Is US defaultism real or a farce? (nord.pub)

submitted 2 days ago by NightOps@nord.pub to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

43 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I've seen posts online or memes about it, mainly discussing American people who think the internet as a whole is US-centric despite the topic at hand taking place in another country (nothing to do with America), for example: someone wrote the date format as 30/10/2020 (using the EU format) but some American was like "THE CORRECT WAY IS 10/30/2020" when they fail to realize that user is not American at all.

Is US defaultism real when they travel abroad? They assume the $ is legal tender worldwide in countries where their own currency is used more (the only thing that'll work is exchanging it but not for direct transactions). I've heard an American woman went on a tirade whilst in France as the cashier refused a $20 bill when the prices are in EUROS (WTF?) or being like "SPEAK ENGLISH!" in non-English speaking countries.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 1 points 2 days ago

Regarding your comment regarding the Internet, US defaultism generally happens as Americans are a plurality of English speaking people on several major platforms and a lot of news in non-English speaking countries is usually written in the local language and discussed in the local language. So, the assumption is generally that the person is American, especially if they are taking a point of view somewhat in line with American politics.

I've seen a lot of angry comments from too online leftists on Lemmy telling the person they are talking with that they hope the other person dies in a fire as America falls, with the response being "I'm not American".

A lot of people understand American politics because it is written in the language in which the Internet was developed and so much is written. Without other context clues, people may not see that someone within the boundaries of American politics may be from another country.

this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2026

24 points (83.3% liked)

Asklemmy

55818 readers

863 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
!lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 7 years ago

MODERATORS