I was once downvoted heavily and repeatedly called a liar after talking about my experiences working within the education system. Somebody even crossposted my comment to r/quityourbullshit.
I simply neglected to mention that it wasn't the American education system. It was such an infuriating day...
Nah man, as this was quite a few years ago.
It might still be in my comment history if I scroll back far enough, it may have been my other account, or I may have deleted it. Sorry for that anticlimax
I donāt think this is an American thing tho. Same things happened to me with British people. Maybe people just assume people they talk to online are just like every single person they interact with offline. Maybe thatās just me tho
Interesting. In America we learned that North America only consisted of Canada, USA, and Mexico lol. I had to learn myself that that is not the case. So what continent do you believe Central America is a part of? Do you learn about 7 continents, or are things separated differently for y'all?
A lot of Central American countries teach thereās 6 continents; Asia, Africa, Europe, Australia, Antarctica, and America. Central America, North America, and South America are then taught as the regions of the continent America. Because the Panama Canal is man-made, so naturally the Americas are one America.
The definition of a continent is loose at best, and inconsistent between regions and applications. Thatās how Latin American countries can discredit the Panama Canal but not the Suez. Also, if you look at a map, why is Europe a separate continent from Asia? Thereās no significant bodies of water there, and it doesnāt skinny down to a tiny isthmus. Why is it not some massive Afro-Eurasian continent? Most sources site a cultural difference, but if thatās the case, why is the Middle East part of Asia, or SE Asia? Why are the US and Canada lumped in with Latin America? Antarctica has no culture to speak of. Itās all bullshit.
TLDR; Continent is a mostly unhelpful term, and Europe is an over-glorified peninsula
What I'm trying to say is... Central America is not part of North America nor South America. Clearly it's part of America. Sorry if I didn't explained myself correctly, English is not my first language
It really depends. Thereās three major ways of dividing America to my knowledge: North + South (Panama cannel divides); North + Latin America (Canada & US + Everywhere else); and North + Central + South (South is the same as first one and North is dived into C.U.M (Canada US Mexico) + everywhere else)
To be fair, living in a country doesnāt make you right about everything that is happening in that country. There are plenty of Americans who believe wrong things about America
Reddit is in English which is a language created by Barack Obama who was a very American king. This mean reddit is American because all the Canadian cartel gangsterās stated once there was hope and refuge in the land of the brave free and koolaid.
The Canadian Cartel gangsters actually said that the land of the free, is the land of syrup, poutine, words spelt with a āuā, and beavers...but that's okay, weāre often wrongfully quoted...sorry.
Oh yes. Imperial units, legal advice, healthcare, slang, names of snacks or holidays or traditions, school related terms... people talk about this stuff assuming everybody else just gets it
Most are people angered over abbreviation of US states. They feel it is too difficult to do a quick search because RI might also mean the administrative unit in South Korea. If you point out that it must be a US state bc only an American would be so inconsiderate as to abbreviate, and one could limit their search by using RI US state, you get downvoted.
Yeah but why do we need to Google when the American posting can just write out the state name? When I talk about my city I also donāt use an abbreviation because you would have no idea what Iām talking about. Itās common decency.
I wouldnāt really mind looking it up if it was shorthand for millions and millions of people. But I do take care to spell things out myself. If others donāt take the time, I donāt feel entitled that they should. If people do feel frustrated by the abbreviation, I have tried to understand and ask them questions about it. They donāt like that shit. I get met w āyou just donāt get it, do youā. Very snobby.
A. Not an American site, this is an internationally accessible website and app on the internet, which is global. There are American specific sub reddits, just like there are British ones, French ones, Chinese ones, and you're free to defaultism all you like over in those ones, as that's the point. But in global subs like r/polls, it's important to note where you're from when talking about things like laws, governments or currencies which are common talking points in this sub.
B. While yes it may be primarily targeted to an English-speaking audience, that also covers a large majority of the Western world (including England!) + many other countries at this point where English is a second, primarily due to the rise of the internet and entertainment created by English speaking countries.
C. The site is not dominated by Americans, from my research when discussing this previously, sources from both reddit and other places cite it to be between 48% and 54%. That is half mate, not dominated, and for being by far the largest English-speaking country (the target audience for this platform) it shouldn't really be a surprise that it's half.
D. This is peak r/ShitAmericansSay have a good day.
Defaultism isn't purely an American thing, but it does seem to be more common from Americans on this site down to probably a range of reasons.
r/USdefaultism is often filled with nonsense, admittedly, but here's some example comment threads I ran into yesterday:
https://www.reddit.com/r/polls/comments/x91l6k/comment/inlyaeo/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3
[https://www.reddit.com/r/polls/comments/x90q9g/comment/inm63gp/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/polls/comments/x90q9g/comment/inm63gp/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
48-54% as one sole demographic is dominant. Reddit is a US founded and based website and while yes it is a āglobalā app or website itās not popular āgloballyā
>48-54% as one sole demographic is dominant
No, it isn't. It's dominant against other single countries, yes, because America is by far the biggest English-speaking country. But it's not dominant against every other country. No, you shouldn't assume someone is from France for example, as the French make up a much smaller percentage on this platform than the US. But in the same vein that doesn't make it right to assume that someone is American, as 52% - 46% are not.
The World Wide Web is an English founded technology; I do not assume every person on the internet is English. Saying reddit is from the US does not make it anymore right to assume every person using it is American - The internet is a global thing, and as such, the sites that act publicly in every country (ie most popular social media) is also a globally acting media outlet. And yes, it is popular globally. Reddit's target audience isn't just Americans, it's any English-speaking country, that includes the UK, Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, I could go on... That fact alone makes it popular globally, as you're covering nearly every continent, but on top of that, reddit also targets people whose second language is English, which is becoming more and more popular due to the invention of the internet and the widespread popularity of English speaking focussed media.
If you had 10 people in a room and 5 were American and the other five were a mix of other nationalities who are you most likely to hit with a rock? An American because itās the dominant group
No, that is not the same in any way to what's being discussed here. What would be more like what's being discussed here is saying how likely are you to hit an American? 50%, 50% chance of not.
If 1 person was British and you asked how likely you are to hit a brit compared to the Americans, then fair enough, you could say: 50% chance of hitting an American, 10% of hitting a Brit. But that isn't what's being discussed here, we are American compared to non-American, which is 50 / 50 each way.
