What the fuck did you just fucking say about America, you little bitch? I’ll have you know I graduated top of my class in the Navy Seals, and I’ve been involved in numerous secret raids on Al-Quaeda, and I have over 300 confirmed kills. I am trained in gorilla warfare and I’m the top sniper in the entire US armed forces. You are nothing to me but just another target. I will wipe you the fuck out with precision the likes of which has never been seen before on this Earth, mark my fucking words. You think you can get away with saying that shit about America over the Internet? Think again, fucker. As we speak I am contacting my secret network of spies across the USA and your IP is being traced right now so you better prepare for the storm, maggot. The storm that wipes out the pathetic little thing you call your life. You’re fucking dead, kid. I can be anywhere, anytime, and I can kill you in over seven hundred ways, and that’s just with my bare hands. Not only am I extensively trained in unarmed combat, but I have access to the entire arsenal of the United States Marine Corps and I will use it to its full extent to wipe your miserable ass off the face of the continent, you little shit. If only you could have known what unholy retribution your little “clever” meme was about to bring down upon you, maybe you would have held your fucking tongue. But you couldn’t, you didn’t, and now you’re paying the price, you goddamn idiot. I will shit fury all over you and you will drown in it. You’re fucking dead, kiddo.
Least aggressive response.
It’s a copypasta meant to make fun of overly aggressive keyboard warriors but yeah, it’s very un-chill indeed 😁
Holy shit, its been a while since I read this.
I love the gorilla warfare bit 🦍
Ever heard of guerilla gardening? I give you…a gorilla gardening!
This is starting to turn into gorilla marketing
You mean like this?
Assbro turfing
Stars and Stripes out for Harambe.
Non-americans really love this weird bogus narrative.
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.
You get the same shit from most nationalities.
Nobody is immune to propaganda.
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.
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.
I think they’re full of shit, for what it’s worth. 33 states in 10 years? Wtf…
You can drive through like ten states in a weekend on the east coast
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?
You’ve been to 33 states in 10 years? Why? That’s absolutely unheard of here…
Maybe you guys should do that more then, it isn’t unheard of in Europe.
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 I ever have to read the bogus claim that “USA #1!!!” I’ll flip my shit.
#1 in teen pregnancies maybe
#1 in prison population
#1 in school shootings
#1 in wage gap
What the US is not #1 in: happiness, progressiveness, quality of life, freedom
True. While it’s NEAR the top in SOME good things, I’m pretty sure that the US is only #1 in the ones you mentioned and other bad things lol
I’m starting to get this feeling too. Most of the Americans I know, myself included, rip America a new one at any given opportunity.
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.
Sometimes it’s a case of you can make fun of your own country but no one else is allowed to.
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 think that’s more the hypocrisy of a Russian citizen criticizing American-style capitalism and imperialism when Russia has its own brand of it.
Nobody talks more shit about America than Americans.
I know seriously lmao. I mean I know it’s anecdotal, but I’m in the US and my friends and I constantly criticize the US. Most people I know tend to agree with most criticisms, myself included.
American: makes any sort of joke about any country, even if it’s the smallest most unoffending thing
Person from that country : ur children get shot in schools
We might overuse that comeback, but at least we don’t have school shootings.
Okay, but you do realize that comeback makes you look bad right, not us? No matter your reasons or intentions, you are mocking children being murdered. Like in the example below:
American: lol British people eat spotted dicks.
A brit: lol American children get shot at school.
Wow. What a zinger, you really got me with that one, a fool I was to not recognize the comedy of children dying horrifically.
(To be clear, I didn’t come up with that example randomly. I’ve seen the mocking of spotted dick be met with “lol child murder” more than once)
They’re mocking us for letting children get murdered. Don’t get all civility politics up in here if you can’t even grasp the concept of the jab.
