Canada

I know I’m preaching to the choir here but, in general Canada (with the exception of Quebec) consumes way too much American media. The whole world consumes a lot of American media, of course, but with our proximity and prior cultural similarities this is an especially insidious problem for us. Because the end result is the spreading of American culture and values at the expense of our own. For example it’s not uncommon to come across someone who knows more about American politics than Canadian politics, or who knows more about the NYC mayoral run (or something trendy like that) than the local elections happening in their own city. In this kind of information environment it’s not surprising that our politics would gradually become Americanized.

Fixing this problem is tricky, and any full solution will need to attack it from multiple angles. But part of the solution is having more Canadian spaces where we can talk about distinctly Canadian issues and share distinctly Canadian media (even if it’s something as trivial as Heated Rivalry or The Trailer Park Boys). And the fediverse is of course great for that. Lemmy.ca, mstdn.ca, piefed.ca, etc, these are all distinctly Canadian spaces. So let’s help these places grow by participating in them and sharing them with others. Let’s get more of our fellow Canadians in these Canadian spaces. The more popular these spaces are the less we will need to rely on American alternatives, and the less we rely on American alternatives the less influence America will have on our politics and culture more generally.