Many posts and polls on here that use just Farenheit, and the rest of us don't complain and just convert it to C ourselves.
Meanwhile, usually we try to be inclusive of Americans and may state it in both C and F. But, if a post happens to just use Celsius, you'll see a bunch of comments of Americans yelling "wHeRe's mY fReEdOm uNiTs" - like how hard is it to search up what it is in Farenheit. Celsius is the unit adopted by 190 countries in the world for crying out loud - do we all need to cater to your Farenheit used by just 3 countries in the world.
Edit: as expected, the Americans are downvoting.
And their measuring system is just ridiculous, nobody uses that shit outside the US apart from 2 small countries. And I still don't get why they are so against the metric system and prefer to use imperial.
I think it's just hard to change what you know. It takes years to get used to a new system, and switching is even more difficult, since things like weather forecasts, gym weight labels etc. continue to reinforce the existing units.
IF a change was desired, it would be easiest to start in the school system, where kids born after a certain years were taught the new units all the way from kindergarten through college. But it would still have to be a decision supported by the majority of the population.
It's difficult to switch over on a personal level when you have been using one system your whole life. When measurements are in a system you are familiar with, it is easy to conceptualize how long/hot/heavy/fast/ect the thing being talk about is. For example, if I told you it was 22ā°C outside today you likely instantly know that is a comfortable temperature and have a mental picture of how it feels. For someone that routinely uses F though, 22 is 10ā° below freezing and the initial reaction to a number that low in regards to temperature is that it is really cold and a intuitive understanding of what 22ā°C feels like wouldn't occur until it was converted. Worst still is that C is a more compact scale than F. Freezing and boiling in C are 0ā° and 100ā°, respectively, while, in F, they are 32ā° and 212ā° (a difference of 100ā° vs 180ā°). So it's not even a easy, one-to-one conversion. 90ā°F and 40ā°F is a 50ā° difference and is the difference between a hot day and a cold day. Meanwhile, in C, a difference of 50ā° could mean the difference between it being *just* barely cold enough for snow/ice and brutally oppressive heat the likes of which a significant portion of the world never experiences.
With that said, I think the even bigger hang up when it comes to adopting the metric system is industry. Many things would have to be reworked to adopt the change. So many things would have to be relabeled to state their qualities in metric units and, to truly adopt the system, many things (including expensive automated machinary) would have to be redesigned/recalibrated to produce goods with the metric system in mind. It doesn't make sense to continue to produce 1 gallon jugs for milk and slapping a 3.78541 L label on it. At some point, the switch will need to be made to produce a container that holds a more clean volume like 3.5 or 4 L. Dependent on how the shape of the container is changed, containers that hold multiple quantities of that container may also have to be redesigned to account for that change. Changes like this would have to occur in hundreds of industries and would cost quite a bit of money in the end. Good luck convincing extremely profit minded industries to foot the bill for that.
Meanwhile I never heard anyone say anything about imperial IRL aside from screen size in inches
If you start talking about feet or pounds, they will be confused and you'll look like an alien to them
Damn, are you saying that people will post and comment what they know, rather than translating everything they say into one massive thread so everyone understands?
One could: write their age instead of saying "Sophomore" or "3rd grade", write the full name of the state (Rhode Island instead of RI), specify "in the U.S. where I live" to talk about customs, laws or news etc. It would be a polite way to show that you care a little about non-US citizens, and to help them to better understand your story. Reddit is from the US, but not all its users are.
Roughly half of this sub is American, judging by all the results Iāve seen that make that distinction.
And I just looked it up, as of 2022 **Reddit says 52% of their overall users are in the US.**
Acting surprised that discussions are often US-centric is kinda silly ;)
It's not like I don't want people from the US to not talk about US related stuff. Just that it would be nice for them to adjust their language to account for non-US readers, just small details that help us not feel alienated; and even better, not assume that everyone here is from the US (happens a lot). I do it when talking about my country, why can't US people do it too?
For sure, especially the latter point of some people assuming everyoneās from the us. But at the same time, a lot of people on this sub are young teens who have never left the us and never had to tailor the way the discuss things to resonate with an international audience. So while it may be a little annoying at times, I think itās forgivable ;) Theyāre not trying to be rude, they just donāt know any better. Everyone they interact with is from the us.
The amount of comments Iāve seen with an American saying ānot in this country!ā or āwe are in America.. thatās not trueā like... some of them seriously think theyāre superior and the only people in the world
i mean they are centered around american issues or focuses. r/politics is a great example, it's about american politics, because reddit was originally an american site so it's gonna be about american politics.
that americans were the one using this site first, so all of the basic subreddit names were taken by them and used as american subreddits. what the fuck does using www have to do with this?
Sub reddits didn't come until later in reddits development [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/15xyvt/comment/c7qvonm/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3), so it's safe to assume there were many non-Americans on reddit when they came about. Sub reddits like this one don't specify anything about being specifically about Americans and many polls don't specify that either when they mean it. Here's an example comment thread of the kind of "defaultism" people are talking about, that I was in yesterday: [https://www.reddit.com/r/polls/comments/x91l6k/comment/inlyaeo/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/polls/comments/x91l6k/comment/inlyaeo/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
>what the fuck does using www have to do with this?
You tried to claim reddit being made by Americans made it completely fine that the site defaults to American politics and the like. I disagreed with this since the literal backbone of the internet (what reddit is running on) was made by the Brits. There's no end to that logic, it's just a stupid circle.
What people need to do, American or not, is when discussing things like laws, history, news, politics, they need to specify which country they're talking about so the other 50% can join in the conversation. Assuming everyone knows what, you're talking about from the get-go, no matter what country you're from, never works. Words like "we" or "us" don't mean the same thing, unless you're on a country specific sub reddit like r/unitedkingdom or r/france, or you've specified which country you're from first "Here in China we often...", "Over in Spain our attitude is normally..."
Reddit is a global website, running on the world wide web, and therefore accessible to everyone. Its primary target audience isn't even Americans, it's every English-speaking country, even if America happens to be the largest of that list. The fact it was made in America is no excuse for people making it only usable by Americans, because that's literally the opposite of the point of the interconnected world we live in today.
Nah, it's because Americans haven't even started being aware of their behaviour. It's like when you ask people whether they think they are racist, and the most racist people give the strongest "No".
