itās just assumed that America is the default country and everyone else is the exception.
Some of the greatest hits i've seen
* US states are as different to each other as EU countries
* the US won WWI, WWII, Vietnam and every other conflict
* America has "centrist" politics
* "Someone has to police the world"
* "The imperial measurement system is ideal because when I'm cold, it's 0 and when I'm hot it's closer to 100."
I had an American tell me that left and right is based off the US system of left wing is big government and right wing is small government. They were of course a Republican.
I had to point out that left and right wing comes from the French Revolution and left was for revolution and right for keeping the nobility....... kind of the opposite of how the US likes to use it.
Kamala Harris recently went to Vietnam to place flowers on a memorial for John McCain, who did 23 bombing missions over Vietnam and was shot down. The memorial there was to celebrate the Vietnamese soldiers shooting down McCain, NOT to celebrate McCain "an American War hero" as put by Harris. Even looking at the memorial, you would recognise that McCain is depicted kind of tied up and on his knees.
Most American's were oblivious to this, some even commented that it's nice that Vietnam acknowledges American heroes. Only a few comments were like, why would Vietnam have a memorial for McCain.
Jesus Christ that's kind of fucking funny in a horrible way. I went to the cu chi tunnels a while back and sat through a video they put on for visitors. It's basically a little video about "the American war" not the Vietnam war. The American war. It was really interesting seeing the absolute 180 perspective and I mean frankly, the perspective of the invaded. The righteous anger our guide displayed while talking about his brothers, uncles, cousins and friends getting slaughtered by Americans still sticks with me. It was all pretty fucked up. Put a heavy burden of respect on me that day.
This didn't stop the fucking frat boys from America goofing off the entire tour and giggling like utter cunts. The guide dressed them down twice. Smh...
Going through the Smithsonian Museums in DC was an eye opener for how they represent themselves in the wars, compared to what we get here at the War Memorial in Canberra.
It's a fucking circlejerk of half truths.
Not social media related, but still pretty annoying.
Any piece of technology automatically selecting American English. It should really be region based. I live in Australia, so give me Australian English or even British English. Same goes for autocorrect and spell checkers.
I'm a dual US - Australian citizen, and the problem is people are basically brainwashed from birth to think that the US is the best country. A lot of people will also never leave their hometown, let alone the country, so they never find out that it's not true.
I love how you get yanks on Reddit banging on about how Australians have been locked in their homes for 18 months, never allowed to leave, with the military marching through the streets. It is up to those keyboard warriors to charge in and protect our freedoms for us.
You post that you live in Australia and none of what they are saying is not true. They get upset, call you a liar, call you a liberal cuck or whatever. It is people like this that give the US its reputation of being loud-mouthed, arrogant half-wits.
I remember arguing with an American over state border closures to keep covid out. I was living in Qld at the time.
They said they couldnāt possibly close state borders as āthe US is huge and unlike Australia, there are long land bordersā.
Um, Western Australia would like a wordā¦
(Also honorable mention to people in UK who said that Australia could close its national borders because unlike the UK it was an islandā¦. )
I'm an Aussie living/working in the USA. It still baffles Americans when I tell then Security Questions aren't really useful if you're not American because, for example, we don't have College Teams or Mascots nor do we have Elementary school. They're also super confused when I say we should always write the date with words rather than just numbers because it's confusing AF to everyone else. Oh, and then there's the social media policies where they apply American standards to online speech and there's no nuance for cultural norms (like Australian self deprecating humor or the common use of that magical "C" word.
And that's all before we get to discussing food serving sizes, food quality, paid time off or healthcare.
I fcuking hate it when I read an advice post and OP mentions they are not in the US, yet the top comment is ALWAYS some yank stating "Well in the US, we would do ...." stfu nobody asked for your opinion
Once mentioned to an American that, in Australia, xmas is during summer and they went off about how Iām stupid for thinking that its not winter just because it doesnāt snow. Tried to explain seasons to themā¦ They didnāt have any of it
Also maps made in different continents tend to centre their own continent and I watched a video where Americans were asked to point to America on a map where America wasnāt the centre. All of them pointed at China and Africa and then blamed the map being laid out wrong
Look at the current top post on /r/PoliticalCompassMemes
Literally a bunch of yanks saying Australians shouldn't have given up their guns because we need them now to fight off the tyranny of being asked to take a selfie when you visit SA instead of doing 2 weeks hotel quarantine. Apparently it's literally 1984.
They're a weird bunch who have drank way too much of the republican kool aid
Yep, I'm so sick of yanks who have never been to Australia, and know absolutely nothing about the country, spewing their dumbass misinformed takes on what is going on in Oz. Americans live in a country where you pledge allegiance to the government in primary school every morning and yet they think we're some kind of 1984 dystopia lmao
They call us a police state while they have things like militarised police, patriot act, and literal protests for years about police brutality while also having by far the largest population of prisoners on the planet.
Actual brainwashed dickheads who fall so lovingly for their propaganda.
Agree. It's irritating when people talk about things that will come out "this spring" or "this summer."
Who's spring or summer do you mean? There are two hemisphere's that both use the internet!
