I mean, of course USA has culture - it's one of their most successful international exports!
I think when people complain about lack of culture they usually mean "old" culture, since USA as a country is still relatively young.
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.)
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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. :')
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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 really wonder if it's a side effect of recent politicians pushing increasingly bizarre and oppressive agendas
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.
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That kinda makes sense. At the same time, Brazil is just as young as USA but we have a ton of "old-ish" culture here. The beliefs and stories of the native population merged in with the ones from several incoming cultures and it's now hard to really separate them, as some are much older than the country itself but are clearly inspired by stories from the old world as well. Some mythical creatures that are good examples of this: Saci, Curupira and the Headless Mule.
It might help if your country isn't paranoid about such made up concepts as "cultural appropriation". :)
Which is kinda amusing, since USA is literally made up of several different cultures.
The concept of cultural appropriation annoys me so much. Everywhere outside America people tend to love when their culture is appreciated by others that are not part of it.
It's one thing when such culture was created as a safe space for a certain demographic that couldn't be part of stuff from other cultures before - it's understandable that they would hate to see that thing they created for themselves be taken over by the same people that kept them from other things before.
But then at some point someone claimed that participating in things from other cultures at all is bad and all the american whites who consider themselves allies thought "well it's not really my place to say anything to oppose this" so instead they parroted that sentiment, not realizing it was also not their place to say anything to enforce that. In the end, we once again have the whites overriding the opinions of folks from other cultures - this time in a desparare effort to defend them (from something they see no need to be defended from).
Just look at what happened to Speedy Gonzales in Mexico for a good example of this.
What a lot of people hate is when their culture is white washed, and especially when it's later on commercialized.
I was watching a video the other day about a neighborhood in the UK that spawned a genre of music out of the hard times they lived through. That music brought them some prosperity, but it also brought the attention of the government and hipsters. They started cleaning up the area, so more people wanted to move there. So they start cleaning it up more. Slowly but surely the area was fully gentrified and that culture is all but erased, and the area is now just another area that nobody can afford to live in.
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The post: Can we just take a moment to acknowledge that there are at least some positives to be found in in the US?
The comments: No
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We provide some of the best and some of the worst this world has to offer. But, that's also true of a lot of, if not all, countries.
Motherfucker ain't even mention bubble gum.
American exceptionalism always made me cringe, but it makes me cringe more the older I get. I hate how presidential candidates feel like they have to call the US the most powerful, the greatest, and so on.
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Lemmy Challenge: accept that there are good things among the 300 million people and 3.8 million square miles of the US
Difficulty: impossible
Fucking preach. I've never down voted so many comments on my own post before. Or any post honestly.
A lot of fun things listed, but they aren’t going to mean anything to any of us when we’re collectively burned out from working endlessly and incapable of retirement… thanks to America’s capitalists.
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No love for Taylor Swift lol
Can someone explain the love for Taylor Swift to me? I know she makes music a lot of people enjoy. I've heard the stories of her giving big bonuses to those who work for her. I guess all I see is a billionaire with a great PR team.
Can someone explain the love for Taylor Swift to me?
I mean...
I know she makes music a lot of people enjoy.
Isn't that enough? I don't see the appeal of K-pop either but I do understand that some folks get way too deep into some rabbit holes.
On a non-musical level she's either very genuine (private jet notwithstanding) or very good at appearing that way.
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She's a "self-made" female billionaire. Her money isn't from something like Walmart or Amazon, where it's obvious how she's exploiting people. It's clear she's very talented. And she seems smart and like she won't get pushed around by scummy music execs (Taylor's version).
Her music speaks to people and makes them feel like they're understood and like they understand her. When she got a lot of hate (because most things teenage girls enjoy get a lot of hate), plenty of people felt personally attacked, and that made them more defensive and appreciative of her. She poked fun at the stereotypes making her more endearing.
She’s a “self-made” female billionaire. Her money isn’t from something like Walmart or Amazon
Does her parents money not count? She was born into money, she wasn't self made. Unless "self making" yourself from a millionaire to a billionaire counts.
look, if we didn't count billionaires who come from lesser echelons of rich people, we wouldn't have any 'self-made' billionaires at all.
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In addition to some great comments, Swift seems genuine and sincere. There's a great video going around of her arguing with her dad, literally crying that she can no longer keep her mouth shut about injustices perpetrated by the right.
I know jack about her music, but my little kids were blasting something intensely catchy. "That's pretty cool! Who is that?" You guessed it, Swift.
I think most USA hate comes from the US government's history of global political interference. It's understandable. For the same reason that Britain is still viewed negatively in many parts of the world.
Personally, I don't hate the US or Americans generally. Things exported from the US whether physically, technologically, or culturally have played a major part of my life. It would be dumb to have a blanket hatred of anything American.
Most Americans I've met have been very friendly and cheerful.
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To me, pointing out, "America has culture too!" Feels dismissive of how the most brilliant "American" cultures developed specifically in spite of being segregated from and exploited by the dominant American culture. It's not called the bureau of native american affairs for a reason.
I guess I'm not ready to reclaim an American identity before all others.
A LOT of things in that list aren't originally American, or even commonly American. And quite a few others aren't "culture".
My favorite is probably "Victorian houses". Where did Victoria live again?
The "Victorian House" is just the commonly accepted name for the archetectural style. I'm not an architectural expert, but the average person in the US would hear that and imagine a 3 story house with porches and elabroate decorations. The US certainly has a distinctive building and decorative style from that era that is different than any Victorian homes in the UK.
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Do the guy also love US terrorism and foreign interference? Because that's what people probably take most offence with. There is not a single additional nation on this planet that has couped to many democratically elected governments and replaced them with corrupt authoritarians that are more than willing to oppress and torture their people and cause civil wars and sell out their nation's interest to US interests in exchange for power. The US is sole world leader in evil and hase been for over a hundred years, only briefly eclipsed by individuals like Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Kissinger.
Because as someone who is "deeply critical" of US his government and military, he really seems like jeans and jack o'lanterns have any weight when people call the globally most hated nation on earth a barbaric terrorist shithole.
And let's not even start counting warcrimes or threats of acts of war towards their "allies".
Fun fact: ask people to name three governments the US has couped. See what happens. Just three.
What do you suggest we Americans do? I can vouch for the fact that spending my entire life feeling ashamed of my country has not helped to make it better, despite doing my best to be an outspoken critic of American policy.... so I'm hoping you can provide a suggestion for a viable path to redemption.
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