Is spotted dick political? I suppose us americans should have known it was a contentious subject that warrants jokes about child murder
It’s a fucking ignorant ass jab directed at the wrong people. The majority of Americans support stricter gun laws, it is NOT the common mans fault that our centuries old political system is set up in a way that a minority party can have so much influence.
Like I already said, no matter the reasons or intentions, they ARE mocking children being murdered. Maybe it’s “lol you guys let children die lol” instead of “lol child death lol”, but either way children are dead and they are laughing. Meanwhile, the majority of Americans are horrified by it and pissed off nothing is being done by our government to stop it.
It’s also just incredibly thin-skinned. Really, you’re gonna get so offended over a joke about spotted dick that your only response is “you guys have school shootings lol”.
Your responses make the meme accurate. Bravo.
The majority of Americans support stricter gun laws, it is NOT the common mans fault that our centuries old political system is set up in a way that a minority party can have so much influence.
I didn’t personally throw any tea into the Boston harbor but you better believe I’m going to use that as ammo against a brit if I feel like it. Personal agency has no meaning when talking about entire countries.
Civility politics is cringe as fuck. Get over yourself and threaten to liberate their country instead of whining about people being mean on the internet.
A jab is supposed to be in jest… This is just fucked up. Kids died.
Then how about you do something about it instead of complaining that other people point it out?
It is not like any other developed country has that problem.
Either everything is OK to joke about or nothing is. You can have your personal line you won’t cross but don’t project that onto other people.
Seems like the comeback is working since it gets Yanks flustered and writing paragraphs of text as a reply lol
They are simply taking a cheap shot at victims. It makes some people feel superior.
Nobody is mocking children for being murdered, that would be disgusting.
People are mocking the very much unique to the US culture of yes, we know children are being shot in schools, and no, we aren’t going to do anything about it, you crazy freedom-hating commie!
It’s a macabre mocking of your crazy gun culture and politics. Not of your children. I thought that was pretty obvious.
You should be ashamed of yourself. Many wonderful people live in this country. We have so much to do - and yes, we are plagued by many horrors - but we persevere.
Instead of persevering, how about you fix the problem that no other developed country has?
What do you want me to do? Wave my hands and say some magic words and presto have everything be fixed? It doesn’t fucking work that way.
I do what I can within my means. I vote every election for candidates supporting gun and mental healthcare reforms, I do my best to educate my less politically aware friends, I support activist organizations, etc… I’m fucking sorry if I’m not personally out there torching politicians houses or whatever the fuck you expect me to do, but I’ve got people that depend on me not being in fucking prison.
You ever considered that maybe the US deserves to be ridiculed for seeing children die and choosing to do nothing about it?
I understand it’s a touchy subject, but come on. It’s a serious stain on the US. The US deserves immense criticism for it.
At least over here we do have some school shootings even with stricter European gun control laws. It‘s just not as prevalent as in the US.
I guess sometimes overly criticising the US can be seen as some kind of envy. The freedom we admire but the shortcomings we don’t want to have or admit. It‘s just that this extreme bipartisanship and reluctance to talk civilly with each other is disheartening to see.
If you’re allowed to mock children deaths from a mental Healthcare crisis can we mock you for your roving gangs of rape squads?
German link: https://jungefreiheit.de/politik/deutschland/2023/vergewaltigung-im-goerli/
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Right wing sources, yay.
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If you honestly compare Germany and the US, you will notice that the prevalence of rape is much higher in the US (US: ~43/100k vs. Ger: ~15/100k, source: statista.com). Comparing gang rape specifically is more difficult though, because the US doesn’t seem to keep track of that (or at least i couldn’t find absolute numbers). According to Wikipedia 22.8% of rapes with female victims where gang rapes. That makes ~9/100k in the US vs ~1/100k in Germany.
Then again I don’t think statistics regarding a lot of crimes are easily comparable. There might be differences regarding underreporting and legal definitions that skew numbers in different ways.
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Even more “whataboutism”
It’s not whataboutism when it’s on topic. You should look up that word. Also, anecdotes don’t matter when you try to compare things. Statistics do though.
