I don’t think I’ve heard a genuine complaint from a Japenese person about Japan, or a Spanish person about Spain, or any other country from a native.
In Turkey teenagers complain ALL the time about how liberals and SJWs are ruining Turkey.
(Seriously tho keep an eye out on them, there is unchecked fascism spreading)
We do have complaints about our country here, too, but they are junior league against the problems the US government is causing for its subjects.
if you haven’t heard people from other places complain about those places, you haven’t been listening much. everyone complains!
Happy cake day! Glad to have you here.
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard…” friend, you literally live in an information silo. Do you speak Spanish? Because you probably aren’t hearing anything about Spain if you don’t. Do you follow any British media? Because they’re not coming to an American forum to bitch about Britain. You probably don’t care enough to even notice if someone was talking about another country, so how would you hear anything?
What’s uniquely American is making your internal drama everyone else’s problem.
American forum?
It was made by French communists and most instances exist outside America. For the record, I regularly complain about my country. It’s just my regularity is no where near as regular as the daily wtf that is America.
Heey, be a bit nicer on no stupid questions. All though it is a really funny american question why other people don’t hate their country :'). Everybody does in some way hahaha.
But please refrain from sounding mean, lemmy doesn’t need to scare away users…
Try a space that’s in their native language. Feddit.org is primarily a German-language instance and its users are complaining about Germany all the time.
Also, everyone complains about the US, especially people who live on the continent of America but not in the US.
Germans don’t know how good they have it and should stop voting for politicians who are destroying the country.
Pretty much, yeah.
But don’t YOU dare come complain to us about Germany, how rude everyone is and the bureaucracy and the weather and how nobody bags your groceries at the shop. That’s way out of line and NOT cool and you’re wrong and a poopyhead.
There IS a difference between cultural differences and things that are objectively bad.
I hear people complain about their countries all the time.
What language do you think Japanese or Spanish people complain about their country in? How often do you visit communities (online or wherever) where these languages are spoken? What nationality do you think I am?
You are obviously a white cis male American, just like everyone else on the internet is, don’t you know?
/s
Idk, Mexican? (/j)
Every person I have ever met from has issues with their home countries.
One of my best friends was from Pakistan and when I asked him about why he left, he used to bitch that “the three things my country doesn’t have are…
L
A
W s
I work with a guy basically ran away from Sierra Leona in the late 90s with nothing but the clothes he had on. Then spent 3 months as a slave on a fishing boat until winding up in a refugee camp and then working his way to America.
This past weekend I had a conversation with a women in NYC who had to flee her home country of Peru in the early 90s because a group called Shining Path were killing everyone around her.
She spent years workin in cruise ships and the hotel/resort industrybefore seeing a classified add that told people to apply for the citizenship lottery in the US. She did and she won, she got to NYC in 98 with 600 bucks in her pocket.
So yeah we all have issues with our home countries, some significant and some trivial and contrived.
Everyone complains about their own country. The Japanese complain about Japan all the time too - the whole “salaryman running off to start a ramen shop” dream is a complaint about th country. Just because you can’t see it means you’re not understanding subtext.
It’s not “subtext” when you straight-up can’t read the text (i.e. don’t understand the language) :D
You don’t need to read the language to understand what they’re meaning by it (I don’t speak Japanese) and there’s examples in other countries of this too, including English (in the UK it used to be the dream to run a pub). Anyone who “has a dream” where they escape the rat race and/or becomes their own boss and/or moves to “the country” or even out of the country is making a political statement with every one of those thoughts/dreams.
THAT is the subtext, not the actual text. It requires no deep understanding of verbal/written language, just an understanding of human communication which is more nuanced than simply what we say or write.
How are you even going to know about that if you don’t understand a word of it? Machine translation is too inaccurate to read forums and I’ve never encountered this specific dream of opening a ramen shop in manga or anime. Come to think of it, I’ve never even seen a UK person who dreams of opening a pub, either; I think you need to seek out very specific online spaces to see that kind of thing or talk to the people face to face.
This isn’t something I’ve seen online either tbh. But the UK thing was certainly very popular having talked to people in their 30s-40s, though admittedly this was about 25 years ago. Nowadays life is much harder so just the idea of maybe one day affording a house and having survivable wages is more of concern! The dream of owning a pub is so far above what current 30yos could reach. Plus, pubs are all owned by breweries these days so the of the old freehold pub has died.
In Japan, it’s something I’ve seen several times in Japanese documentaries on NHK, which have been translated. Again, I don’t know if this is still the dream of the younger folks - it was 50yos that wanted to do that previously. The US equivalent was “the American Dream” that people still wish for, even though it’s unlikely. It’s a similar feeling, or hope, that for most won’t come true, no matter what they do. These aren’t “specific online spaces”. These are the hopes and dreams for a better future - if you need to have those, you’re making a statement.
You don’t hear them because you’re not exploring enough. Sitting in one spot all of the time and just listening to the area of your environment, doesn’t mean nobody has a problem with their country of origin.
Most people, Americans included, prefer to speak well of their country to foreigners and complain to countrymen. My hypothesis is that Americans perceive online spaces as uniquely American spaces where we complain to our ingroup, and folks of other nationalities tend to think of online spaces as “international waters” and are more guarded as a result, which leads to this perception.
It’s shite being English. We’re the lowest of the low, The scum of the fucking Earth. The most wretched, miserable, servile, pathetic trash, that was shat into civilisation!
Then what are the french? (/s)
The first rule of roast comedy is you never ever ever punch down. That’s why we make jokes about the French.
Agreed.
Interesting theory. Personally, I’m from the US and fuck this place, I won’t hype it up to anyone. But that’s anecdotal, of course…
Have fun.
Every country has problems. America is so big that its problems become everyone else’s problems too. If America sneezes the world catches a cold.
It’s not about the physical size, it’s about its oversized influence especially in online spaces. Plus we’re all writing/reading English at this moment so there’s an anglosphere bias.
Yes. I meant “big” as in influential. Lazy typing on phone.
Come to England, we complain all the damn time
No, it’s an international thing to complain about the US nowadays. 🙂