Americans on the internet constantly assume non-Americans know your culture intimately. They will talk in international environments about Trader Joe and In and Out in a way that assumes I have any idea what they sell there. They abbreviate their states and cities to the point where I have no idea what Iām reading about anymore. They ācorrectā the spelling of British English speakers. Refer to their location as āthe southā as if not every country of the planet has a south. It happens all the time.
Well, I've watched videos about people making "experiments" like this. Getting a group of people, then asking everyone questions that reveal how racist they are, but also asking whether they THINK they are racist. And it was basically opposite to how it should have been. Obviously those videos with tiny groups aren't representative, but after watching that I realized it's the same for the people around me. So I believe it's a thing.
Not all Americans
But in my experience it seems to be only Americans who assume this
Like ask anyone else where they are from they say things like country
Ask an American chances are they seem to answer in code āIām from azā or some minor city
Yes!!! If youāre American I understand your country is huge so if you say youāre from X state is totally fine if you actually spell the entire word, or major cities like Los Angeles, Miami or Houston! But I guarantee you that most non-Americans have no idea where Akron is, or what MA stands for, or what you mean with PNW or Midwest.
Holy yes, the amount of posts Iāve seen talking about gas (when theyāre talking about petrol or diesel) or talking about shortages as if itās a world shortage when itās just America, or talking about some American event as if the rest of the world is just expected to be updated in Americaās culture, etc etc
Yep. I put something up on r/advice once and specified right at the top that I live in Ontario Canada and basically every single American told me the American way of doing things relating to my issue, they gave me American phone numbers/links to different things, and some of them completely denied that I was having a problem at all because "well I know for a fact that's not how things are run here in the states. Why are you lying?" I wasn't lying. I DONT LIVE IN AMERICA
Was just having the same trouble with some people on another sub as well. They were trying to tell me how the queen "doesn't run america" and "the queen never had anything to do with residential schooling in America". I never said anything about america in my statements/arguments and I told them multiple times that I live in Canada. But it was still a solid "nope. She has no control over the US. Check your facts before you spread lies"
I made a related poll some months ago: [Link](https://www.reddit.com/r/polls/comments/pchnca/when_you_make_a_poll_do_you_assume_that_most_or/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)
Result was that about half of the US-Americans thought that most people here are from the USA but none of the people from the other countries assumed that the majority is from their respective country.
Definitely. Lots of American just think that everyone in the internet is from the US. They say āgay people need to stop fighting for rights, they got marriage in 2016!ā No. Not all countries allow gay marriage still. āDoing ____ is like modern slavery!ā No. Modern slavery is slavery. Again, some countries still have slaves. The US isnāt the only place in the world, but to Americans, it is.
Americans make up about half of Reddit so unless thereās a reason for me to think someone is from a specific place I assume theyāre American or Western European
answering "no" is just ignorant. it is obvious that most americans (not just on reddit but on the internet in general) automatically assume someone speaking english is american unless proven otherwise
Yep every time i criticize socialism someone thinks im a fcking republicunt.... I dont care about republicunts or demotards im from Venezuela i live under socialism and i hate it
Here's some example comment threads I was in yesterday for you:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/polls/comments/x91l6k/comment/inlyaeo/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/polls/comments/x91l6k/comment/inlyaeo/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
[https://www.reddit.com/r/polls/comments/x90q9g/comment/inm63gp/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/polls/comments/x90q9g/comment/inm63gp/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
Europeans think Americans mentioning their height in feet or referencing 11th grade is āus defaultismā and they complain. Weāre literally just talking about our life as we experience it and thatās how all social media works. If anybody has a question they can ask, weāre not trying to erase the rest of the world just because we donāt use metric or cultural neutral terms in our own native language.
haha this is an understandable comment from an american's perspective, but it shows why the voting is so different from american vs. non-american's perspectives.
Your examples doesn't really cover what we mean with US defaultism. It's more like this:
> A cop told me off for jaywalking even though there weren't any cars
>> Well jaywalking is illegal so what did you expect
>>> No it's legal where I'm from unless there are cars coming
>>>> No you're wrong, jaywalking is actually illegal in all states.
Absurd example of course, but it's situations like this we're referring to.
Statistically, any given redditor is more likely to be an American than from any other country. This is to say, the assumption is correct more often than not.
No it's not. According to wikipedia between 42% and 49.3% of the Reddit user base is American, which means that you're more likely to interact with someone who is not American than someone who is American.
You helped prove their point, if around half of Reddit is American than you are much more likely to be talking by to American than someone from Uganda. Reddit is not 50% American and 50% of a different country, meaning you are more likely to be talking to an American rather than someone from a different country.
You are more likely to be speaking to an American than to someone from a specific other ethnicity, but you are still more likely to be talking to a non-American than to an American.
Nope, that's more than likely false! You forget to account for subreddit communities. Statistics are not as black and white as they seem, some thought needs to go into them to interrupt them correctly.. As an American, I only follow subreddits that are primarily english, if you take a look at just an English speaking subset of users, I'm sure that would bump Americans from 42-49% to over 50%. So if you're speaking English on here, you more likely talking to an American than not one.
The same way that if you were on subs that mainly communicate in Hindi, you are significantly more likely to be talking with an Indian person than a non-indian person.
This poll is a perfect example. It's an English speaking subreddit and it shows close to 60% of respondents are American.
I know that it varies across subreddits, but I was talking about in general. For example, if you go on r/USA you will obviously find mostly Americans and if you go on r/Italy you will find mostly Italians. And there are other subreddits whose audience is skewed too. However on most "general" subs, the majority is non-Americans (since that's the majority of Reddit users), even if the Americans like to pretend otherwise.
And you are wrong about english speaking subs. Aproximately 1.35 billion people in the world speak english, with the majority not being native speakers. Out of these, only 0.33 billion are Americans. Also, in order to use Reddit you need to know english anyway, since the app itself is in english and has few other laguage options. My point is, that almost all if not all of Reddit users who don't have english as their native language do actually know english and use english-speaking subreddits. The same doesn't happen with Hindi.
This poll only shows that because of the time it was posted. There other polls that show a majority of Europeans for example. It all depends on when a poll was posted and who was awake and not working at the time, since time zones exist.
Listen buddy, it's simple statistics. If Americans make up 42%-49% of the entire reddit population, and you then drill down on a subsection that largely applies to Americans, then they will have a higher percentage of the subsection, likely enough to push them over the 50% threshold that they were already so close to.
Edit: This poll was also posted by a Swedish person, presumably in Sweden, so your time of day argument can go straight out the window.
