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Loving USA Culture
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2024
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The pervasive, loud, aggressive "America is full of stupid yokels and has no culture herp derp" sentiment seems to have really ramped up in recent years. I really wonder if it's a side effect of recent politicians pushing increasingly bizarre and oppressive agendas, and actually getting elected.
Maybe we deserve the disdain.
At least here in the UK there has almost always been a distaste for 'americanisms' among the middle-aged and older (conveniently forgetting the ones that entered common use during their youth.) Its largely just snobbery and old man yells at clouds.
It is also less that the states have no culture as they only have low culture. Again, ignoring that most 'high culture' is just old, and was low when it was new. Shakespeare wrote for the common folk, Dante's Inferno was something of a hit piece on everyone he didn't like. The Rite of Spring was hammered by critics who saw it as barberous to the point of insult and suggested women should not be permitted to see it, should it continue to be performed. The Count of Monte Cristo was serialized not unlike a comic book (and was abridged to not scandalise English speaking audiences.)
Yup, it's just snobbery all around.
I would say a large contributor to America's stupid yokle image are the people with the red caps.
Funnily enough some of shittier USA politics also get imported in other countries. :')
What kills me is when I run into people in other countries that are big Trump supporters... Like, I can understand looking at other countries' politicians and maybe seeing one they like, and saying "hey, that one has some things going for them". However, when I run into Trump fan boys from other countries... It hurts my head.
Its tough when Americas old culture is centered around greed or religion. Every bit of old culture has an awful undertone to it unless you were part of the right group.
I bet it is. The President represents us, so when we elect a loud, hateful moron like Trump it makes our entire country look bad
I was disappointed that you guys didn't just hold your nose and vote for Hillary (I know she won the pop vote).
Honestly Obama did wonders to repair your reputation; he was a great statesman. Hillary was a massive step down, but electing Trump....wow what an own goal.
Between BREXIT and Trump, the world got worse pretty quickly.
I am really hoping you get your act together and elect Harris, Trump is worse now than he was in 16 and 20. If he gets elected, it will further embolden the far right, but not just in the USA, the rise of fascism in Germany is not something the world needs again.
Eh, Hillary sucked, so I voted third party. I ended up voting for Biden in the next election in the extremely unlikely off-chance that he'd lose my state (I'm in a red state, but he completely lost the primary here, so there was a chance), but he ended up winning by a wide margin anyway. Even if every third party vote went to Clinton in my state, Trump still would've won by a wide margin.
The thing about Trump is that even Republicans didn't think he could win, so nobody took him seriously, and all of that negative attention seemed to help him for some weird reason (seemed like an underdog).
Idk, Harris also sucks, and IMO she's worse than Biden. I don't like the term, but she absolutely seems like a "diversity hire" for Biden to improve his appeal to black and female voters, and now that she's the presidential candidate, she's demonstrating that she lacks substance. She's basically parroting Biden's policies, but watered down and with a worse sales pitch. The main things she has going for her are:
I'm going to vote third party again this year because Trump is going to win my state with 20% or more margin regardless (he has that R next to his name), but I do kind of hope that she wins. Not because I think she'll be a good president (I think she'll totally suck), but because I think she'll be a letdown instead of an active force for evil. I hope Trump losing will put him out of the spotlight for good, and that the GOP will reform itself into something reasonable.
The thing is, I think the majority of the US population dislikes the options in this election and the last two elections, but our electoral process is so messed up that we end up with really bad options. Harris did terrible in 2020 and was last on my list of preferences in the primaries, yet now she's the nominee.
Your voting system is a binary choice. It sucks, but it is what it is. Even in our elections, often it is choosing the least bad from a bunch of arseholes. From are outside perspective, I honestly can't see a single thing trump an objectively better choice on, for the non-millionaire/billionaire class.
It is either a vote for one or a vote for the other, voting third party or not voting is exactly the same as voting for the winner.
Our voting system is a bit crap; STV is better than MMP, which is what we have. But you guys have made FPTP worse with the inclusion of the electorial college. Maybe it made sense a long time in the past...
That's just not true. Due to how the Electoral College works, unless you live in one of the swing states (usually about 8 states), your vote literally will not impact the outcome of the election, so the best way you can use it is to vote for a third party to inform your elected officials of your voting preferences. If a third party is getting a lot of support, they'll change their policies a bit to cater to those voters. If you do live in a swing state, then yeah, pick the lesser of two evils.
I absolutely think the Electoral College has its place, but we need to be able to split votes. My state (Utah) is about 60% Republican, 35% Democrat, but it goes 100% to Republicans every time. We have 6 electoral college votes, so theoretically 3-4 should go to Republicans, 2-3 should go to Democrats, and one could go to a popular third party or flip between the two major party candidates. But no, all 6 go to the Republican candidate, even if they are unpopular (e.g. Trump got all 6 with only 45% of the vote in Utah in 2016). Some states allow splitting votes, but most don't, so it ends up sucking way more than it should.
The benefit of an Electoral College is that it skews power from the high-population states toward the lower-population states, which I think has value (i.e. so we don't screw over farmers too much). However, the all-or-nothing approach just leads to lower voter turnout (why vote if your vote won't matter anyway?).
I think we should move toward proportional representation, both in the Electoral College and our state representatives. It's absolutely silly that we can just gerrymander our way to a massive majority whenever a state has a simple majority (e.g. all four reps in Utah are Republican, despite having >1/4 of the population voting Democrat). I think we can do that w/o a Constitutional amendment, but neither party seems to want that because they like having clear majorities in most states.
