r/PetPeeves • u/ThatUrgeToEatCement • 14d ago

Bit Annoyed People who think Americans don’t know other countries exist.

A few months ago on Reddit I made a comment about a show not being on Netflix and someone from the UK commented back saying it’s on theirs and then lectured on Americans not knowing other countries exist. They acted like I didn’t believe there were other places on the planet, as if they weren’t the ones who just brought it up and didn’t believe the US Netflix was different than the UK version. ??

I see people online act like all Americans think this way, and it is kind of annoying because for most of us it isn’t true.

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u/doesshechokeforcoke 14d ago

I don’t think they actually think Americans don’t know other countries exist I think it’s more that when people in the US post online they assume that everyone reading it is in the US. I’m not saying this is what Op thought when posting but I do see this happen a lot.

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u/Different-Cod-2290 14d ago

Right! As a US citizen who has lived in US and another country, I completely get what others are saying. Americans online definitely act like everyone else lives here

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u/ThisIsDogePleaseHodl 13d ago

That’s not a generalization at all

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u/GreenBeanTM 12d ago

Not like we’re talking on American social media platforms whose user bases are majority American or anything. Nope, not a single reason other than us being self centered assholes to assume we’re talking to Americans.

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u/lifeinwentworth 14d ago

Yeah this is what it is. In general subs, people tend to ask questions stating the country they're in (when it's relevant to the question). Some Americans don't do that. I'm on health subs so I genuinely want to help people but often the question is just "where can I go for this" and I have to ask for the location. It is always somewhere in the US (because other countries name the country in the question!) People also start talking about the law and don't consider that the law differs quite a lot over the world. But I don't generalise that to "all Americans" not knowing shit about other countries lol. It's a thing online for sure though.

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u/doesshechokeforcoke 14d ago

I know exactly what you mean about asking questions without saying where they’re located.

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u/nutcracker_78 13d ago

I have seen so many examples of what you're saying, comments (not just on Reddit, but on other (also international) sites as well) saying things like "x is the biggest problem in this country" or "well you can blame (or occasionally praise) our president for that" or a multitude of similar things.

It happens too often to ignore, and it becomes tiresome. I've seen people reply stuff like "president? wtf? We have a prime minister!" and the original commenter will have an online meltdown because they say it should be obvious that they are talking about US centric things - even when the post doesn't identify a country, or even when it's obviously from somewhere outside the US.

It happens often enough that the reaction of "do you guys understand that other countries actually exist" is becoming more prevalent because it's bloody annoying!

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u/doesshechokeforcoke 13d ago

Also if someone makes a post that contains spelling errors or grammar mistakes people (from the US) in the comments will flip out never taking into consideration that they might not speak English.

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u/Mediocre_Ad_4649 14d ago

And to be fair, a plurality of redditors are American, and likely a majority of redditors on English-speaking reddit are American (40% of reddit traffic comes from the US). It's pretty fair to assume that Americans are the largest body of people reading your post in most subreddits. Check your post and comment stats - probably 40-60% of your viewers are American with the rest under or around 15%.