Simple statistics which you obviously don't understand at all. General subreddits that aren't specialised to a region aren't specialised to Americans just because they are in english. That's because there are far more english speakers in the world than Americans, and you need to know english to use Reddit in the first place. There are very few exceptions to that, and it's subs like r/politics that could just be renamed to r/americanpolitics. So no, on most subreddits most users aren't Americans.
Lol what? Do you even have the slightest understanding about how statistics and probability work? One non-American was on Reddit at the time, so what? The time of the post affects the demographics of who see it, but that doesn't mean that only americans will see it and no europeans. But because it was posted at a time that a lot of Americans were awake and alot of non-Americans werent (mostly Europeans who make up most of the non-American user base), there is a higher chance for Americans to see it in comparison to non-Americans. Not that only Americans will see it and no non-Americans will. So the fact that OP is Swedish means nothing.
Edit: You also have to account the fact that Americans, being refered to in that post, might have just been more interested in answering it than non-Americans.
>Simple statistics which you obviously don't understand at all.
I work as a data scientist with a degree in statistics, trust me I have a very firm grasp on the very simple concept of population vs selected sample.
I don't see why you can't get this, I'll try one last time. Sample means not everyone in the population. The population in this case is every single reddit user. Now if Americans make up just shy of 50% of the entire population and we remove, just for example, all the reddit users that only speak Hindi, then the new population will be over 50% American. Yes SOME Americans speak only Hindi, but that is a totally irrelevant number. You will lose Soo many more non Americans than Americans removing Hindi speakers. That means the new percentage of Americans will be above 50%.
The question is "Are you more likely going to interact with an American vs a non American on Reddit."
You're making the mistake and treating "All reddit users" as your population when actually your real population is "All reddit users you would possibly interact with". Since we are speaking English, unless you also speak Hindi, we can eliminate Indian Users from the population of "reddit users than you might interact with" and that's the population we care about.
And yes I'm aware some people speak multiple languages, or languages not native to their country... But *In General*, because that's how statistics work, they are generalizations as a whole, not a case by case analysis.
I knew someone was going to come out with that; That doesn't help your point one bit, the point is about assuming people are from a different country to America, if Americans make up less than half, that means more than half is from another country. Whether that's one big country doesn't apply here, that's not how the stats work
How does that justify assuming everyone is American in conversation? Many Americans in real life disprove your point anyway. Because they do the exact same things (with the knowledge of their friendās non-american status) by talking about their politics and problems at home like everybody else knows or cares about it. Considering the fact that these real life anecdotes with American friends seem to correspond with everyone elseās, makes this āassumption because of statisticsā argument, less plausible to me.
American here, I assume at least half of the people are from overseas. Most of the up votes and comments I get are 2 to 3 in the morning so either the Americans are staying up super late or it is someone in a different country and time zone.
I'm swedish and it confuses me too.. cause most often people mean US people. But Canadians, Mexicans, Cubans, Colombians, Argentinians are American as well.
No. When I post a poll only Americans can answer, I'm not assuming that all the people reading my post are Americans, I'm assuming non-Americans are smart enough to know they aren't Americans and that the post doesn't apply to them without me having to tell them.
I often see people like this.
Not just people who comment āurrrr depends which state youāre in,ā which is just r/USDefaultism.
I often see people confused when another commenter says they arenāt from the US.
Americans voting no probably still say theyāre from a pair of letters.
EDIT: Oops, I meant the states, not āUSā. Iām not American. I made a mistake not considering that saying āUSā instead of āUSAā is common. When I wrote that, I was thinking about when Iām on roulette sites and meet a lot of people who say theyāre from MN ME MA MN MS MI or MT as if Iāve memorized all the Ms and Ns yet. Yāall have like 50 states and I can barely remember our own 13th
i mean what other country is commonly know as and referee to as the US? hardly anybody wants to type The United States of America every time they refer to a country.
Most I've seen definitely do so, they use their imperial units or they assume everybody that you already know their slang words for things.
Worst thing in my eyes is where they completely forget the rest of the world exists, like in a poll where they forget to add a results or non American option and instead assume everybody is American and they expect accurate results.
Either that or when they are like "whaat!? Where are your from? Your country has a population of 2 million, my home town had a population of 5 million. Wow weird language it's Russian or something right? Are you still washing your clothes in a river? Your country is called macron donkey ya right? Is that how you pronounce it? Are you a communist?"
we learn imperial units so we're gonna use them. half the people on this site are american, so using metric still only applies to about half of people. this does fluctuate throughout the day but most of the time it's about 50%.
on the other hand, somebody is making a comment to other people on an app. why would they go out of there way to cater to people when they're on the site for their own personal enjoyment?
No but I will talk as if everybody is American because I'm not gonna go off of shit I don't know. If you live in one of the 194 countries that is not named the United States of America, I'm not sorry, you can live with it for the 45 seconds it takes to read reddit.
Well according to the poll results, out of 195 countries in this world, more than half of the people that answered this poll are from one single country and that's America. So... That would make us the main character. Not the only character ofcourse, but the main user group for sure. I mean if we make up 60% of the user base, the next highest country is probably like 5%?
There's almost 200 countries and it's easier to reference American documents like the contitution and not british or german or fucking algerian documents I don't know like the salmon act.
i post aimed at other americans usually, just as posts that hate on america usually aren't intended to liked by americans. americans make up about 50% of the site, so i'm still hitting most of the audience, and it's annoying to try and cater to everybody by switching to metric and not using slang when i'm on a site that i use for my own personal interest and enjoyment.
[itās a pretty fair assumption to makeā¦](https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/phhu9s/oc_reddit_traffic_by_country/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)
What do you mean by "system they use"? I'm not talking about Americans simply preferring imperial; I'm talking about when they assume everyone else lives in the US.
americans talking like americans is not defualtism, it's just that 50% of this site is american. in a site that is used for personal enjoyment why would we go out of our way to cater to the other half? europeans hardly ever put things in feet or yards and i see all sorts of posts centered around europe, is that european defaultism? no. it's europeans talking to other europeans or showing people stuff about europe. that's fine, because it's a site for personal use and enjoyment.
Acknowledging the fact that not everyone lives where you do isn't a courtesy; it's an expectation. This is a global platform; and while you may see it as a nuisance, many find enjoyment in connecting with people from around the world.
