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”.
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.
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.
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.
That’s probably because the loudest and most overly defensive ones are the Americans you’re most likely to encounter and remember in online arguments and on American news, so that colors the perception. Especially when you don’t live amongst the more reasonable majority of Americans 🤷
That is not my experience at all. Most Americans get extremely defensive when someone criticizes the US, even people who know better. Many are ok with specific criticism (like, healthcare sucking), but it doesn’t take much for them to revert to 'murican mode.
I have been living in the US for over a decade and been to 2/3rds of the states.
Most Americans have their talking points ready to go around certain topics: healthcare, guns etc. But if you get anything that attacks the capitalism, building the country off of slave labor, or the country being the product of a genocide, that’s when the propaganda really kicks in.
Oh and if you call it propaganda, then the denialism gets even stronger.
Spaniard here, you get very, very similar reactions here from a lot of people (possibly a lower percentage) if you dare to question the process of colonization or call out the barbaric behavior of some historical figures that have become a part of the national myth. Nationalism is a brain disease.
That’s really interesting. I’ve lived in 9 states and I can honestly say that outside of the southeast, it is legitimately difficult to consistently find people that dont think the us is a flaming sack of shit or at least headed that way. Seriously, I’ve heard waaaaaaaaaaaaay more negative talk on the us from Americans than anything positive. Especially in like the last decade. But this place is so damn big that anyone’s experience would vary a crazy amount so that makes sense.
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.
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?
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
So is America one or two continents? Our US schools call them North America and South America despite being connected as a single land mass.
The other fun one to spring on we United States of America citizens if that the full and proper name of Mexico is “The United Mexican States”. Having Mexico have a name and a similar idea of states forming a union, but not bring the USA doing it really bugs people here.
If we go by plate tectonics, NA and SA are distinct continents, as they are on different plates. Europe and Asia are definitely one Eurasian continent though, as they are on the same plate.
America is indeed two continents, North and South. Continents aren’t just connected land masses, they are the major tectonic plates that the earths crust is divided into. North America is on the North American plate, South America on the South American plate.
There ARE some interesting facts on this though. Unlike NA and SA, which ARE distinct continents, Europe and Asia genuinely are NOT separate continents; both are contained on the absolutely massive Eurasian tectonic plate(NA plate is technically bigger, but a lot of it’s in the ocean). Another fun fact is that the absolute most north-eastern part of Siberia is technically part of North America.
Whether it's one continent or two, the point is that it's bigger than the United States. At least I've always studied that Americans are people who live in America, either from Canada, United States, Mexico, Cuba, Nicaragua, Argentina... Then you can divide them between North Americans and South Americans.
Yes, it is much bigger than the United States, though not for our lack of trying. We had quite a century or so where we tried to conquer, buy, or steal every bit of land we could.
Today, American is still much bigger then the United States, but we US Citizens don’t even really have good vocabulary for just US vs the rest of the Americas.
But English, being a de facto universal language, has good creativity to invent new words, either from native speakers or from foreign influences. For example, the word "D'oh" didn't exist until Homer Simpson (Dan Castellaneta) popularized it. And I think the word "meme" didn't exist either 40 or 50 years ago.
I think a good way to know that is to read newspapers from 100 years ago or older, and see how people from US were called.
I mean, that’s fine, but no one world-wide is going to hear “American” and think anything but “a citizen of The United States of America”. So, what’s the point of trying to push it as such? For all the hate American citizens get, you’d think you’d want to separate yourself as much as possible from the title. Canadians certainly won’t like being called Americans, that’s for sure.
The more important part of what defines continents is tectonic plates and plate movement, though the definitions used are fairly arbitrary. It’s also interesting how different regions in the world define continent in different ways.
The following bit is entirely in humor:
Before the Suez and Panama canals were dug they should have been treated as a single continents? Europe and Asia need to figure out how to dig from the Black Sea to the North Sea so they get some clarity too.
Oh! And while the Evergreen ship was stuck sideways in the Suez, did that make Asia and Africa a single continent for a bit?
What other countries. I thought it was supposed to be Americans didn't know geography and didn't care to remember anyone else existed.
In order for us to expend some sort of energy making fun of someone, we'd have to both think of you and work ourselves up to caring about people we know little about in places we'll literally never visit. I'd have to look up new slurs and read up on international politics and shit.
That sounds like a lot, if I'm being honest, and I'd rather rag on Ohio.
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)
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”.
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.
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.
Sure, maybe it’s crass for me to mock you for something so traumatic, but on the plus side I have never personally murdered a child so I think I’m doing just fine.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It's easy to boast about your country's defenses and what not when your country hasn't been regularly in devastating wars on their own territory.
The USA does have some brilliant minds of it's own, don't get me wrong. But most, if not all technology the USA has is either derived or completely developed by Europe, from Germany, the UK, or even France.
I’m not sure if you know this but there is a way going on in Eastern Europe. And if you weren’t aware the US is the primary support. More than doubling both humanitarian and weapons aid the EU and individual countries have scrapped together.
I’ve definitely triggered the EUs in this thread about sneaking Americans 😂
That’s what got us Bin Laden, the Balkans wars, and a bunch of horrible terrorism everywhere.
Seriously. Trace what happened to the mujahidin leaders, and the weapons we gave them. I think you’ll be surprised at the destruction they wrought all across the globe.
While you’re at it, check out what the Ukrainians think the percentage of weapons we are giving them end up getting to the soldiers. Also, check out why they just fired the head of their recruitment centers. Also, the Defense Minister.
I swear, everyone is all like “TANKIE TANKIE” to anyone with an attention span longer than 6 months. Most of them don’t even know what that word fucking means.
At least there isn’t the stupid “red-brown alliance” smear for anyone that doesn’t agree with the literal State departments propaganda. If you were all alive in the 80’s, you’d be cheering on the death squad contras, and worshiping Reagan.
Not flooding the world with weapons we can’t control, and not spending the money on the weapons in the first place is intrinsic to domestic policy. The two are not separate.
I believe this is no longer quite true. It’s also incredibly petty.
The US is certainly the largest singular military donor, but that should surprise no one. But in terms of longer term support EU countries in Central, Northern Europe and the Baltics are committed to supporting Ukraine and the numbers show it.
Yeah, and the biggest threat to Europe couldn’t invade a corrupt and relatively impoverished country with less than a 10th of its military strength that it shares a border with and has direct rail routes into. And that was before we started to send weapons to Ukraine.
So I’m sure the only thing stopping Putin from taking over Europe isn’t the UK, France or Germany, each if which has a military on par with Russia.
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