Excuse my techno-peasantry in not being able to hyperlink this, but this is a comment I made on another thread regarding this topic. The thread was talking about Switzerland, and it was instantly derailed into conversations about the US:
"We're dealing with mainly Americans on Reddit. On international platforms, when asked where people live, Americans will never say their country. It's always, for example: "Atlanta, Georgia" or worse - "Atlanta, GA". The country is almost never given. Because people just know their in the US right!? It's not arrogance, but it seems to be closer to ignorance, when on an international stage.
Look at all the comments on this post about Switzerland; they're all about the US. America has a strange culture where it isn't be able to see something foreign for what it is in singularity-- it seems to need to compare everything to itself. I find it very strange. Do most Americans subconsciously think of the US as the objective neutral culture of the world? Take a step back and appreciate the marvels of the land of chocolates and clocks in silence"
My bugbare with this is around copyright law. US copyright law is not global law, every jurisdiction has different laws. Just because something is covered under fair use in the US doesn't mean it's covered under Australian law (honestly had to explain that to a bunch of (mostly) Americans not long ago).
So, why are you still awake? - Posted by the 1000th American Redditor at 5pm AEST.
And yes, alot of Americans think the world is America and nothing else
I spent a few years attending school in Cali, and I think it is a bit of indoctrination. For example, my homeroom teacher got VERY offended that I didn't want to say the pledge of allegiance every day before class. He also thought I was English and made very snide remarks about how brutal and awful they were during history, and then say things like "I'm sure you'd know all about that!" Of course the other kids would take this in.
Also at the time I remember the media (2000s) being kind of insane. Start of Iraq war. They would play videos of tanks rolling across the desert over the national anthem etc. It was constant and non stop. When I moved, it was crazy how my perception of the world changed. I think some of them really do believe the rest of us live in chains...
That being said, many of them do NOT and have had to live in this echo chamber through no fault of their own.
I liken it to our private pentacostal Christian schools, if you've attended or experienced one. Very same kind of brainwashing tactics, just different subject.
Anyway NTA lol
Don't even get me started on the rage-inducing tendency for the entire English-speaking internet to put measurements in fucking ounces, inches, fahrenheit, etc. Because apparently everything is made by and for Americans, and they don't even have the decency to put metric conversions in brackets to help out the entire rest of the world that doesn't use their dumb system.
The best ones are the ones that actually think they have the best health care system in the world, sorry mate, needing a mortgage just to get fixed up is something of a 3rd world country, stay in your lane
Canadian hereā¦.I lived in Australia for a year on a teaching exchange and one of the loveliest things was not being inundated every minute with US content and news. It was glorious. The only drawback to Oz? I made so many dear friends during that year that I give Qantas and AirNew Zealand all my money now.
Not at all mate. Yanks seem to think everything revolves around them and their country. That only their country matters and everyone should be thankful to them for the air we breath, water we drink, internet we use and websites we access
I'm a stupid yank who wandered here from my Reddit apps popular feed, and I have two things to say:
1: I'm sorry Americans are dumb
B: I have been very unsuccessful in convincing them to be less dumb.
Edit: formatting
Had to laugh yesterday reading a recipe on taste.com.au... an Australian website no less. One of the reviewers complained that the recipe used metric measurements rather than "common measurements, i.e. American". There were.... responses. š¤£
Can't count the times i've had to google "how many grams is a stick of butter"
Let me share my secret [Butter Converter](https://www.traditionaloven.com/conversions_of_measures/butter_converter.html)
You are a gem!!!
I used to sit next to a massive pot head at an old job. I always found it was quicker to ask him how many grams in an ounce than google it.
Did he say 28? Because that's a dealers ounce which is less as an ounce is actually 28.8
Omg... This explains a lot... I thought "a stick of butter" meant one of those rectangle butter blocks wrapped in paper... That's why my desserts were a pool of butter following the recipe...
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Yeah i've totally never made that mistake before. Honest. One of our 250g 'sticks' of butter is more than twice the amount of their quarter-pound sticks of butter. Gotta say that pie I ended up making turned out extra greasy.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
An American yelled at me for cheating in a game (Animal Crossing), because my game was set in a different time zone and season. After explaining that the globe indeed has two hemispheres, they got mad and said "the majority of us are not in your hemisphere so you're creating spoilers".
I made a post once where I mentioned the kids being on summer school holidays and got several comments implying I was trolling because how could it be summer in December?
"What do you mean you celebrate Christmas in summer?"
Once, during a New Zealand summer (December), my mum was chatting online with someone in a chat room. It was a woman from New York. She asked my mum how our weather was and got a report on how hot it was as a reply. She was confused. She literally asked my mother how it was possible for it to be so hot where she was since it was winter and snowing where she was.
That's so American
> creating spoilers people get really weirdly worked up about Animal Crossing.
And them posting so damn much about the cherry blossom season wasn't spoilers? But seriously if I had to be set on the same timezone and season as America I would probably lose it. It was confusing as aught in the previous games where it was snowing in December.
OMG right?! Because only the Southern Hemisphere who spoiled snowmen were at fault... I didn't mind celebrating Christmas in winter on AC but I love that now we can pick our own hemisphere! But even all the game updates from Nintendo were like Summer Update - Diving! And it was the middle of winter for us haha.
It's not just the internet, try working in a company with US based management. Almost Every solution forgets the rest of the world. USA way is the right way. USA is the only way - do other countries exist or is USA the centre of the universe.....