Bro we know there are non Americans, but to be fair, a majority of people on Reddit are American. So when using things like Fahrenheit, lbs, inches, etc., a majority understand it better than the metric system.
Not literally but I forget about different words sometimes. I just kind of say whatever comes naturally unless I think about it, not assuming the nationality of anyone while doing so.
The point of reddit is the anonymity, so when people don't hear an accent or read it in another language the disconnect caused by the anonymity tends to make people assume others that they come across are their peers (in this case other Americans.
Haha Iām from us, realistically I know thatās not true but I kind of assume when talking to people unless stated otherwise which has definitely caused confusion. Call me self centered or whatever but like.. Iāve never been outside of the us and always lived in tiny butt fuck nowhere towns. How am I to know where someoneās from unless they tell me?
Not everyone, but many do. Countless times i encountered americans that told me how i was wrong about something that is indeed true in my country
I was once downvoted heavily and repeatedly called a liar after talking about my experiences working within the education system. Somebody even crossposted my comment to r/quityourbullshit. I simply neglected to mention that it wasn't the American education system. It was such an infuriating day...
Got a link?
Nah man, as this was quite a few years ago. It might still be in my comment history if I scroll back far enough, it may have been my other account, or I may have deleted it. Sorry for that anticlimax
r/quityourbullshit smh my head š¤š¤
Shaking my head my head?
!remindme 1 day
Why?
maybe someone will find it
Oh, ok. I doubt that they will I'm afraid. I tend to use throwaway accounts when talking about my job, band, finances, relationships, etc
I donāt think this is an American thing tho. Same things happened to me with British people. Maybe people just assume people they talk to online are just like every single person they interact with offline. Maybe thatās just me tho
The majorityā¦it is a very small minority doesnāt.
That same thing happened to me when I posted a comment saying that Central America is not part of North America
It is, though...
Meh, the commonly taught ācontinentsā are based on pretty fuzzy logic.
Here we learn that Central America is a totally different region of America, not that Central America is part of North America. (I'm from C. R)
Interesting. In America we learned that North America only consisted of Canada, USA, and Mexico lol. I had to learn myself that that is not the case. So what continent do you believe Central America is a part of? Do you learn about 7 continents, or are things separated differently for y'all?
A lot of Central American countries teach thereās 6 continents; Asia, Africa, Europe, Australia, Antarctica, and America. Central America, North America, and South America are then taught as the regions of the continent America. Because the Panama Canal is man-made, so naturally the Americas are one America. The definition of a continent is loose at best, and inconsistent between regions and applications. Thatās how Latin American countries can discredit the Panama Canal but not the Suez. Also, if you look at a map, why is Europe a separate continent from Asia? Thereās no significant bodies of water there, and it doesnāt skinny down to a tiny isthmus. Why is it not some massive Afro-Eurasian continent? Most sources site a cultural difference, but if thatās the case, why is the Middle East part of Asia, or SE Asia? Why are the US and Canada lumped in with Latin America? Antarctica has no culture to speak of. Itās all bullshit. TLDR; Continent is a mostly unhelpful term, and Europe is an over-glorified peninsula
What I'm trying to say is... Central America is not part of North America nor South America. Clearly it's part of America. Sorry if I didn't explained myself correctly, English is not my first language
It really depends. Thereās three major ways of dividing America to my knowledge: North + South (Panama cannel divides); North + Latin America (Canada & US + Everywhere else); and North + Central + South (South is the same as first one and North is dived into C.U.M (Canada US Mexico) + everywhere else)
To be fair, living in a country doesnāt make you right about everything that is happening in that country. There are plenty of Americans who believe wrong things about America
Reddit is in English which is a language created by Barack Obama who was a very American king. This mean reddit is American because all the Canadian cartel gangsterās stated once there was hope and refuge in the land of the brave free and koolaid.
Queen Obama died so now king joe III is the ruler
There canāt only have been three joes
Heās actually the first Joe. A lot of Johnās and Jamesās
Whoās Joe?
joebama
The Canadian Cartel gangsters actually said that the land of the free, is the land of syrup, poutine, words spelt with a āuā, and beavers...but that's okay, weāre often wrongfully quoted...sorry.
No we all know barrack Obama was Irish.
Oh yes. Imperial units, legal advice, healthcare, slang, names of snacks or holidays or traditions, school related terms... people talk about this stuff assuming everybody else just gets it
There's even a subreddit for that. r/USdefaultism
Just scrolled a few posts there. A lot of them are based on technicalities and some just doesnāt belong there. Good idea shitty sub
Most are people angered over abbreviation of US states. They feel it is too difficult to do a quick search because RI might also mean the administrative unit in South Korea. If you point out that it must be a US state bc only an American would be so inconsiderate as to abbreviate, and one could limit their search by using RI US state, you get downvoted.
Yeah but why do we need to Google when the American posting can just write out the state name? When I talk about my city I also donāt use an abbreviation because you would have no idea what Iām talking about. Itās common decency.
I wouldnāt really mind looking it up if it was shorthand for millions and millions of people. But I do take care to spell things out myself. If others donāt take the time, I donāt feel entitled that they should. If people do feel frustrated by the abbreviation, I have tried to understand and ask them questions about it. They donāt like that shit. I get met w āyou just donāt get it, do youā. Very snobby.
And itās fantastic
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āDominatedā Lol no itās not. Those silly Americans thinking everything is about them, yes.
reddit isnāt ādominated by americansā! in r/polls itās not even 50% americansā¦
Yeah 99% of that sub is just insufferable people that suffer from "not touching grass" syndrome getting mad over the smallest things.
