It’s a tiny ass island yet whenever a British person hears another British person they’ll be like “Oi guvenor! I know exactly where in Merry-ol-England they are from! Clearly they’re from Bovinshire-upon-Weavilton!” And Bovinshire-upon-Weavilton is a town like 10 minutes away from where they live.
this is entirely incoherent.
americans do not speak like 17th century brits. which brits anyway?
there’s no such thing as “the modern english accent”. which one?
you cant have an accent that’s newer than another, they’ve all changed with time, they’re the same age.
this stupid meme comes from ONE feature of the accents. rhoticity. all english dialects used to be rhotic until a few hundred years ago, when non-rhoticity started spreading. it spread out from london and gradually covered most of england. wales, scotland and ireland are still rhotic.
it also spread into the american colonies, which is why the old new york accent is non-rhotic, as well as the boston accent and at least some of the southern accents. and of course AAVE. the rest of america retained its rhoticity.
but this is just one feature of the accents, not the whole thing. each accent is conservative and innovative in turn, keeping some old features that others lose, innovating some new feature that others lack.