Please. Let it diversify.
As a US dweller, I’d love it to be anything but US centric.
The US population is grouped together in one giant pool instead of spread out by state like Europe is grouped by individual country. We focus on national news that affects the large population, and stuff that happens on other states becsuse of the shared identity, while European countries don’t have the same kind of European Union shenanigans that affect all of Europe and mostly post about country level stuff. Communities in languages other than English also tend to be posted in separate communites further separating their discussions from the general purpose communities.
We are also louder, which also contributes, but that is not as big of a deal as the sheer numbers.
plus, you know, inheritors of the British empire - practically an unbroken chain of hegemonic anglophones who refuse to learn another language
While a huge portion of the population chooses not to become fluent in a language, because nearly everything within hundreds of miles of where they live uses the same language by default, we still provide opportunities to learn languages and in some areas people are commonly bilingual.
It can be hard to maintain a language without frequent exposure. I had some classes in Spanish and French, but without a large population that speaks either language in my area I just forgot it over time. Moved tons place where we do have a lot of people who speak Spanish and English, but since I’m not part of their community my exposure is limited to the occasional festival or signage as nobody needs me to impose my attempt to learn their language on them.
It isn’t all about refusal, it is mostly lack of exposure.
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Everyone slows down to watch the car wreck.
Because the Europeans post in their weirdo languages.
NEIN
DOCH!
The internet as a whole is pretty US centric
There are however exceptions (for example: china)
I see German content here all the time, even though I don’t understand it or follow it.
I’ve blocked so much german.
𝔅𝔲𝔱 𝔴𝔥𝔶?
It’s either that or learn German and I’m way too busy scrolling for that.
I’ve accidentally learned a good amount of German from lemmy, actually. I didnt mean to, but from similar words, to looking up Rammstein lyrics, I had a base. From that base, and context, I’m actually learning a good bit of German without intention. Sometimes I read a German headline and it takes me a second to realize I’m reading German. I come across a word I don’t know and I’m like “oh shit, I’m reading German”. It’s honestly been my favorite part of lemmy, I struggled with Spanish in a classroom setting and here I am learning German on accident. Granted, I couldn’t pretend to know how to pronounce half of it, but I’m learning to read it.
You have to be a bit careful, because some people deliberately talk in wrong German (“Zangendeutsch”, where words are translated from English by “force”).
That makes sense, like learning English from Internet memes?
Worse.
The German you read from Zangendeutsch memes are almost as grammatically accurate as the German accent you got from Schwarzenegger.
Imagine the most broken grammar and then you get that.On top the grammar is also non-applicable.
Upside: You can still get some idea of what the meme is about. :)
The good news is German has consistent pronunciation so it’s easy to learn that part
Until the loan words come out.
Presumably you’re browsing english-language Lemmy
Most people are going to want to converse in their native/primary language, and by numbers that means a lot of Americans who are, of course, primarily concerned with American issues
There’s also the fact that America is a huge player on the international stage, so American issues can have a lot of repercussions in other countries
And if you haven’t noticed, America has kind of a lot of shit going on and there is a lot to talk about there.
It would already be nice if posts specified they are about the USA instead of just blurping out something about “the civil war” for example instead of “the USA civil war”.
One can dream!
Do you agree that Israel should stop receiving any and all US aid and end the genocide on Palestine?
How the fuck is that related to this thread?
Have you seen the shitstorm we’re (U.S.) in? We’re like the worst car crash you’ve ever seen and then the ambulance also crashes then the fire truck blows up and then aliens come down and start attacking…kinda hard to look away.
I thought I understood US politics…even if it was by osmosis given the sheer volume we’re exposed to…but lately I felt like I only understood the dem half…after the election I’m not sure and by now I have this “there is no hope of understanding this mess, different culture, different values” that I get from trying to understand Indian politics.
This is one of my main motivations to learn other languages. The internet is tedious if you only speak English.
Because Americans are louder and tend not to confine their activities to the country-specific forums
As an American, I can say one of our defining characteristics is we believe we belong everywhere on the Internet. There is no space that we are embarrassed to enter. Reminds me of the Americans showing up on Chinese social media and acting like they owned the place.
Is it? Or is it a question of which communities you’re looking at? Because mine isn’t.
Typical dismissive answer that I see on here. You know very well US political BS has infiltrated most communities by now.
Not in my experience. If you don’t want to see politics there is a robust blocking system on Connect (and other apps I’m sure) that you can use.
Alright lemme just block every community brb
Keywords, friend. Keywords.
Ok then let me block the whole English dictionary then
This would be less of a problem if Lemmy moderators actually gave a fuck anout the quality of their communities.
Yes, you can set that up. But most news communities such as /world, /worldnews, /news, and others are very US-centric. I wonder why that has to be the case when it should be clear to everyone by now that the White House is employing troll tactics.
Because the USA has so much military and economic power that it is the axis about which the English-speaking world turns. And it is making wildly stupid choices in its foreign and domestic policies, which gets peoples attention from both potential impacts to their own countries and out of sheer horror and exasperation. Finally, it has a huge population relative to any other english speaking nation, and its citizens will tend to vote as a bloc about things they find interesting. And the things they find interesting will typically involve their own nation. Germans, for example, will do this too - but there are far fewer germans than americans, so in an open market, American news gets the most votes from its citizens and ends up on top of the stack.
There are 27 countries in the EU, there is only one USA. Most people don’t seem to care about each other’s national happenings.
That’s so fascinating.
As an American, only peak news from Mexico and Canada gets on my radar. I don’t know shit about Brazil, Cuba, etc. and with my shit American education system, I can’t even name the South American countries.
So if you’re in Italy, you don’t give a shit about Austria, Switzerland, or France and their big news?
The US is the largest English-speaking country by far and this post is in English. Switch to another language and you’ll see less US stuff.
That has nothing to do with anything. You will obviously not be aware of it, but by far the greater majority of English speakers you encounter on the internet are not actually from an English speaking country, and definitely not from the US. That is because English functions as the lingua franca of the internet, so we have to use English to be mutually understood.
Because it’s the most newsworthy country at the moment. The most powerful country in the world is crashing before your eyes, whilst the rest of the world mostly continues on as it was. Yeah, some noteworthy things are happening all over the world, but that’s not as dramatic as the fall of arguably the most hated country in the world. And everything from genocide to climate change, disease and general suffering can be at least tangentially related to the disaster that is the US and it’s administration. I mean, what noteworthy things are there to chide Sweden for? Anything? Is it comparible to the horrors and despair that the US is causing? There’s your answer.
… but that’s not as dramatic as the fall of arguably the most hated country in the world
Easy there, lets not forget Israel. America is maybe right behind them though.
Most of the things happening in Israel now is because of the US though. Netanyahu really felt empowered by Trump becoming president, and rightly so, because he can manipulate that orange toddler into doing anything he wants.
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I checked the news in the biggest newspaper in sweden, and there’s this story about a bus that scraped the roof while driving under a bridge. Must have been scary for the passengers. Luckily it wasn’t going that fast. And there’s a list of schools where you actually get paid to study so you don’t need student loans.
That’s awesome that that’s the worst news from there. And I love Sweden and Norway as that’s where my family originated from. What I wouldn’t give to have been born in either of those countries. Unfortunately I’m one generation out of being able to easily go back.
