Well, yeah, but it’s not anecdotal. There is data to tell you how big Facebook is and was outside the US, in what territories and by how much relative to their US popularity at what point. My personal experience just happens to match those numbers (India, by the way, is Facebook’s current biggest market).
I would also point out that by your own data, which is accurate as far as I can tell, 49% of Reddit is not American, so even with its more US-focused audience the assumption that users are American unless proven otherwise is wildly ethnocentric.
Now, I agree with you that assuming things about anonymous accounts, and especially anonymous accounts writing in English, is foolish. Lots of people are fluent in English who are not native speakers and definitely who are not from the US. Most, in fact, depending on how you define your parameters.
I disagree that this is “human nature”, though. I don’t assume the same thing from people who speak my native language online. I also don’t assume the same thing about English speakers. The reason the OP is asking is that US ethnocentrism stands out. That’s not to say it’s not natural. We non-native dwellers in anglocentric social media will often comment on US cultural and political minutia, because US cultural and political minutia is present and relevant to us in a way ours isn’t to Americans (thanks for that, cultural imperialism). We pass for Americans in more situations than some American lurking in a German-language forum would, and we’re likely many times more numerous than… well, Americans lurking in German-language or Chinese-language socials.
But it being natural doesn’t mean it isn’t notable or an issue or a symptom of a dysfunction. Which it is, and it does annoy me for that reason.
49% of Reddit is not American, so even with its more US-focused audience the assumption that users are American unless proven otherwise is wildly ethnocentric.
The assumption that the 51% of reddit constitutes a monolith of non-Americans is wildly reductive and offensive /s. The majority is irrelevant, Americans still constitute the plurality of users, and thus inevitably become the default.
I absolutely agree that it’s a symptom of dysfunction, but I just think it’s unfair to blame on the average American. We didn’t ask for this either.
We’re talking about assuming that a site’s default user is from the US. I’m saying if 49% are not, then that assumption seems ethnocentric. That doesn’t require every other user to be part of a monolith of non-Americans, they all share the trait of being… you know, not American.
That’s a big chunk of your users that don’t conform to your default use case. If this was about anything else you would not a default at all in that scenario, but that’s not what happens. Also, it’s not blamed on the “average American”, it’s being blamed on Americans as a whole, culturally, on the aggregate, which is fundamentally different.
As I’ve already explained, you’re talking about the general case of assuming where someone is from. Because otherwise, you’re suggesting that we should assume someone is from a different country than the US? Which country? I honestly don’t understand what your point is.
The claim here is that unless something is flagged as being “world” something, it’s assumed to be specific to the US. The obvious example is politics forums with no qualifier in social media (including here and on Reddit) being about US politics where everywhere else is qualified with either “world” or a specific country/region.
That’s the claim.
The counterclaim is that makes sense for US-based social media where most users are American. I dispute that because… well, most users are not American in many of those sites, or a large enough proportion aren’t that the assumption is not justified.
The logical way to organize that would be for the US politics channel, forum, magazine or whatever to be flagged “US politics” while everything else keeps its own qualifier. There is no default nation for politics. If anything, “politics” without a qualifier should be fair game for all world politics. That makes logical sense, but it’s often not what happens in social media unless the specific social media site is heavily restricted to a specific non-English language or territory.
Well, yeah, but it’s not anecdotal. There is data to tell you how big Facebook is and was outside the US, in what territories and by how much relative to their US popularity at what point. My personal experience just happens to match those numbers (India, by the way, is Facebook’s current biggest market).
I would also point out that by your own data, which is accurate as far as I can tell, 49% of Reddit is not American, so even with its more US-focused audience the assumption that users are American unless proven otherwise is wildly ethnocentric.
Now, I agree with you that assuming things about anonymous accounts, and especially anonymous accounts writing in English, is foolish. Lots of people are fluent in English who are not native speakers and definitely who are not from the US. Most, in fact, depending on how you define your parameters.
I disagree that this is “human nature”, though. I don’t assume the same thing from people who speak my native language online. I also don’t assume the same thing about English speakers. The reason the OP is asking is that US ethnocentrism stands out. That’s not to say it’s not natural. We non-native dwellers in anglocentric social media will often comment on US cultural and political minutia, because US cultural and political minutia is present and relevant to us in a way ours isn’t to Americans (thanks for that, cultural imperialism). We pass for Americans in more situations than some American lurking in a German-language forum would, and we’re likely many times more numerous than… well, Americans lurking in German-language or Chinese-language socials.
But it being natural doesn’t mean it isn’t notable or an issue or a symptom of a dysfunction. Which it is, and it does annoy me for that reason.
The assumption that the 51% of reddit constitutes a monolith of non-Americans is wildly reductive and offensive /s. The majority is irrelevant, Americans still constitute the plurality of users, and thus inevitably become the default.
I absolutely agree that it’s a symptom of dysfunction, but I just think it’s unfair to blame on the average American. We didn’t ask for this either.
Wait, what?
We’re talking about assuming that a site’s default user is from the US. I’m saying if 49% are not, then that assumption seems ethnocentric. That doesn’t require every other user to be part of a monolith of non-Americans, they all share the trait of being… you know, not American.
That’s a big chunk of your users that don’t conform to your default use case. If this was about anything else you would not a default at all in that scenario, but that’s not what happens. Also, it’s not blamed on the “average American”, it’s being blamed on Americans as a whole, culturally, on the aggregate, which is fundamentally different.
As I’ve already explained, you’re talking about the general case of assuming where someone is from. Because otherwise, you’re suggesting that we should assume someone is from a different country than the US? Which country? I honestly don’t understand what your point is.
Alright, let me take a step back to the OP.
The claim here is that unless something is flagged as being “world” something, it’s assumed to be specific to the US. The obvious example is politics forums with no qualifier in social media (including here and on Reddit) being about US politics where everywhere else is qualified with either “world” or a specific country/region.
That’s the claim.
The counterclaim is that makes sense for US-based social media where most users are American. I dispute that because… well, most users are not American in many of those sites, or a large enough proportion aren’t that the assumption is not justified.
The logical way to organize that would be for the US politics channel, forum, magazine or whatever to be flagged “US politics” while everything else keeps its own qualifier. There is no default nation for politics. If anything, “politics” without a qualifier should be fair game for all world politics. That makes logical sense, but it’s often not what happens in social media unless the specific social media site is heavily restricted to a specific non-English language or territory.
That’s the observation here.
Ok, good.
I’ll respond to this tomorrow. Gird your loins.