It's probably just trying to other/separate themselves from the horrors of usa that they've been awake to.
we're sick of the US being the dominant , assumend cultural force and want something else.
I hate to break it to you, but you chose it, you bought it, and you keep choosing it.
The "we" that you speak of is clearly not as sick of it as you think.
…then treasure yours and stop importing American culture?
IMO the big thing that America offers culturally is choices that don’t fit in the box of existing cultural norms. There’s no “American Breakfast” or “American Music” in the same way you can visually identify Finnish cinema or spot the commonalities in French cuisine.
And when I travel around Europe I see the influx of other cultures primarily via immigration (Berlin has döner, Britain has curries, Spain/Portugal has Moorish and African influence embedded) but at the same time I also see imported ‘American X’ without that immigration. Europeans have identified things they like that other cultures migrate with, but seemingly actively seeks out the things Americans make.
How popular are hamburgers or Taylor Swift in your area, compared to other Euro offerings like Gorjira or handball? France has a strong arts scene supported by the government, but the Palme d’Or rarely goes to their domestic films.
"It's the free market" is honestly just such an American argument it's spectacular. Chapeau to you and the others riding that particular horse. You illustrate the point perfectly.
Not really understanding where you saw a pro free market argument from what I said - my main point was that people like diverse options, and seek out variety, from within and without.
"stop importing American culture" - you blame the consumer here no?
"diverse" so long as you like the ubiquitous: hamburgers, Taylor swift, marvel movies. Increasing American cultural dominance is the opposite of diversity.
At some point to become a consumer your money and/or attention is voluntarily given to A Thing. That’s a choice. But with internet cookbooks, bandcamp, IMDb, CrunchyRoll, etc etc you have the ability to seek out precisely what interests you, with the only burden being discovery. Monoculture died with the internet, you being on Lenny is a testament to that.
Exactly, you think it's all personal responsibility. That the economics of culture have no impact (or are desirable?). Totally ignoring that access to culture is not deliberate. There are massive network effects and constant, unavoidable advertising. Your very tastes are shaped by society around you.
And lol at lemmy as an example. Social media and content aggregation is even more homogeneous than film/print/music/food. The fact that tiny countercultures exist doesn't disprove that.
My sides.
Right, pretty funny that this is parroted so thoughtlesly. I mean i see where it comes from but also... so obviously false.
Then whats your other argument, cause the Japanese kinda did the same thing with anime. Its what can best be described as market controlled cultural forces, nobody else was offering ultra violent animation so folks imported anime which filled a market niche. Same could be said of American cultural exports, we create a tonne of shit for ourselves and for some reason folks import it, the Brits kinda did the same thing with music back in the day.
You don't have to insult us though. Just celebrate your own culture.
Honest question- Do nations other than the US work on ratings and box office sales also? For example, if more people watched independent French films or Japanese anime in your nation, wouldn’t they become the dominant influences?
Europe is all old culture, no new culture. America is all new culture, no old culture. Yes, I know that's not 100% true, but how many European countries have their version of Hollywood, Disney or silicon valley? Iirc india, China and Japan all have their equivalents, where's yours?. You just don't spend anywhere near the same amount of money on movies, music and TV. On the opposite side, European art tends to be a lot more mature, however you have to spend money promoting it if you want to compete with the US.
Tbf America is nearly equivalent in size to the full West Europe and the culture difference between east and west coast of America is much smaller than the difference in culture between different European countries. With each country focusing on their own culture there, none of them will ever grow to the size of Hollywood. And with the smaller size, they have less content and less opportunities to captivate people from other places as well. It's a full circle.
lol, America is nearly equal in size to ALL of Europe. they are within 5% of each other.
Japan is probably the next biggest cultural exporter after the US and isn't that much bigger than Germany or Norway.
Lol, no.
Most have them, but Europe speaks dozens of languages, so they are all comparatively small compared to the big English-speaking ones.
We mostly are still building on rehashes of old European folk tales, just like Disney. That said, for example Dutch "Disneyland" exists, you just never heard of it because you did not grow up with Max & Moritz, but Dutch kids did.
Well, that place is mostly about venture capitalists who originally got rich off neocolonialism doing dumping schemes on various industries. Their biggest, most impactful cultural achievement is internet ads.
We do, but we watch our own TV because you don't watch French or Polish shows or games. Except when you do, and it gets translated, like with the Witcher. Also, with music, have you heard of Eurovision? Biggest song contest of the world, with even Australia participating? The one where Celine Dion, Julio Iglesias or ABBA got their start? You probably listen to a ton of songs that debuted there, you just don't know it.
All I'm saying is that just because European low art is not big in the US - even though it is, like Harry Potter, Lego, basically all Western (as in Wild West) movies (they were Italian) - it does not mean it is not bigger in Europe than US art.
Edit: Why the downvotes though? I am not saying "US culture bad", just that "European culture exists". Could anyone elaborate on what's so bad about what I'm saying?
I'm not taking issue with anything else, but I just have to say something about the last bit of what you said.
Westerns. No. Not all of them. Or even most of them are from Italy. That's a special and significant subgenre called Spaghetti Westerns. Or Italian westerns, mostly because of Sergio Leone, these happened in the 60s and 70s. But if you look at the history of westerns and western movies, they were made in the US starting all the way back in the 1910s with silent films and continued on into the golden age of the 40s and 50s.
I stand corrected, not a big fan of them so I didn't think about it too hard.