this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2026
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First, yes, I realize "European" covers a wide array of peoples and cultures. However, the same applies to Americans, and the folks across the pond don't seem wiling to extend us the courtesy of acknowledging that.

So that's my response to the post question: They treat us like a mono-culture / Planet of Hats and judge and jury us all based on the loudest and most boorish of us. Newsflash: we're not a mono-culture and are just as diverse as you.

And since there's lots of potshot posts going around just to shit on Americans for the crime of existing, I feel turnabout's fair play.

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[–] ptz@dubvee.org 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I mean... tbf the USA is a lot more homogenized than Europe

Eh, agree to a point. While our federal structure is more unifying than, say, the EU, we're still pretty diverse at a region, state, city, and often even small-town scale. Even in my podunk shithole of a state.

I'm likening Europe or even just the EU to the US with each country/member country analogous to a US state. I feel like that's a pretty fair comparison even though it's not perfect.

What bothers me, and this seems more Eternal September than anything else, is how people treat what is happening in the USA as a uniquely USA-only problem

That too. I didn't want to go on a rant, lol, so I stuck to my main gripe.

Television portrays this homogeneity as being fairly uniform, regardless of the fact that it is not.

Yeah. Believing everything you see on TV is a whole other can of worms. I don't judge other countries by their trashy reality TV, so I often hope that's a two way street.

It's actually somewhat funny in a way: whereas on Reddit it was legitimately true, here on Lemmy the USA-centeredness effect seems mainly some Europeans being mad at other Europeans, as some want to share e.g. news about the USA

Yep. Noticed that, too. People complaining about "All 'Muricans think everyone everywhere has to care about their news all the time and flood everything with it" while ignoring the fact that a very large chunk of those are posted by non-Americans for whatever reason (often just to shit on us).

how many bad actors there are across the Threadiverse, spinning up bot accounts or even human ones to amplify some things and decry others. So I am ignoring that here and just focusing on what seems a genuine disagreement.

Yeah, I have tools to filter some of that out and am focusing on established accounts.

it is far easier to complain than to work to actually solve any problem.

Can I get that on a throw pillow or cross-stitch?

[–] OpenStars@piefed.social 1 points 22 hours ago

we’re still pretty diverse at a region, state, city, and often even small-town scale

I suspect it is mere laziness. Either in writing or far more likely, in the (lack of) thinking behind that. In the same way in which you cannot extract blood from a stone, so too conversations in e.g. memes@lemmmy.ml are not going to reflect deep philosophical insights.

Likewise believing everything you see on TV, or even bothering to watch more than a couple shows before making snap-judgements. I believe the word you are thinking of is stereotype - "A conventional, formulaic, and often oversimplified or exaggerated conception, opinion, or image of (a person or a group of people)". Again, some may not even believe what they are saying, just using short-cuts in their language, although sadly many seem to have drunk the kool aid there. But, the USA is not the only target there - nearly all forms of argumentation happening across the entire Threadiverse seems biased to me so I've given up nearly all hope of truly rational dialog, on any social media platform (it's possible, it's just so frustratingly rare that I cannot extend my hopes for it forever, it is simply too draining for me to do so).

Can I get that on a throw pillow or cross-stitch?

If you are an oligarch then you can get whatever you want!!! Otherwise, we can get fucked, it would seem. 😰

Don't forget also: people are mad, and disappointed. And that is understandable, as we are as well (highly ironically, virtually everyone across the entire USA seems to feel that right now, making it like the ONE THING that we all have in common? both among ourselves and with our European and Global South and Asian and other brethren and sistren and other). It is emotionally a protective measure to "blame someone else", rather than take even the slightest responsibility for oneself, e.g. for placing too high hopes in the status quo, despite literally all of history, recorded & otherwise. An example could be the mantra "number must go up", which is literally (not figuratively!!) ridiculous even on its face, and yet almost everyone that I've ever met seems to have gone all-in into believing that it would hold out pretty much forever...

(censuring myself here b/c I typed out a political-themed paragraph but according to rule 2 decided against sending it)

It is not just some European users of Lemmy that are stupid - it's me too, all of us! :-P We all have biases in our thinking, sometimes. It is simply easier to see such in someone else than it is in ourselves.