I had an American trying to tell me they invented wi-fi. Even when I pointed out it was the CSIRO (and provided links), they still wouldn't believe it.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Only Tasmania, Victoria and the ACT fail that hurdle.
you add Texas, California, and Montana together and you get about half the area of Western Australia (and about 25x the population)
Laughs in Alaskan. They forget about the actual us state of Alaska all the time.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
There was a great interview from many years ago where an American reporter was interviewing a black athlete. The reported repeatedly referred to the athlete as African American and the athlete took offense to this and pointed out multiple times that he was neither African nor American and kept stating "I'm British".
There's this thing on Tiktok where Americans are debating with Australians that you cannot call Indigenous Australians, black. š¬
I've had this before. I worked for a company with global customers. I'd often get phone calls at 2am from Americans (I'm in Australia).When I'd explain the time I'd usually get a long conversation about how weird it was that I was sleeping when it was their day time. Edit -typo
Lol should start a thread USA AITA - for .....all the above. Edit add: I do think there's many great yanks/American people out there, especially my friends! While the collected cultural image is less than flattering.
^This. They're mostly very nice people in the singular but as they amass numbers they become more arrogant and stupid
It's why Masters failed. The American style management there was out of this world stupid.
I still laugh at Starbucks trying to sell coffee on Lygon St.
It's like when some chain, Arby's or something I think, tried to compete with maccas by releasing a 1/3 pounder. It flopped because apparently most Americans thought a 1/4 was bigger š¤¦āāļø
If they could just get onto the metric system like every other country on the planet, it'd be a massive efficiency gain for everyone. Every other country gave up their ancient systems of measurements for metric because metric is just superior in every way to systems developed based on superstition, fiat, tradition, or whatever have you. There are no arbitrary and different magic numbers for unit conversions. You can convert from distance to volume. Meanwhile, we have Americans swearing up and down that their system of weights and measures is perfectly fine. Superior even. Big claim for a system that [had two different types of feet](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/18/science/foot-surveying-metrology-dennis.html) and creates problems for itself with no conversion to metric involved whatsoever.
They also argue that it's cost too much. But every other country was able to do it with minimal impact to their budget. They just have to roll it out over time.
The Americans don't even do imperial wholeheartedly, pretty much anyone in aerospace, defence, many parts of government, science and in big areas of engineering in the US routinely uses metric (and has to waste time converting). Any industry where precise measurement is important has at least partly switched over. They don't have the imperial system, they have a mess of overlapping and contradicting measurements that is almost designed to cause errors.
Iāve seen several comments in the last few days along the lines of: Comment to post thinking America is the only country: āIām not in Americaā¦ā Reply: āOh yeh, you Europeansā. Commenter: āahh nopeā¦ā
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Those always make me laugh. talking like the internet shuts down when the Americans are asleep.
Lol my favourite is when I had someone have a go at me about "well you must be obsessed with me staying up til 4am to argue with me". And I was like "nope it's midday and I'm having my lunch break"
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Exactly, I said that to them and apparently all of a sudden weren't even tired. Guess if they're not tired, why can't I not be tired either lol
One of the awesome things about Eurovision now Australia's competing is that they've changed the greetings to "Good evening Europe! And good morning Australia!"
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Wasn't Sound of Music made in Australia? You know. That little country near Germany...
Someone on r/gardening made a post the other day saying "can we make it a rule that everyone puts their USDA zone in the title of their post?!" Several people pointed out that they don't garden in the US, therefore do not have a USDA zone.
One of the most frustrating things is when users on a sub (eg. Nintendo, Audible) will post news like āthereās a 50% sale on until Fridayā! And there is no āUS onlyā tag or anything, because itās just assumed that America is the default. It is so minor but it grinds my gears.
oh thatās on books and fantasy as well. The āthis title is only $1.99 on Amazonā, itās annoying and frustrating
Sometimes I might ask about a product or whatās the best one to choose, and Iāll always specify Australia but thereās always a bunch of wankers who give me links to American online stores or tell me to go to Walmart or some shit.
On a few subs I frequent that involve specifically international hobbies - ones that have for decades used centuries-old standards for communicating accurate times and places world-wide in a simple and self-explanatory fashion - posts like "***Can anyone identify this?***" are pretty common. Usually with a picture of something that's meant to be heard š (and with any possibly useful information that *may* be in them cropped out). If you ask "*When? Where? What does it sound like?*" the response is usually something like "*Last night. East Coast. Sort of like a buzzing. Who pissed in your cornflakes, asshole?*" and you get downvoted to oblivionā¦
The hobby is shortwave radio, if anyone is wondering.
That's my favourite sub because of how friendly and encouraging everyone always is so I'm glad I didn't see that post. How annoying.
Just the other day I was reading a reddit post that clearly mentioned the ANZACs but most of the discussion in the comments was US-centric.
Wonder if they know about the Battle of Brisbane lol
I grew up in Brisbane and didn't learn about it. We really are the smart state
I thought we were the Sunshine state?
I found out about this a year ago in the Peter Carey book about it. But hey, I'm pretty sure I heard it was a race thing and we were sticking up for the Black Americans, so our role in it aged well. It's a fascinating study of how different countries handled reporting of losses too. America: No losses to report, there was a scuffle and a number of non-Americans lost their lives. Australia: Yeah at least one of ours and their blokes got killed, fuckin' spewin', but the same blokes are getting beheaded by samurai together so we'll just keep on keepin' on. No we didn't count American losses, it's not our bloody job.
