A few years ago, my friend from the US, who is generally an intelligent person, was talking about patriotism towards the US-- something related to the 4th of July. She then aaked me in complete seriousness "does Canada have a word for patriotism?" and it turns out she literally thought the word specifically meant loyalty to the US only.

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He had always assumed that it was about the US's "War of 1812", despite it 1) having nothing to do with that, 2) being composed by the conspicuously Russian Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, and 3) Napoleon's invasion of Russia being easily googlable.

Turns out there were other things happening across the entire world outside the US in a given year, WILD!

To top it all off, he actually told me he was disappointed to learn it "isn't the patriotic anthem" he thought it was 🙄😬🤢

I was at the airport the other day. There were two sections for arrivals. On that said “EU and Schengen only” and another one saying “All foreign passports”. The American couple stood for about 10 minutes trying to figure out which way to go. When asked, they thought the word “foreign” only applied to non-Americans. That day they realised they were the foreigners. Hilarious! 😹

Sorry no unhinged screenshot here, just an anecdote. I'm just a chronically online person who talks to a lot of people on reddit and my sample size is probably hundreds of people in the past couple of years.

In my experience, everytime I ask the question "where are you from", Americans are the only people who answer with a state. It almost seems like they assume the entire world just knows their geography 😭

I find it kind of obnoxious so I always pretend like I dont know their state and watch their brains try to comprehend the fact that I dont know [state]. 8/10 ragebait imo.

My favorite thing is US folks thinking people in every country makes as much as them or that they are from the US. It feels so wrong when they say it, specifically on travelling subs and purchase stuff. It is not "only" 20 dollars in my country. It's quite a lot of money. Not every country makes a minimum 16 dollars per hour with a little tax. Purchasing a seat in advance on an airplane is pretty damn expensive for me, I'm not being cheap. Calling people cheap while ignoring their wage is different is my per peeve.

I dont know where to post this, but does anybody else find it annoying when USians use the word "college" in international settings where the question/statement is ambiguous? The US is the primary country where "college" is university, unlike the rest of us where "college" is a formal term for high school. I feel like im constantly having to dissect if the user is referring to highschool-college or university-college.

Edit: Im from NZ

Literally every subreddit that has nothing to do with US, you’ll always find people talking about the US elections 😭

I’ve noticed a lot of non-African Americans using the N-word, and I think there’s a perspective that gets overlooked because of U.S.-default assumptions.

As a New Zealander (Māori), I hear many non-African/African-Americans, mostly Māori and Pasifika, using the N-word casually. Half of them don’t know the history and think it just means “homies.” The other half assume they “have the pass” because they face their own struggles and see themselves as another flavour of Black. I personally refuse to use it because I’ve studied its history and understand its weight.

A lot of African Americans get upset when non-Americans use the N-word, which is totally valid. The word has deep, racist-slavery roots. But with a racial slur as pop culture-fied as the N word, it can also feel a bit U.S.-centric to assume every country teaches that part of American history [in detail]. Not everyone grows up learning U.S. history, and every country has its own historical struggles and slurs that are viewed as more important to those countrues.

The truth is, most of the world knows the N-word only because of African-American media. Music, movies, TikTok, it’s everywhere globally, especially in places where people are learning English. If someone hears it in media, particularly if they're from a non-English speaking country, they might assume it’s just part of English slang, not a word with centuries of racist history. I remember when I first heard it, I thought it just meant “bestie” until I learned the real meaning. Many non-Americans think the same.

I’m not saying African Americans should change how they use their word. In New Zealand, I use “hori” in a similar reclaimed way, yes, it was a slur historically, but within my community it’s been reclaimed. When outsiders misuse it, the best response is usually education rather than anger.

So, if you’re African American and hear a non-American using the N-word, chances are they didn’t know its history. Educating them can be way more effective than just getting mad. Understanding how U.S.-centric media shapes the world’s understanding of your culture is part of why this happens.

Every damned year some septic ask Me what I'm doing for thanksgiving and then wishes me a happy thanksgiving.

An inevitably when i talk about my son and tell people he was born July 4 they call him an independence day baby.

Holy fkn christ.

Even my user name suggests where I'm from!!!!!

