A ton of countries have a decently active Lemmy instance, including the English-speaking ones (UK, AUS, NZ, ZA).
The closest to a US one that I know of is midwest.social, which looks pretty lively from what I can tell.
Anyway, so lemmy.world is becoming quite populated with all kinds of US-specific stuff, like communities for sports teams, sometimes with generic names that could be used for other things ( !bears@lemmy.world ), states/cities like !texas@lemmy.world or even !politics@lemmy.world (while !uspolitics@lemmy.world also exists), with other instances also having duplicate comms.
I’m expecting Lemmy to have, at some point, and hopefully soon, an option to block entire instances so that we don’t have to see posts especially that are country-specific. But I’ll need to block all the baseball teams one by one if I want to browse all and try to find new things.
And I’m sure it would also be more convenient to have it all under one roof, just like everything about Germany is under feddit.de, and people from elsewhere can still visit if they like.
So, please someone make one? Or navigate people to the right one? Thank yooou
The US-defaultism that happens on the internet is very annoying
Yeah, it’s especially annoying when you live in a different English speaking country. I don’t give a shit about your pounds in the chicken recipe.
That’s right! Put dollars in the chicken recipe!
Anyway that’s my two cents.
Let’s say 2/100 of your country’s primary monetary unit. No reason to be US centric.
Pounds mass or pounds force? 😅
Do you plan on cooking in space?
Freedom! Pounds of Freedom!
I added 3 tbs lead but it tastes kinda funny
And cups, and spoons…
Yeah, wtf is a cup of butter?
So refreshing on a cold day…
I immediately became a bit upset when I read this post and realized US defaultism was going to happen on lemmy too now. Very annoying thing.
You guys are nuts if you let it bother you.
Literally makes no sense.
You don’t have to share the view of others, but can you understand how claiming generic names like ‘bears’ and ‘politics’ for something regional is annoying? Bears and politics exist in other countries, too.
No, I don’t care at all. If I want to speak to Romanians, I go on r/Romania, r/RoCasual, etc. etc.
We are only 20 million people. Americans are 330 million, and its an English speaking site. I don’t expect to see Romanians catered to in any way what so ever in the generic subs.
The US! Oppressing everything else in the world since…the beginning!
Damn americans, they ruined america!
I’m just dumb and forget the world wide web is, well, world wide haha. I just live in my own little bubble sometimes but i’m trying to be better about not blindly assuming the folks i interact with on here and other places are from the US
I mean pretty much every website is US focused unless stated otherwise.
And the argument always was that Reddit/Facebook/Twitter/whatever are American.
Well, Lemmy is not. So there’s no reason for it to be americanised by default.
(Unless we’ll hear the argument that the internet is American :p)
I don’t think hosting was ever the argument. It was always just that the vast majority of users were American.
Any site defaulting to English is going to attract users who predominantly speak English as their primary language, and then people who speak English as a sort of lingua franca are going to be a smaller part of that. Among native English speakers, Americans make up the majority, so that’s the prevailing default you are likely to see.
Even if Lemmy.world is hosted in Europe, I’d hazard that the largest user demographic is still Americans.
Actually (!) the majority of Reddit users are not American. Although Americans make up the largest single group, they’re in the minority overall.
attract users who predominantly speak English as their primary language
I never understood this argument. Why do you think it’s important whether English is your primary language or not?
People in developed countries often speak English pretty much perfectly (and know the difference between their and they’re).
If you’re going to a web site with a mixed audience, you’re gonna use English, and if you’re going to a local one, you use your local language. No big deal?
Native English speakers have the advantage of not needing a different language to speak to their locals, but that’s all.
If somehow everyone agreed that Esperanto will be the default internet language, you wouldn’t expect the majority to be native Esperanto users.
I mean, I think I addressed that in my post. When the discourse is defaulted to English, you end up with users who are either native English speakers and people using English as a lingua franca.
In the Anglosphere, Americans make up the largest single chunk, and they accordingly see no need to “enclave” the way other groups may because being the biggest means their standpoint is effectively the default one.