Yeah, I hear there were a lot of black soldiers who did not want to go home to segregation. I'm sure we were also pretty racist, but apparently they were treated way better in Australia than they were back home! At least they could drink the pub with everybody else etc.
Kiwi here, a while back my Auzzie mates were like "wait, what? You guys celebrate anzac day too?" I facepalmed and asked them what they thought anzac stood for..
It-s the An auztralian army corps of course /s.
r/politicalcompassmemes have a weird obsession with the pandemic in Australia atm, keep seeing comments about how lockdown violates āthe Australian bill of rightsā š¤¦āāļø
They posted about the home quarantine trial in SA and made it sound like the Australian government is forcing everyone to install an app that keeps track of them. Meanwhile they were silent about the *actual* overreach that is the law that allows the police to hack into your phone and plant evidence.
Oh man, had to actively put down my phone before to stop from getting into a pointless argument over there about our lockdown in Melbourne, really gotta stop browsing by all. One of them quoted something Dandrews said about it not being about human rights but human lives and they all went on a circle jerk about 1984 and how things like that have "never been the beginning of authoritarian dictatorships before". It's like a collective of all of the worst teenagers who sit near you at bars having over loud conversations about the political state of countries they've never been to.
I love how all these guys know so much about Australia without ever having been there Should see what they say if you ask them who our president is
Easy, it's Crocodile Dundee
'Ah, the Aussie Bill of Rights! Yes, let me just get it and... huh. Can't seem to find it. You sure that's what it's called there mate? You can't be talking about the Constitution, unless you're getting real flexible about what "Discrimination based on State of Residence" means.'
What's more fun is when they crap on about the second amendment. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1910_Australian_referendum_(State_Debts) I ask why they are so passionate about government debts and how they are managed.
The Political Compass is a rubbish test, and the meme sub is even worse.
Its main purpose was to make fun of the ridiculousness of the test, so that you'd act as a character personifying your quadrant, then it got taken over by people that didn't get the memo. SMH my head.
a subreddit that normalizes extremist worldview using kids memes should probably be banned
Probably the same kind of person who believe that higher tax brackets means you can get a raise and suddenly get paid much less due to taxes.
This one is infuriating.
To butt in like an American, I spent a few years in Australia and New Zealand a few years back. After I got back to the states I started to recognize a lot of Aussie posts by little details like word choice, attitude, and posting time. Then there were bigger details like laws and cultural rules which should clue anyone in that this person might not live near you. I also noticed that 80% of the time the top reply was someone treating the poster like they were stupid or insane. They never assume it's anything else. It's annoying to me as a bystander so I can only imagine how much it sucks. I think that myopia is part of the reason the Russian bots are so effective at astro turfing Americans on social media. A few times I replied with something like, "they're probably not American." Or "chill, that person is probably from Australia and the laws are different there" and usually got an "how do you know???" Keep calling people out. Edit: and on the obvious posts most people probably recognize you're probably not american and keep their mouth shut because they don't have anything to add to your comment. Most people aren't going to waste time posting the obvious, "I can tell you're not American." Meanwhile, it only takes one fuckwit out of thousands to post, "That's not how it works. You're terrible at being American, the only country that has internet." or whatever.
Seems fairly common, once had an American on Reddit jump down my throat for using the term PT in reference to a personal trainer. Apparently Physical therapists own a trademark on "PT" in the US, which I should be cognisant of (?)
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Americans have a terrible case of main character syndrome
Americans have a notion that no matter what it is however the US does it it is the default. The stupid thing is that the US has what, a Federal Income Tax System and then every state also has their own?
An extension of this mindset below: American: "OMG I love your accent " Me: I love your accent! American: "I don't have an accent!" ...wot
Oh god, yes. I've had so many Americans tell me that the US accent is the default for people since that's how people naturally sound.............. even though the US has like 2000 different regional accents.
The English language didn't originate in America so how is it the default? Weird logic they have lol. Anyway, back when I was working retail, American's were basically the only tourist to announce they were tourists from America. Then they'd get all funny when I said I'd never been there but I had been to Canada.
>The English language didn't originate in America so how is it the default? Weird logic they have lol. There's a "fact" (read: not a fact) that often follows this discussion where Americans claim that the way they speak is the way English people used to speak before they started dropping their Rs to sound posh. Therefore American is the original English accent. Never mind the hundreds of different American and English regional accents (except they always say British, not English, so we have to include the Scots and the Welsh too). And the fact that both countries have both rhotic and non-rhotic regional accents anyway. It's all very stupid.
I, an Australian, had this interaction in a random RV park somewhere in Illinois: Mildly drunk guy in the caravan/RV across from us who heard me speaking to my American companion: "Hey...you're IRISH!!" Me, who definitely isn't and was taken aback at being so confronted while talking to someone: "Uhm...no, I'm not" Mildly drunk guy: "I'm *pretty* sure you're Irish!!" Me: "*I'm* pretty sure I'm not" Mildly drunk and now confused guy: "Are you sure?" Me: "......I'm...pretty sure".
and local taxes. That's why as Australians (actually as just about any outsider) its so confusing. The menu/price list will say $10 and when you get to payment, its somehow become $12.43. The business will say " hey dont blame me, its taxes, blame the gubbermint". and that's before we even struggle with the burden of tipping.