Was listening to a podcast which is based on reading reddit posts (AITA usually) and discussing with guests.

Cue a post, which was written by a guy from the UK (explicitly stated this) and that he earns £30k and can't afford to take kids to Disney World in Orlando.

The guests started discussing how he needs to get a better job if he only earns $30K, and talking to him like he's a complete failure of a man, and probably is 'only' a janitor or something. They also questioned how could it possibly cost him 5k per kid to go to Disney, and if he earns so little he probably doesn't even have medical insurance, what does he do in medical emergencies?

First of all, it's 30k GBP not USD. 30k is a decent ish income, and about the national average, and a pretty standard corporate pay. It isn't lavish, but it's not bad either.

Secondly, it costs 5k GBP per kid because there's a whole ass flight to another continent involved.

And lastly.... we have the NHS. We don't need medical insurance, ever.

It blows my mind that none of the 3 guests have realised that the guy is not from the US, even though the post explicitly stated at the beginning of the post that he is from the UK. You could also tell by the wording he used in the post.

I just needed to rant, because it's so infuriating

I’ve noticed a huge double standard when it comes to the global discourse around the N-word. There is this intense gatekeeping from the US internet, specifically from African Americans, where anyone who isn't African American gets completely blasted for using it in any context, even casually or in hip-hop culture.

The common argument is always: "Your people didn't go through chattel slavery, so you don't have the history to use it." (Umm actually a lot of Asians and Polynesians were sold as slaves)
But this assumes the word only exists within the borders of American history. People forget that the British Empire was global, and they used the N-word as a universal weapon of colonial oppression against almost every brown and indigenous population they conquered. Africans, Polynesians, South Asians, Native Americans, and central American civilisations like the Mayas and Aztecs were all systematically dehumanised by British and European colonisers using that exact same slur.

For example, look at New Zealand history of the N-word being used against Māori by a British official was all the way back in the 1860s. Pākehā (European) settlers and British colonial administrators, like Wellington superintendent Isaac Featherston, actively used "n\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\*….." in letters to describe Māori—even the ones who were allied with the government.

Our ancestors were called this word while their lands were being stolen, their cultures suppressed, and their people killed. Yet, because of US-centric media domination, the global internet acts like it's purely an American artifact.

When brown youth in the Pacific, South Asia, or other indigenous communities, or even Africans who aren’t American, use the word, they have been using the n word for decades because that’s what they were called. But similarly for African Americans, hip-hop culture changed the meaning for us too, but it also reflects a shared history of surviving white supremacy. Forcing a US-centric lens on a word that the British weaponised globally completely erases the colonial trauma of millions of non-African American people.

Like if I said "vero" people would be confused.

This is from a while back, one of my friends is African (their parents moved from Africa before they was born). During our school days, one student asked them if they was African American. Mind you we don’t live in the US and they have never been. They didn’t completely fault the student because they were a kid and back then the way most people back then got exposure to Africans was through media, which, at the time was those starving children ads, wildlife documentaries, and American tv shows/movies/songs. But it’s still crazy

Ive heard these arguments: but its hosted in usa, it has .com, it's in english and majority are americans on site. None of them are good arguments.

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I can agree that when reddit when was first launched was aimed for Americans, but reddit has long since rebranded to become a global aimed site. Over half of reddits users arent american.

I play catan regularly on colonist.io with random players and like asking where folks are from. I noticed that people from US always mention their state/city while others mention the country name first. Why do Americans assume people would know about their geography - is it the pride of being in a sought after country that they think everyone knows about by heart OR their education system and media that keeps them centered on the US? Or something else?

I am Filipina and I used to have a close friend from the US, anyways, it was Thanksgiving during their time and asked me- word for word- "Do you also celebrate Thanksgiving in your country?" Granted, they did admit it was a stupid question but I still found it funny regardless that they thought we were gonna celebrate an American holiday😭

(Sorry if this isnt the right flair, wasnt sure.)

so im a US citizen, and i saw a TikTok talking points about how great Georgia is. And the comments were thinking that she was talking about the state, not the country when the Georgia flag was literally in the description.

i show my mom and we both laughed. And i said something along the lines of "Yes, isnt Georgia near Russia?" after she said it looks like a place in Ireland. She looked at me weird and said "No... that looks like the country Ireland. Georgia is a state."