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mental health may be one of the source causes but the cultural enabler of prolific gun ownership and worship is the missing key no other country has
edit: I will add many Americans here are pretty antigun which is great, I just wish there were another 300m like you
The overwhelming majority of so-called school shootings are single-target attacks over gang/drug disputes carried out by poor inner-city kids. They’re victims of poverty and mental health, no amount of overnight gun reform will fix the illegal guns that these kids have access to.
You may, if they are prolific and not just a single crime gang doing rounds.
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One of them is a stereotype based on ignorance and racism.
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The other one is children getting shot at schools.
Funny how both of these things come from the US.
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Americans when literally anything
THIS IS BULLSHIT!!! YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT!!!
WHAT? CAN’T HEAR YOU!!!
I’m American and I can confirm this is true
How do you know somebody’s American without meeting them first?
You hear them.
Unless we’re talking protesting or voting. Then they’re asleep.
Nah. Democrats protest, Republicans vote. Funny how one of those groups wields a grossly exaggerated amount of political power.
Huh? Americans are like the most willing to admit their country is shit of like anywhere of the Lemmy audience… America fucking sucks, sign American. I had some dude from Pakistan super mad at me for saying women are second class citizens there the other day. Apparently they treat women super well, according to that angry guy anyway. I’m still pretty sure they don’t.
As always, these things can’t be generalised. Every country has people that talk about their own problems, and every country has “patriots” that will deny anything is happening. There are just a lot of Americans on the internet, so people notice those who relentlessly praise America more.
After all, few countries literally ingrain “[country] exceptionalism” into their population in their school system. Many Americans, while thinking they are pointing out problems, still say “but it’s still better than almost any other country at X”.
Romania doesn’t ingrain Romanian exceptionalism, but it does keep a lot of the REALLY horrible things Romanians have done out of the history classes.
Starting soon, the Romanian holocaust and communist period are going to be taught in high school history classes. AUR (basically our Republican party) is completely flipping their lid right now. They’re a small party, but very loud and aggressively ignorant.
Sounds like 'murica
Stay strong, my friend
Instead of “thinking something is true about an other country” why don’t you research the topic? Laws are easy to find.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_related_laws_in_Pakistan
While yes, there were some Sharia laws back in the 1980’s, many recent laws in the last 20 years have been giving more rights to women.
And that is the problem with many of you Americans, you read something online once about an other country or hear it on one of your news stations, and you instantly believe it without ever checking if it is factual or not.
The same type of people exist in other countries of course, but the blatant ignorance of Americans about other countries is staggering.
XD ah yes, legally it’s the same, so that’s how it shakes out on the ground for sure!
Uh, what? I live here and I shit on it all the time.
Yeah. as an American I shit on America more than anyone. I got no idea what Op is talking abot.
It’s very much more of a
American criticises America: crickets
Non-American criticises America: hooooo boy here comes the nationalism
American folks want to poke fun at other countries? I say no problem, break a leg! Actually please don’t because it’d probably bankrupt you.
A culturally relevant joke at our expense that still has class? See guys, it IS possible. You, in fact, CAN make fun of America without going “lol your children get shot lol”.
Damn that smarts.
I’d go to get that burn checked but my annual deductible is more than a used car cost before the profiteering here drove up the car prices so high.
Don’t worry, health insurance is on the rise too!
I laughed… then cried. You’re not wrong.
When do we do this? Seriously… Show me. I’ll help you shit all over that miserable person.
I haven’t encountered Americans getting mad over that but what I have encountered is them thinking everything involves the US, especially lately. For example people claiming the Ukraine - Russia war is a proxy war between the US and Russia instead or that NATO = US. Like chill, your country is not relevant to everything in the world.
“Hey, isn’t nati the one that drone strikes weddings?” “No, that the US, that us.” “But america is part of nato…” “Yes, but you can’t just” “Why would nato do that?”