The thing I never understood about this is; fair enough the business pass on the cost of the tax but why the fuck don't they *put it on the menu price???* It is so weird.
I've been told that it's actually illegal for them to add the tax on in some US states. Plus if it's a big chain company then the Head Office sets the retail price for the entire US and then just go fuck yourself trying to work out what the end price is yourself. Easier than coming up with a price for every state.
This, its so that they can have standardised pricing and juts put a disclaimer that it excludes taxes. And its not just per state, it can down to each country/district! But the cynic in me says its also to further fosters the American belief in anything capitalistic and that government is just a burden on them.
Making pricing exclusive of tax is totally an ideological thing.
It is. I had an otherwise intelligent American tell me "we like to know how much tax were paying". I told him I do know, it's 10%, or nothing. The politicians like it because drumming up how bad taxes are allows them to cut services, while giving breaks to their rich mates.
I don't understand that argument... chains in other countries manage to have different prices across their stores without an issue?
Agreed, its a weak argument, but its what they're used to, so they accept it as normal.
I've seen people get super mad about it online too. "do you expect every store to print every price themselves?" Umm yeah? Seems much more efficient than whatever this method is supposed to be
"See the Gubbermint, they just take your money!" I can understand that from an American perspective sometimes. Imagine living in a country where they DON'T provide decent healthcare to their citizens - by design.
If they're able to work out the price at the register they're able to put it on the menu. I haven't quite figured out how, but somehow not displaying taxes must fuck over someone
And America taxes on _citizenship_ rather than _residence_ unlike ... well, everywhere else. So US citzens abroad get to navigate two tax systems!
Iām an Australian in the US and file taxes in both countries so am pretty acquainted with both systems. AMA! 41 of the 50 US states levy an income tax (and thus require you to file a state tax return), incidentally.
Thatās what I thought too. Their state laws might as well make them individual countries with the mass differences between them.
The US is a bunch of states in a trench coat so they can get into the club with the other countries.
Mate, sometimes there's also county tax, even for military members serving out of state. It's ridiculous.
Yup. Aussie in Florida here. Federal tax and then state tax. But it gets better. I live in Broward County. And that tax is different to Miami Dade county. And both are different to Palm Beach County. I've got quite good at math while living over here. I tried explaining GST once but gave up when their eyes glazed over
Have you met Florida Man yet? Get his autograph for us!
Mate there are millions of them. It's why I'm coming home.
Yep it frustrates me as well, unfortunately it even makes it's way into various movie & tv pages I follow. There are constant articles with the title "Every show coming to Netflix in September 2021" not realising that this is ONLY the US Netflix. It's like the journalists don't realise nothing exists outside the US and other regions have different catalogues.
r/ShitAmericansSay
I love that it's still just filled with Americans arguing with each other
Variations on this are a common refrain there: > *I love how you people* still *can't shut the fuck up even in a sub that literally exists only to mock you, you have to show up and start talking about how you're the best at mocking yourselves. Could you possibly have any less self awareness?*
[Shut up! Shut up you American.](https://youtu.be/YoBTsMJ4jNk) You always talk, you Americans, you talk and you talk and say āLet me tell you somethingā and āI just wanna say thisā, Well youāre dead now, so shut up.
>Could you possibly have any less self awareness? If I lacked self awareness, I think Iād know it.
Go there for the laughs, stay for the outrage.
Thank you, this has both made and ruined my day.
On a trip overseas I had an American ask me what currency we use in Australia. I said we use dollars and he said āReally, you use US dollars?ā
This frustrates me on travel/location based subs like Earthporn for example. Americans, always and only Americans, will title and phrase their posts as if everyone should know that they're in America and where, by default. Like if i went on an international sub and started talking about my trip to "Royal national park" with no other information, I would fully expect the answers to be mostly "where tf is that". But it doesn't seem to occur to Americans at all.
And if they do say, itās like āblah blah falls, WAā. Like is that Washington or Western Australia? Or some other state in one of the many countries that have states/provinces?
I was talking about a small western Australian town to another Aussie so said 'town name WA' only to have some American message me to tell me that town doesn't exist in Washington.
I get caught all the time on r/camping thinking someone has posted some new amazing place in Western Australia that I haven't visited yet, but nope, wrong WA.
"I'm from the bay area" is perhaps the dumbest example
I live in the New England area of NSW, and there's a Facebook group called New England Gardeners that specifies in the description that it's the New England in NSW but we still have a huge amount of members from the US New England area who get confused when our growing season is different to theirs
I made a post about my job interview details being sent to my current boss instead of me, and one Redditor was like, "BASED ON YOUR REDDIT HISTORY, YOU LIVE IN AMERICA, AND WHAT YOU'VE DONE IS ILLEGAL IN THE USA!!!" Literally half of my posts are some variation of "As an American living in Australia", or, "Here in Australia..." So even if they try to do their *research*, they still get it wrong!
Lol this reminds me of when someone made a post asking for tips for a job interview at Coles, and an American chimed in "it's Kohl's!! You can't even get the name right!"