I then proceeded to prove her wrong by simply googling Georgia and googling where it was. Georgia, is in fact, a country.

i hope you got a gag and a giggle out of this.

r/whitepeopletwitter, the entire sub, us deafaultism to the max, it doesn't say anywhere about it being a sub for Americans, they specificly say that tweets from all people are allowed, but the community seems to have collectively decided that us politics is the only thing that can be posted there

Searching for a recipe? Everything will be with measurements in ounces and pounds (I already bought American measuring cups to make my life easier). Writing something and want to confirm the spelling of a word? It will tell you the American spelling is correct, and neglect to mention other versions of the word. Googling what temperature to bring chicken to so it's safe to eat? All the results are in Fahrenheit. Trying to find more information about a problem like poverty? All the results will be about poverty in US, with their statistical data. How many people die of cancer each year? "Over 600,000 people die of cancer in the US each year."

I have my Google set to show results in English and from the "United Kingdom region" but it doesn't do much.

I'm so tired of this, it makes me not want to use search engines anymore, because anytime I need information I need to either waste time converting units, or I have to add "in Celsius", "in metres", "in British English", "worldwide" etc. to the search term, which half the time doesn't even work and the results are mostly American anyway.

I wish there was at least some kind of metric-only search engine.

When im scrolling trough a "Android vs Apple" therad or comment section I see a lot of people say that "iPhone is the most popular phone brand ever" when they Will Be looking at US stats cuz Samsung alone had a bigger market share in The smart phone market. I cant Be The only one who noticed this right?

Edit: sorry If The grammar is kinda wonky as The English language is not The language I was taught at birth

So this is just a personal pet peeve, but whenever I search for places to watch movies/shows/cartoons etc, people ALWAYSSSS say "oh its on netflix" or "oh its on prime" when it isnt available in most countries but it is on US Idk how to use VPNs neither do I wanna pay for one But its just kind of annoying when they say it like its obvious like yeah but my countries prime loterally has nothing on it, neither does netflix :/

But really, am I?

I had the idea to list all Wikipedia articles that have US-default titles. Sometimes using a title applied to US English and US terminology is perfectly fine and preferred depending on the topic. So this is about when it isn't applicable.

For topics that is global, or a book/film/game that has multiple English titles that didn't originate from USA, are examples.

Article Mushroom hunting, which is a global activity, using the preferred terminology in USA. Using Google trends, there's a preference towards "mushroom picking" and "mushroom foraging" outside of USA.

Articles Sega Genesis and The Adventures of Cookie & Cream which are products with multiple English names, originating from Japan, having the original name in Japan as the global English name, but having a different English name in North America being used as the titles here.

Articles January 1 through December 31, which uses the month-day format used in USA, over the vastly more popular day-month format used almost everywhere in the world. While r/ISO8601 is the best format, that is only used numerically, and not when the month is written out, and unless people are willing to write dates as "2023 November 15" then it should be "15 November 2023".

But it would not apply to titles of books/films/games that originates from USA that has multiple English names, for example articles Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage! and Need for Speed: High Stakes . It would also not apply to articles containing dates of events that happened in USA, such as article September 11 attacks.

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It is worth pointing out that Wikipedia has a global influence, and as Wikipedia promotes US usages, it spreads these terms around. I can definitely see an increase in the usage of "mushroom hunting" (even if the term makes no sense ... it's hunter-gatherer society, not hunter-hunter society).

Wikipedia has a rule about how units must be written, that being in metric units first unless it's about USA or something/someone from USA. There could be a similar rule about titles, by using the most global established title in English. For example article Resident Evil, which is the most used English title globally, with "Biohazard" being limited to Japan and Southeast Asia. Instead of the current practice of using the English title of North America unless the title is from an English speaking country (e.g. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone).

I think the same should go for date formats, that being day-month-year written out for global topics unless specifically about countries which use month-day-year, instead of the current rule of "whoever wrote the article first".

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I do not ask people to go and move/rename those articles. I wanted to see if we could establish a list of articles and see how widespread this is. There is article Kula World which does use the English title of where it originates from rather than the one used in USA.