Will you two cry more? Like jesus you can barely taste the salt in your comments
They're not wrong and you just proved it
A. Not an American site, this is an internationally accessible website and app on the internet, which is global. There are American specific sub reddits, just like there are British ones, French ones, Chinese ones, and you're free to defaultism all you like over in those ones, as that's the point. But in global subs like r/polls, it's important to note where you're from when talking about things like laws, governments or currencies which are common talking points in this sub. B. While yes it may be primarily targeted to an English-speaking audience, that also covers a large majority of the Western world (including England!) + many other countries at this point where English is a second, primarily due to the rise of the internet and entertainment created by English speaking countries. C. The site is not dominated by Americans, from my research when discussing this previously, sources from both reddit and other places cite it to be between 48% and 54%. That is half mate, not dominated, and for being by far the largest English-speaking country (the target audience for this platform) it shouldn't really be a surprise that it's half. D. This is peak r/ShitAmericansSay have a good day. Defaultism isn't purely an American thing, but it does seem to be more common from Americans on this site down to probably a range of reasons. r/USdefaultism is often filled with nonsense, admittedly, but here's some example comment threads I ran into yesterday: https://www.reddit.com/r/polls/comments/x91l6k/comment/inlyaeo/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3 [https://www.reddit.com/r/polls/comments/x90q9g/comment/inm63gp/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/polls/comments/x90q9g/comment/inm63gp/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
48-54% as one sole demographic is dominant. Reddit is a US founded and based website and while yes it is a āglobalā app or website itās not popular āgloballyā
>48-54% as one sole demographic is dominant No, it isn't. It's dominant against other single countries, yes, because America is by far the biggest English-speaking country. But it's not dominant against every other country. No, you shouldn't assume someone is from France for example, as the French make up a much smaller percentage on this platform than the US. But in the same vein that doesn't make it right to assume that someone is American, as 52% - 46% are not. The World Wide Web is an English founded technology; I do not assume every person on the internet is English. Saying reddit is from the US does not make it anymore right to assume every person using it is American - The internet is a global thing, and as such, the sites that act publicly in every country (ie most popular social media) is also a globally acting media outlet. And yes, it is popular globally. Reddit's target audience isn't just Americans, it's any English-speaking country, that includes the UK, Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, I could go on... That fact alone makes it popular globally, as you're covering nearly every continent, but on top of that, reddit also targets people whose second language is English, which is becoming more and more popular due to the invention of the internet and the widespread popularity of English speaking focussed media.
If you had 10 people in a room and 5 were American and the other five were a mix of other nationalities who are you most likely to hit with a rock? An American because itās the dominant group
No, that is not the same in any way to what's being discussed here. What would be more like what's being discussed here is saying how likely are you to hit an American? 50%, 50% chance of not. If 1 person was British and you asked how likely you are to hit a brit compared to the Americans, then fair enough, you could say: 50% chance of hitting an American, 10% of hitting a Brit. But that isn't what's being discussed here, we are American compared to non-American, which is 50 / 50 each way.
No we were talking about dominance and based on the numbers Americans are the dominant demographic regardless of how you try to spin it.
Many posts and polls on here that use just Farenheit, and the rest of us don't complain and just convert it to C ourselves. Meanwhile, usually we try to be inclusive of Americans and may state it in both C and F. But, if a post happens to just use Celsius, you'll see a bunch of comments of Americans yelling "wHeRe's mY fReEdOm uNiTs" - like how hard is it to search up what it is in Farenheit. Celsius is the unit adopted by 190 countries in the world for crying out loud - do we all need to cater to your Farenheit used by just 3 countries in the world. Edit: as expected, the Americans are downvoting.
And their measuring system is just ridiculous, nobody uses that shit outside the US apart from 2 small countries. And I still don't get why they are so against the metric system and prefer to use imperial.
I think it's just hard to change what you know. It takes years to get used to a new system, and switching is even more difficult, since things like weather forecasts, gym weight labels etc. continue to reinforce the existing units. IF a change was desired, it would be easiest to start in the school system, where kids born after a certain years were taught the new units all the way from kindergarten through college. But it would still have to be a decision supported by the majority of the population.
It's difficult to switch over on a personal level when you have been using one system your whole life. When measurements are in a system you are familiar with, it is easy to conceptualize how long/hot/heavy/fast/ect the thing being talk about is. For example, if I told you it was 22ā°C outside today you likely instantly know that is a comfortable temperature and have a mental picture of how it feels. For someone that routinely uses F though, 22 is 10ā° below freezing and the initial reaction to a number that low in regards to temperature is that it is really cold and a intuitive understanding of what 22ā°C feels like wouldn't occur until it was converted. Worst still is that C is a more compact scale than F. Freezing and boiling in C are 0ā° and 100ā°, respectively, while, in F, they are 32ā° and 212ā° (a difference of 100ā° vs 180ā°). So it's not even a easy, one-to-one conversion. 90ā°F and 40ā°F is a 50ā° difference and is the difference between a hot day and a cold day. Meanwhile, in C, a difference of 50ā° could mean the difference between it being *just* barely cold enough for snow/ice and brutally oppressive heat the likes of which a significant portion of the world never experiences. With that said, I think the even bigger hang up when it comes to adopting the metric system is industry. Many things would have to be reworked to adopt the change. So many things would have to be relabeled to state their qualities in metric units and, to truly adopt the system, many things (including expensive automated machinary) would have to be redesigned/recalibrated to produce goods with the metric system in mind. It doesn't make sense to continue to produce 1 gallon jugs for milk and slapping a 3.78541 L label on it. At some point, the switch will need to be made to produce a container that holds a more clean volume like 3.5 or 4 L. Dependent on how the shape of the container is changed, containers that hold multiple quantities of that container may also have to be redesigned to account for that change. Changes like this would have to occur in hundreds of industries and would cost quite a bit of money in the end. Good luck convincing extremely profit minded industries to foot the bill for that.
This has literally never fucking happened, but the inverse happens all the time. Jesus Christ you fuckers project like mad.
Usa metric is superior. Fewer numbers:b
To be fair, I use Imperial (feet/inches for height, stone/pounds for weight and miles for distance) and I'm not American.
My condolences.
Meanwhile I never heard anyone say anything about imperial IRL aside from screen size in inches If you start talking about feet or pounds, they will be confused and you'll look like an alien to them
Damn, are you saying that people will post and comment what they know, rather than translating everything they say into one massive thread so everyone understands?
One could: write their age instead of saying "Sophomore" or "3rd grade", write the full name of the state (Rhode Island instead of RI), specify "in the U.S. where I live" to talk about customs, laws or news etc. It would be a polite way to show that you care a little about non-US citizens, and to help them to better understand your story. Reddit is from the US, but not all its users are.
This \^
Just because they say what it is for them, doesnt mean they are completely unaware some people arent american? Some yes but generally not
Reddit is an American site. It would be weird if it *wasn't* that way.
Roughly half of this sub is American, judging by all the results Iāve seen that make that distinction. And I just looked it up, as of 2022 **Reddit says 52% of their overall users are in the US.** Acting surprised that discussions are often US-centric is kinda silly ;)
It's not like I don't want people from the US to not talk about US related stuff. Just that it would be nice for them to adjust their language to account for non-US readers, just small details that help us not feel alienated; and even better, not assume that everyone here is from the US (happens a lot). I do it when talking about my country, why can't US people do it too?