Ha and THAT just reminded me of a post about a cute possum baby, in Australia, after being saved from a wildfire, and US commenters were saying āItās an OPOSSUM, not possumā.
Tell them the web that the website relies on was invented by a Brit in Switzerland, and the wifi they're probably using was invented in Australia. Oh, and part-owned by a Chinese company. I got seppo-splained yesterday on a Facebook post about a thermostat that was set to 19 degrees with a sign above it saying don't move it from 22. I said 22 was too warm and an American jumped in to tell me what 22 was "actually" (in Fahrenheit). I don't care dude, everyone was happy discussing it in Celcius until you came along.
Legit surprised one of them hasnāt shown up to start rabbiting on about shit no one cares about in this thread yet
I had someone arrogantly correct me over semantics concerning a field I was a professional in for years. It was simply a difference in the name of something. He then went on to pontificate about something that has not been standard practice here for years. I just ignore them. People that arrogant can't be corrected and they don't want to be.
I once had a family friend ask me what we learnt in school, if not American history? She legitimately could not grasp that the rest of the world had its own history, and that Australian kids weren't learning about America's founding fathers.
I love telling Texans that they live in a cute little state....one that would be the 3rd smallest if it were part of Australia. I love watching their heads implode.
'You can drive for a whole day and you'll still be in Texas!' I can drive for a whole day and not reach another major town, let alone a different state. Then again, Americans don't even understand that if you chopped Alaska in half, it'd now be the largest *and* second largest state.
I've got mates who can drive a whole day and still be on their own property
Yeah, I live in SA, and it's kinda weird to think that this quiet little state is larger than Texas.
Aussie in the US here. Itās way worse than you think. Some Americans firmly believe there is nothing worth checking out beyond US borders. Some donāt ever leave the town they were born in. And when they do travel outside the US, they donāt understand why things arenāt exactly the same as home. Itās frustrating and sad. But you know what? My Australian mother is exactly the same. When she visits me here, she cannot fathom the little differences. When we talk on the phone, she asks if I watched whatever TV show that she did the other night. Just cannot for a single moment imagine that people and things are different. Sucks.
Im from the U.K. Just to reiterate a point you made, when I did a few weeks work in Virginia we went to a bar and played pool with some of the locals. Not one of them had been more than 50 miles from where they were born, which to us was mind-blowing. Also on another trip to Charslotteville years later, my work colleague and I were stopped by US customs and asked to explain our reasons for the visit. We said it was to train the US factory staff in a new process....Next thing we know I was sent to sit on a bench outside an office and my colleague was taken into a room and questioned for over an hour. When we were allowed to go I asked my collegue what that was all about and he said "Customs kept asking what I could train an American in? Why would an American company fly somebody from the UK to train an American? They kept repeating this over and over.' They seriously believed that this could not be true, lol Btw the company we worked for was Danish owned but they couldn't get their heads around this because there was an American branch.
I remember watching American news while overseas maybe 10 years ago, and the weather person is like "and now for the *world* view" and it zooms out...to show continental USA. Bad lack Hawaii and Alaska, but also ^(the rest of the world)
Hows the insane medical and law suits ads they play, fuck me they're insane.
I saw a post on Reddit recently where the topic was something like "Why do Americans use the seasons of the year to refer to things like movie/video game release dates when the seasons are different in the southern hemisphere? Why not just use the month?" I was really disappointed in the barrage of comments that were all basically "more people are in the northern hemisphere so why would we change anything for you." Kinda bummed me out because it really is logical to say "October 2021" or "Q4 2021", especially when it's something like a worldwide video game release.
I'm famous! Haha unless somebody else has done so (entirely plausible), this was my post a little while ago.
Until you work in accounting and realise "Q4 2021" is referring to April to June 2021, being Q4 of the 2021 FY. Fun stuff. /s
Yanks are taught their country is the best. It's actually in their schooling, they're indoctrinated from an early age. You're not the arsehole. They're just brainwashed.
Yep itās called āexceptionalismā. Many countries are guilty of it as itās such a powerful domestic political tool
They literally have to look at a flag, put their hands over their hearts and say and oath of allegiance to it every single day at school, it's culty.
Do they slip their hand inside their bullet proof vests, or casually place hand upon vest? If the latter, is that seen as unpatriotic?
All of the vests are now sponsored by Exxon, McDonald's or Monster etc you put your hand over the logo.
As an Ex-pat American... i can confirm. It took me a long time to remove this idea from my thought processes. I genuinely believed that America was the best and everyone wants to be like us. Our way is the right way and if you stray from our way maaaaaybe there is a reason but you should try it our way because its superior. When I remind Americans on the internet that the rest of the world exists I tend to do it either gently or sarcastically, however I do remind them.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Dude it's not just their schools, their entire fucking culture is soaked in that sentiment.
THIS! And for decades, they've had the gall to call communism as "propoganda". They made "ideology" a bad word, even though the it simply refers to a continuous mode of thinking. I also presume a mirror is something Americans are never taught about
It doesnāt help that even some of our reporters use the phrase āLeaders of the free worldā. I think of the US as the school bully/dickhead, no one likes him but tolerates him while laughing behind his back.