Classicrussianbadgermoment.gif
The Ukraine conflict isn’t a RU - US proxy war in the traditional sense but it’s worth noting that the overwhelming majority of foreign aid to Ukraine has come from the US, more than double the amount of aid given by the EU as a whole. It’s not hard to assume that Ukraine would be in a much worse place without America’s support.
You aren’t totally wrong, but
And if you look at it by gdp the US isn’t even top 10 and the US, UK and northern Ireland are the only countries with a pact obligating them to help Ukraine.
reddit moment
Thanks for the block request
good luck with your echo chamber
As a european, this applies to both sides lol
as a southamerican I remind you that there are more than two sides.
Ah yeah of course
As a southafrican I remind you that reddit is bad and your pfp should not contain a reddit character
As an American you can make fun of America all you want. It sucks here.
The only Europeans I’ve had a problem with are the Danes. They have absolutely no sense of humor.
Or was it the Swedes? I don’t know. I mean they’re right there together. They’re basically the same people right?
Hehehehehehe
There are only two types of people I hate. People who are intolerant of other people’s cultures, and the Dutch.
Why not the french or the british?
This was a joke, we don’t actually hate the dutch
You might not, but I haven’t heard them apologize for the Congo.
I agree, but I don’t think in black and white. My Dutch friend is probably completely oblivious to any of that, and he is a good person. Most people are probably in that same situation.
Would it be good for the government (or any government) to come out and apologize for shitty things that happened in the past? If course. But that isn’t a reason to use blanket “we hate these types of people” statements seriously.
No, sorry, they have a blood debt, they must be purged.
First of all: How dare You!?
They have absolutely no sense of humor. Or was it the Swedes?
It’s definitely the Swedes.
Denmark is the one next to France right? I forget
No, we’re Germany’s hat. Tiny, tiny hat.
Oh so you’re basically just Germany. Got it
Eingebunden.
Rather that than Swedish!
This is the case for every country. You just see it with the US a lot more since it of course has the biggest footprint on the English-language side of the internet.
Not even close. Also doesn’t help that 'muricans have a very distorted view on how their country is perceived
I think most of us on the internet hear about it constantly and it’s pretty hard not to understand how we are perceived.
Ok, can you tell us then how the other countries in the world perceive the US?
Pushy, ignorant, reactionary, racist, isolationist, nationalist. Stick our noses into the matters of other countries where we don’t belong. Assume everything is centered around us. War/military happy. Arrogant. Loud.
Not sure if I’m missing any, but these are the prevailing things I see when people are talking about the US and the people who live here.
What is hard is that there are of course people (many people, even) that match one or multiple of those descriptions. But the same as it is silly to generalize all of Europe (or even any one European country), it is silly to generalize all Americans.
According to one source, the only media that for a long time made it into the states is media that the US government approves of. I could go into detail about it, but it shows up quite prominently in this video.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
I think other countries are a lot more open to self deprecation as part of their humour / culture. Not saying there aren’t some examples of this in America, it just doesn’t seem to be as prevalent as in British comedy for example.
As others have said, we often make fun of ourselves. On these platforms, the liberal side of America is very vocal about the conservative side of America. Healthcare, guns, cost of living, etc. are something we’re constantly being made fun of (often from ourselves).
If you’ve experienced pushback, it’s likely because it gets stale as a subject. We know our country has problem; most of us feel powerless to change it.
Maybe that’s what happens when you have this much diversity in a country. We’re not like the French who can all unify and protest when needed.
edit: Rereading this, it makes it sound like I think diversity is a bad thing. Didn’t mean to imply that, its just that we’re so different its harder to unify.
I’ll just say that I’ve had different experiences for the most part.
Same. In most of the interactions I have had with Americans here (including myself), they have been generally pretty aware of the faults of the United States and willing to admit to them.
National boundaries just divide workers to obscure the fact that they have more in common with each other than with the ruling classes.
The real struggle from the start
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.