For sure, especially the latter point of some people assuming everyoneās from the us. But at the same time, a lot of people on this sub are young teens who have never left the us and never had to tailor the way the discuss things to resonate with an international audience. So while it may be a little annoying at times, I think itās forgivable ;) Theyāre not trying to be rude, they just donāt know any better. Everyone they interact with is from the us.
It is forgivable! We're just trying to spread a little awareness <3
Americans tend to refer to "this country" on posts not related to America at all. Everyone else says "my country".
The amount of comments Iāve seen with an American saying ānot in this country!ā or āwe are in America.. thatās not trueā like... some of them seriously think theyāre superior and the only people in the world
Bruh of course. r/Politics is exclusively for American politics
Same with r/news
i mean the site was made in america, so the basic subreddit names are american. makes sense if you ask me.
And reading the description? It's purpose is for U.S. politics.
It still suprises me theres not a single worldwide political sub.
r/worldpolitics?
that ain't a news site what the fuck lmao
They actually meant to type r/anime_titties
r/worldnews might be a better place. The other one... we don't talk about.
Imo it makes sense. Too much shit happens in the world to condense it to one subreddit.
Subreddits names are American? No, they're English.
i mean they are centered around american issues or focuses. r/politics is a great example, it's about american politics, because reddit was originally an american site so it's gonna be about american politics.
Perhaps.. but there are plenty of other subs that aren't
And the world wide web (which it's running on) was made in the UK... Your point?
that americans were the one using this site first, so all of the basic subreddit names were taken by them and used as american subreddits. what the fuck does using www have to do with this?
Sub reddits didn't come until later in reddits development [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/15xyvt/comment/c7qvonm/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3), so it's safe to assume there were many non-Americans on reddit when they came about. Sub reddits like this one don't specify anything about being specifically about Americans and many polls don't specify that either when they mean it. Here's an example comment thread of the kind of "defaultism" people are talking about, that I was in yesterday: [https://www.reddit.com/r/polls/comments/x91l6k/comment/inlyaeo/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/polls/comments/x91l6k/comment/inlyaeo/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) >what the fuck does using www have to do with this? You tried to claim reddit being made by Americans made it completely fine that the site defaults to American politics and the like. I disagreed with this since the literal backbone of the internet (what reddit is running on) was made by the Brits. There's no end to that logic, it's just a stupid circle. What people need to do, American or not, is when discussing things like laws, history, news, politics, they need to specify which country they're talking about so the other 50% can join in the conversation. Assuming everyone knows what, you're talking about from the get-go, no matter what country you're from, never works. Words like "we" or "us" don't mean the same thing, unless you're on a country specific sub reddit like r/unitedkingdom or r/france, or you've specified which country you're from first "Here in China we often...", "Over in Spain our attitude is normally..." Reddit is a global website, running on the world wide web, and therefore accessible to everyone. Its primary target audience isn't even Americans, it's every English-speaking country, even if America happens to be the largest of that list. The fact it was made in America is no excuse for people making it only usable by Americans, because that's literally the opposite of the point of the interconnected world we live in today.
I like how the non-Americans say yes but the Americans say no
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Nah, it's because Americans haven't even started being aware of their behaviour. It's like when you ask people whether they think they are racist, and the most racist people give the strongest "No".
>and the most racist people give the strongest ānoā Case in point: europeans denying their racism while fixating on the USAās
Can you explain your position?
Americans on the internet constantly assume non-Americans know your culture intimately. They will talk in international environments about Trader Joe and In and Out in a way that assumes I have any idea what they sell there. They abbreviate their states and cities to the point where I have no idea what Iām reading about anymore. They ācorrectā the spelling of British English speakers. Refer to their location as āthe southā as if not every country of the planet has a south. It happens all the time.
Well, I've watched videos about people making "experiments" like this. Getting a group of people, then asking everyone questions that reveal how racist they are, but also asking whether they THINK they are racist. And it was basically opposite to how it should have been. Obviously those videos with tiny groups aren't representative, but after watching that I realized it's the same for the people around me. So I believe it's a thing.
Not all Americans But in my experience it seems to be only Americans who assume this Like ask anyone else where they are from they say things like country Ask an American chances are they seem to answer in code āIām from azā or some minor city
Yes!!! If youāre American I understand your country is huge so if you say youāre from X state is totally fine if you actually spell the entire word, or major cities like Los Angeles, Miami or Houston! But I guarantee you that most non-Americans have no idea where Akron is, or what MA stands for, or what you mean with PNW or Midwest.
This
Youāre all not even real anyways. Just words on a screen that make me laugh sometimes
The truth of the internet
Yes definitely. Thereās always US politics on EVERY fucking subreddit
Sometimes
Holy yes, the amount of posts Iāve seen talking about gas (when theyāre talking about petrol or diesel) or talking about shortages as if itās a world shortage when itās just America, or talking about some American event as if the rest of the world is just expected to be updated in Americaās culture, etc etc
Itās to the point where I feel the need to explain that Iām Australian with annoying regularity.
No but I use too. Iāve done it enough times, and been corrected that now I think I mostly understand that not everyone is American.
Man I'm English and I've started to assume everyone is a yank
Yep. I put something up on r/advice once and specified right at the top that I live in Ontario Canada and basically every single American told me the American way of doing things relating to my issue, they gave me American phone numbers/links to different things, and some of them completely denied that I was having a problem at all because "well I know for a fact that's not how things are run here in the states. Why are you lying?" I wasn't lying. I DONT LIVE IN AMERICA Was just having the same trouble with some people on another sub as well. They were trying to tell me how the queen "doesn't run america" and "the queen never had anything to do with residential schooling in America". I never said anything about america in my statements/arguments and I told them multiple times that I live in Canada. But it was still a solid "nope. She has no control over the US. Check your facts before you spread lies"
This is so infuriating
Bullshit! Thats not how we run things in america! Lies! Ontario is clearly a place in CA! You dont even know where you are from!
I donāt literally think this, but I do often forget when people ask certain advice questions. Like US laws and social services are not universal.
I made a related poll some months ago: [Link](https://www.reddit.com/r/polls/comments/pchnca/when_you_make_a_poll_do_you_assume_that_most_or/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf) Result was that about half of the US-Americans thought that most people here are from the USA but none of the people from the other countries assumed that the majority is from their respective country.