When the discourse is defaulted to English, you end up with users who are either native English speakers and people using English as a lingua franca.
But that is the thing, this assumption is most likely not correct. The second half of it is (which you didn’t mention in your original comment), but the first part is largely untrue.
People who speak English as a second language are able to engage with a platform in which the majority of users speak English. People who only speak English or that and their local language are unable to engage with a platform where the language used is not their own or English.
More people are able to communicate with a shared language than with languages which are not mutually understood.
One other factor contributes: the U.S. has a large population which shares both a language and some culture. While multiple other countries may share languages, the populations which share a similar level of culture are smaller.
Then you have posts on social media being ranked in some way by engagement. One post may be relatable to 100k people, and five other posts are relatable to 20k each. The single post is ranked higher.
Your assumptions are incorrect. There never were a vast majority of American users, and English based sites doesn’t necessarily attract people who speak English as their primary language. The world knows (except for perhaps some Americans) that English is the lingua franca of our day, so English being used in a website doesn’t say anything at all about its geographical or cultural makeup.
Well, Al Gore said he invented it, so…
It is a stupid argument anyway that fundamentally ignores the entire concept of the internet being global and universal. If a site is aimed at a global userbase it is mostly completely irrelevant (except for legal purposes of course) where that site was originally created or where the servers are located.
That was never the argument, the internet was always international and not just American.
The issue is language, the assumption is English spoken content is assumed to be American or possibly british/Australian.
I’d like to see that get more fluid, but that probably involves a lot of people speaking more English or more autotranslate kicking in.
Unfortunately it was an argument often repeated on Reddit. Stupid, but, whatever. But definitely can’t do that with Lemmy.
ShitAmericansSay
If they were wrong people wouldn’t be complaining about US defaultism.
‘US defaultism’ seems to be a term created and used exclusively by Reddit. Is it people assuming they’re talking to an american online?
It’s true tho. Every person speaking American online is a spiritual immigrant of the US.
Yeah I assume the reason there isn’t is because the general ones are US-centric by default and then everyone else has to have somewhere specific to go. But I guess if they want their own dedicated place too why not?
Isn’t that the problem being stated in the OP haha.
To be fair, they are to thank for the internet, so I guess it makes sense…
I mean you can just have your feed show only the stuff you’re subscribed to…
Given the prevalence of US defaultism, I don’t mind the lack of a US-specific one. Plus, unless an instance, or even community, is regionally specific, chances are Americans are going to assume it to be American. Even if that subreddit specifically claims to be worldwide, it may still be dominated in excess by Americans, like the politics @ lemmy.ml community.
Isn’t it ironic that lemmy.ml, run by essentially communists, shelters a forum for American politics?
Lemmy.ca exists for Canada too. There are dozens of us. Dozens!
That must be the most polite server on Lemmy.
Sorry
well now someone needs to make the most obnoxiously American patriotic instance possible, as a meme
Call it blackjacknhooke.rs
Well beehaw.org is hosted in NYC.
Ich bin ein Amerikaner
We’re all living in Amerika
Amerika ist wunderbar
Isn’t lemm.ee US based?
Nah, lemm.ee is hosted in the EU.
The .ee must stand for European Eunion
Well it’s certainly not for Emerican Empire.
If it is, they aren’t doing much to advertise it or to attract those kinds of communities.
Of course the Germans have have everything all organized.
That’s what we love about them. And the accent when they speak English. And their cars. Not forgetting their tools. Beer.
I thought beehaw.org is US based.
Nah. What’s weird is you thinking everyone should follow your strict rules about national segregation online.
If it’s such a problem for you, instead of begging everyone else to fit your narrow world view, go find an instance that works better for you. Or, when you don’t because that’s ridiculous, make your own and block it off from everyone else not following your rules. Then you might be happy.
It might be because most of us Americans lick the boots of corporations for free or get in line to.
Don’t forget about subscription services for everything!
Speaking of which, !fucksubscriptions@lemmy.world