this post was submitted on 14 Apr 2025
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Why do US citizens think everyone on the internet is from their country ?
What part of their comment assumes that everyone else is from their country? I only see them referring to themselves and their own country.
If I said "we need public transit as a city" am I assuming that everyone lives in my city or am I simply talking about my own city? I don't see why this is any different and it seems very nitpicky.
That’s exactly what I would assume, because you’re talking like your city is the default and everyone knows which one you’re talking about.
Does this mean that everyone must always specify the geographic area they are from when they talk about it lest they risk being accused of assuming everyone knows? I often say that "we need public transit in my city" and it never once crossed my mind that other people would know or assume what city I'm referring to.
I still don't see how saying that you want x or y in your country is equivalent to talking like your community is the default.
I would totally agree if the statement was "we need x in my country and you all should vote for it" because that would be assuming everyone reading is able to participate and therefore lives there. But that's far from what the statement was, which made no assumptions and didn't even mention a country. All they said was that they want something in their country.
"We need this as a city" and "we need this in my city" have a different meaning imo. First one makes it sound like you're including us in your "we", as in the people in your city.
Doesn't "as a city" just tell you who the "we" refers to? As in "we, the people of our city, need x"? That's how I understand it.
Yes it does imo, and the "we" would include everyone else as part of that city, which is what bothers some people.
While you're right. It would be better to say something like "I need it for my country" or "US needs it". Since English doesn't distinguish between inclusive and exclusive "we", it can lead to the conclusion that the commenter supposes people reading their comment are from US as well.
I agree it could be more clear, but I don't think it's fair to jump down their throat when they didn't even mention the US. It just strikes me as an uncharitable interpretation.
It's pedantic. At best because someone wants to virtue signal by tilting at windmills. At worst It's a bad faith argument being made to isolate someone. In both cases it's shite behavior:
An example would be assailing someone for not liking cookies when they simply said they enjoy cake. This tactic was originally used by trolls and hate groups to splinter larger social groups support structure and/or put people on the backfoot... It's become so commonplace people will do it just because the opportunity presents itself. Because someone else will if they don't, anyway. Might as well get the glory of taking someone down a peg.
It's pathetic. Op made an affirmative statement about something they believed in and was promptly shit on by some cunt who brought nothing meaningful to the table themselves. What's worse is the troll initially was getting nothing but positive reinforcement so they could go and do it again. Are we still enjoying all the polarizing "LOL [insert group] BAD!" It really brings the community together.
You don't need to engage every person doing that shit... but for fucks sake stop upvoting it and reinforcing the behavior.
I mean you meant the US, though, right?
Is it wrong to want to talk about the place you live in without telling people where you live? Should everyone be required to state the place they live in any time they talk about it? I don't really see what the problem is with speaking about your place of residence without revealing where you live. I don't get how not mentioning where you live means you assume everyone knows. Maybe you not knowing is intentional.
While I think it's annoying when people assume others live in the US, I think it's even more annoying to both assume people who don't mention where they live must live in the US and also assume they intended you to know that they live in the US.
I was just saying that way you said it does seem to assume others understood you're talking about the US. If you specify it ("we in the US") then that avoids the whole issue.
I think we'll have to agree to disagree then, I don't think that is at all the obvious interpretation and I don't think everyone needs to clarify where they live when talking about it to "avoid the issue".
Imo if people making assumptions about others living in the US annoys you then you should find it more annoying when someone assumes where you live AND assumes you intended to be presumptuous about it.
I think that would be a valid complaint if they had actually lumped everyone in this thread into their statement by assuming that everyone here lives in the US by default, but I sincerely think that any charitable interpretation of their comment reads as "we" simply meaning "the people of my country".
Yeah I realized my reply was a bit silly so I retracted it, I'm guessing I was a bit late and you'd already replied.
It's all good! For some reason your comment still shows up in my inbox in Sync so I didn't realize
While, surely, OP was speaking English - given the world state why did you immediately jump to the conclusion that the country being referred to was the US? Yes - the statement wasn't broad enough to perhaps include you but it wasn't narrow or hateful in its intent. People (broad statement, including you) need to maybe find some chill and perhaps look for common ground rather than constantly being pedantic cunts. There were a variety of ways to approach that statement without being a twat... so kudos for just going for it - most people would have more tact.
Probably because there’s really only one nationality of people who do this lol
Odd. In my experience I have seen many people refer to their home country in that way. Do you refer to your country differently? Perhaps instead of country if OP said here that would have left the pedants less triggered. I digress. Just because you view something as commonplace - does not automatically make it the rule... much less actually reality.
I've had people be absolutely furious when I didn't specify that the country I was talking about was Finland and not the US.
"We should do X"
"But we do, here's a link"
"That's about the US, not Finland"
"Why would you assume we know you're from Finland??"
It's pretty funny and I admit that I do it on purpose.
Why are non-americans so fucking pretentious on the Internet?
On what basis do you suppose one is worse than the other? I think both are
I just thought it was fair game to make a stupidly sweeping assumption. I don't actually think all non-americans are pretentious. But the loud ones here on Lemmy sure love to make broad sweeping statements about entire countries.
I am non-american and pedantic though not pretentious, be it a counterexample *_*
Hah. I should have refreshed. I just wrote a small novel theorizing you might have been making that exact point. Cheeky ;) I found it amusing - even if the point of it got buried (but made for another great example...)
Food for thought: as polarizing as this statement is - it's not all that different from the cheap (generalizing) shot at OP for not having a broad enough statement.
I'm uncertain if that's what @roofuskit@lemmy.world was going for ... but regardless: either by the statement itself or by the apparent downvote pummeling he got - demonstrates perfectly that nobody likes the feeling of getting singled out simply because of their grouping.
It's almost always a dick move. Unless the group in question is a hate group or nazis... because fuck them. Topically - this behavior was (and is) championed by aforementioned groups.
Put simply: we can do better. Better than reddit at least, right?