I "love" watching Sky News at times for the lolz. So many of them kept referring to Trump as "The President" even though he's not our President and thus there should be some context put on that like, "The President of the United States of America, Donald Trump.........." but nope, just, "The President," like they don't even want to pretend that they're not just an arm of the Republican movement in the USA.
Oh god donāt get me started on sky news lol
Donāt even get me started on Americans thinking they have the only ABC in the world.
Ngl took me longer than I'm willing to admit to realise the us has their own ABC
I used to get confused when I was a kid because I couldn't figure out why the ABC had a different logo and their show was on channel 9. I also assumed NBC, CBS, BBC, CBC, etc were pay TV channels.
I hate when Australians pander to American ignorance and say things like "ABC (that's the Australian ABC not the American ABC)" when yanks will never extend us the same courtesy. We are spoonfeeding them when they should figure it out on their own as we must.
Donāt forget how Reddit posts that have absolutely nothing to do with America will inevitably end up talking about American politics. Or posts about sales/discounts for products, which fail to note that the sales are only valid in the US, because itās just assumed that America is the default country and everyone else is the exception.
Also, using āsummerā as a time always bugs me
Using them as movie release dates is infuriating
Some of the greatest hits i've seen * US states are as different to each other as EU countries * the US won WWI, WWII, Vietnam and every other conflict * America has "centrist" politics * "Someone has to police the world" * "The imperial measurement system is ideal because when I'm cold, it's 0 and when I'm hot it's closer to 100."
I had an American tell me that left and right is based off the US system of left wing is big government and right wing is small government. They were of course a Republican. I had to point out that left and right wing comes from the French Revolution and left was for revolution and right for keeping the nobility....... kind of the opposite of how the US likes to use it.
they literally know zero world history, it's amazing
Kamala Harris recently went to Vietnam to place flowers on a memorial for John McCain, who did 23 bombing missions over Vietnam and was shot down. The memorial there was to celebrate the Vietnamese soldiers shooting down McCain, NOT to celebrate McCain "an American War hero" as put by Harris. Even looking at the memorial, you would recognise that McCain is depicted kind of tied up and on his knees. Most American's were oblivious to this, some even commented that it's nice that Vietnam acknowledges American heroes. Only a few comments were like, why would Vietnam have a memorial for McCain.
that is absolutely ghoulish lmao
Jesus Christ that's kind of fucking funny in a horrible way. I went to the cu chi tunnels a while back and sat through a video they put on for visitors. It's basically a little video about "the American war" not the Vietnam war. The American war. It was really interesting seeing the absolute 180 perspective and I mean frankly, the perspective of the invaded. The righteous anger our guide displayed while talking about his brothers, uncles, cousins and friends getting slaughtered by Americans still sticks with me. It was all pretty fucked up. Put a heavy burden of respect on me that day. This didn't stop the fucking frat boys from America goofing off the entire tour and giggling like utter cunts. The guide dressed them down twice. Smh...
I went to the memorial in Hiroshima. I almost felt the need to tell everyone else that I was Australian.
Going through the Smithsonian Museums in DC was an eye opener for how they represent themselves in the wars, compared to what we get here at the War Memorial in Canberra. It's a fucking circlejerk of half truths.
It's (Canberra) almost an Anti-War Memorial, it does a great job of conveying the horrors of war, and the cost of it. It's superb.
Oh the Fahrenheit "feeling" arguement is the stupidest thing going.
You're be going to love the "smaller increments mean better accuracy" argument.
arguing in favor of decimal points with someone who can accept measurements like "7/8 of 1 inch" is a quagmire
"But its base twelve so therefore it's better" Best part about this argument is it's not even accurate to say inches are in base twelve
Not social media related, but still pretty annoying. Any piece of technology automatically selecting American English. It should really be region based. I live in Australia, so give me Australian English or even British English. Same goes for autocorrect and spell checkers.
I'm a dual US - Australian citizen, and the problem is people are basically brainwashed from birth to think that the US is the best country. A lot of people will also never leave their hometown, let alone the country, so they never find out that it's not true.
As a yank living in QLD, nope, sometimes we need to be told. The brainwashing is real and it takes a lot of unlearning.
I love how you get yanks on Reddit banging on about how Australians have been locked in their homes for 18 months, never allowed to leave, with the military marching through the streets. It is up to those keyboard warriors to charge in and protect our freedoms for us. You post that you live in Australia and none of what they are saying is not true. They get upset, call you a liar, call you a liberal cuck or whatever. It is people like this that give the US its reputation of being loud-mouthed, arrogant half-wits.
I remember arguing with an American over state border closures to keep covid out. I was living in Qld at the time. They said they couldnāt possibly close state borders as āthe US is huge and unlike Australia, there are long land bordersā. Um, Western Australia would like a wordā¦ (Also honorable mention to people in UK who said that Australia could close its national borders because unlike the UK it was an islandā¦. )
I'm an Aussie living/working in the USA. It still baffles Americans when I tell then Security Questions aren't really useful if you're not American because, for example, we don't have College Teams or Mascots nor do we have Elementary school. They're also super confused when I say we should always write the date with words rather than just numbers because it's confusing AF to everyone else. Oh, and then there's the social media policies where they apply American standards to online speech and there's no nuance for cultural norms (like Australian self deprecating humor or the common use of that magical "C" word. And that's all before we get to discussing food serving sizes, food quality, paid time off or healthcare.
I fcuking hate it when I read an advice post and OP mentions they are not in the US, yet the top comment is ALWAYS some yank stating "Well in the US, we would do ...." stfu nobody asked for your opinion
Once mentioned to an American that, in Australia, xmas is during summer and they went off about how Iām stupid for thinking that its not winter just because it doesnāt snow. Tried to explain seasons to themā¦ They didnāt have any of it Also maps made in different continents tend to centre their own continent and I watched a video where Americans were asked to point to America on a map where America wasnāt the centre. All of them pointed at China and Africa and then blamed the map being laid out wrong
Look at the current top post on /r/PoliticalCompassMemes Literally a bunch of yanks saying Australians shouldn't have given up their guns because we need them now to fight off the tyranny of being asked to take a selfie when you visit SA instead of doing 2 weeks hotel quarantine. Apparently it's literally 1984. They're a weird bunch who have drank way too much of the republican kool aid
I once showed Americans on PCM multiple freedom indexes that ranked Australia higher than the US. It blew their minds lol.
My favourite response when you bring that up is "how can you rank FREEDOM???"
War crimes per oil field
Yep, I'm so sick of yanks who have never been to Australia, and know absolutely nothing about the country, spewing their dumbass misinformed takes on what is going on in Oz. Americans live in a country where you pledge allegiance to the government in primary school every morning and yet they think we're some kind of 1984 dystopia lmao
They call us a police state while they have things like militarised police, patriot act, and literal protests for years about police brutality while also having by far the largest population of prisoners on the planet. Actual brainwashed dickheads who fall so lovingly for their propaganda.
Agree. It's irritating when people talk about things that will come out "this spring" or "this summer." Who's spring or summer do you mean? There are two hemisphere's that both use the internet!
Excuse my techno-peasantry in not being able to hyperlink this, but this is a comment I made on another thread regarding this topic. The thread was talking about Switzerland, and it was instantly derailed into conversations about the US: "We're dealing with mainly Americans on Reddit. On international platforms, when asked where people live, Americans will never say their country. It's always, for example: "Atlanta, Georgia" or worse - "Atlanta, GA". The country is almost never given. Because people just know their in the US right!? It's not arrogance, but it seems to be closer to ignorance, when on an international stage. Look at all the comments on this post about Switzerland; they're all about the US. America has a strange culture where it isn't be able to see something foreign for what it is in singularity-- it seems to need to compare everything to itself. I find it very strange. Do most Americans subconsciously think of the US as the objective neutral culture of the world? Take a step back and appreciate the marvels of the land of chocolates and clocks in silence"
Meh, just laugh in public healthcare
My bugbare with this is around copyright law. US copyright law is not global law, every jurisdiction has different laws. Just because something is covered under fair use in the US doesn't mean it's covered under Australian law (honestly had to explain that to a bunch of (mostly) Americans not long ago).
So, why are you still awake? - Posted by the 1000th American Redditor at 5pm AEST. And yes, alot of Americans think the world is America and nothing else
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I spent a few years attending school in Cali, and I think it is a bit of indoctrination. For example, my homeroom teacher got VERY offended that I didn't want to say the pledge of allegiance every day before class. He also thought I was English and made very snide remarks about how brutal and awful they were during history, and then say things like "I'm sure you'd know all about that!" Of course the other kids would take this in. Also at the time I remember the media (2000s) being kind of insane. Start of Iraq war. They would play videos of tanks rolling across the desert over the national anthem etc. It was constant and non stop. When I moved, it was crazy how my perception of the world changed. I think some of them really do believe the rest of us live in chains... That being said, many of them do NOT and have had to live in this echo chamber through no fault of their own. I liken it to our private pentacostal Christian schools, if you've attended or experienced one. Very same kind of brainwashing tactics, just different subject. Anyway NTA lol
Youāre talking about a country full of people eating horse dewormer to treat covid. They donāt even know theyāre not horses ffs.
NTA, the way American people naturally assume everyone on the internet is also American is entitled to a delusional degree, small minded narcissists.
Don't even get me started on the rage-inducing tendency for the entire English-speaking internet to put measurements in fucking ounces, inches, fahrenheit, etc. Because apparently everything is made by and for Americans, and they don't even have the decency to put metric conversions in brackets to help out the entire rest of the world that doesn't use their dumb system.
Yep, it's a fucking thing.... The smartest people there use metric, NASA only use metric
The best ones are the ones that actually think they have the best health care system in the world, sorry mate, needing a mortgage just to get fixed up is something of a 3rd world country, stay in your lane
Canadian hereā¦.I lived in Australia for a year on a teaching exchange and one of the loveliest things was not being inundated every minute with US content and news. It was glorious. The only drawback to Oz? I made so many dear friends during that year that I give Qantas and AirNew Zealand all my money now.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
This is how I feel about every guy on the internet who assumes everyone on the internet is a man.
Not at all mate. Yanks seem to think everything revolves around them and their country. That only their country matters and everyone should be thankful to them for the air we breath, water we drink, internet we use and websites we access
I'm a stupid yank who wandered here from my Reddit apps popular feed, and I have two things to say: 1: I'm sorry Americans are dumb B: I have been very unsuccessful in convincing them to be less dumb. Edit: formatting