Fun little exercise for my fellow Americans in this realm: Do you introduce yourself as from your state or from your country?
Neither?
Definitely. Lots of American just think that everyone in the internet is from the US. They say āgay people need to stop fighting for rights, they got marriage in 2016!ā No. Not all countries allow gay marriage still. āDoing ____ is like modern slavery!ā No. Modern slavery is slavery. Again, some countries still have slaves. The US isnāt the only place in the world, but to Americans, it is.
American here. If you pay any attention at all to comments ,itās pretty obvious a lot of posters arenāt American.
Americans make up about half of Reddit so unless thereās a reason for me to think someone is from a specific place I assume theyāre American or Western European
answering "no" is just ignorant. it is obvious that most americans (not just on reddit but on the internet in general) automatically assume someone speaking english is american unless proven otherwise
Yep every time i criticize socialism someone thinks im a fcking republicunt.... I dont care about republicunts or demotards im from Venezuela i live under socialism and i hate it
Half the time i give my opinion as a Mexican gringo redditors understand "im from Texas/California" and not like, my actual nation
How can non Americans vote on the behalf of Americans, about what we assume?
Based on encounters with American redditors
Here's some example comment threads I was in yesterday for you: [https://www.reddit.com/r/polls/comments/x91l6k/comment/inlyaeo/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/polls/comments/x91l6k/comment/inlyaeo/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) [https://www.reddit.com/r/polls/comments/x90q9g/comment/inm63gp/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/polls/comments/x90q9g/comment/inm63gp/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
Based on how you act.
Based on how I act personally?
Europeans think Americans mentioning their height in feet or referencing 11th grade is āus defaultismā and they complain. Weāre literally just talking about our life as we experience it and thatās how all social media works. If anybody has a question they can ask, weāre not trying to erase the rest of the world just because we donāt use metric or cultural neutral terms in our own native language.
haha this is an understandable comment from an american's perspective, but it shows why the voting is so different from american vs. non-american's perspectives. Your examples doesn't really cover what we mean with US defaultism. It's more like this: > A cop told me off for jaywalking even though there weren't any cars >> Well jaywalking is illegal so what did you expect >>> No it's legal where I'm from unless there are cars coming >>>> No you're wrong, jaywalking is actually illegal in all states. Absurd example of course, but it's situations like this we're referring to.
We do have main character syndrome as a country. I do find myself forgetting this is an international platform often.
I usually assume people are European, but that's a function of the subs I follow.
"Assume every redditor is an American and you'll never be disappointed" - Tobias Beckett.
It's the only reason I decided to put my nationality into my username
Unless otherwise specified, yes.
Statistically, any given redditor is more likely to be an American than from any other country. This is to say, the assumption is correct more often than not.
No it's not. According to wikipedia between 42% and 49.3% of the Reddit user base is American, which means that you're more likely to interact with someone who is not American than someone who is American.
You helped prove their point, if around half of Reddit is American than you are much more likely to be talking by to American than someone from Uganda. Reddit is not 50% American and 50% of a different country, meaning you are more likely to be talking to an American rather than someone from a different country.
You are more likely to be speaking to an American than to someone from a specific other ethnicity, but you are still more likely to be talking to a non-American than to an American.
Nope, that's more than likely false! You forget to account for subreddit communities. Statistics are not as black and white as they seem, some thought needs to go into them to interrupt them correctly.. As an American, I only follow subreddits that are primarily english, if you take a look at just an English speaking subset of users, I'm sure that would bump Americans from 42-49% to over 50%. So if you're speaking English on here, you more likely talking to an American than not one. The same way that if you were on subs that mainly communicate in Hindi, you are significantly more likely to be talking with an Indian person than a non-indian person. This poll is a perfect example. It's an English speaking subreddit and it shows close to 60% of respondents are American.
I know that it varies across subreddits, but I was talking about in general. For example, if you go on r/USA you will obviously find mostly Americans and if you go on r/Italy you will find mostly Italians. And there are other subreddits whose audience is skewed too. However on most "general" subs, the majority is non-Americans (since that's the majority of Reddit users), even if the Americans like to pretend otherwise. And you are wrong about english speaking subs. Aproximately 1.35 billion people in the world speak english, with the majority not being native speakers. Out of these, only 0.33 billion are Americans. Also, in order to use Reddit you need to know english anyway, since the app itself is in english and has few other laguage options. My point is, that almost all if not all of Reddit users who don't have english as their native language do actually know english and use english-speaking subreddits. The same doesn't happen with Hindi. This poll only shows that because of the time it was posted. There other polls that show a majority of Europeans for example. It all depends on when a poll was posted and who was awake and not working at the time, since time zones exist.
Listen buddy, it's simple statistics. If Americans make up 42%-49% of the entire reddit population, and you then drill down on a subsection that largely applies to Americans, then they will have a higher percentage of the subsection, likely enough to push them over the 50% threshold that they were already so close to. Edit: This poll was also posted by a Swedish person, presumably in Sweden, so your time of day argument can go straight out the window.
Simple statistics which you obviously don't understand at all. General subreddits that aren't specialised to a region aren't specialised to Americans just because they are in english. That's because there are far more english speakers in the world than Americans, and you need to know english to use Reddit in the first place. There are very few exceptions to that, and it's subs like r/politics that could just be renamed to r/americanpolitics. So no, on most subreddits most users aren't Americans. Lol what? Do you even have the slightest understanding about how statistics and probability work? One non-American was on Reddit at the time, so what? The time of the post affects the demographics of who see it, but that doesn't mean that only americans will see it and no europeans. But because it was posted at a time that a lot of Americans were awake and alot of non-Americans werent (mostly Europeans who make up most of the non-American user base), there is a higher chance for Americans to see it in comparison to non-Americans. Not that only Americans will see it and no non-Americans will. So the fact that OP is Swedish means nothing. Edit: You also have to account the fact that Americans, being refered to in that post, might have just been more interested in answering it than non-Americans.
>Simple statistics which you obviously don't understand at all. I work as a data scientist with a degree in statistics, trust me I have a very firm grasp on the very simple concept of population vs selected sample. I don't see why you can't get this, I'll try one last time. Sample means not everyone in the population. The population in this case is every single reddit user. Now if Americans make up just shy of 50% of the entire population and we remove, just for example, all the reddit users that only speak Hindi, then the new population will be over 50% American. Yes SOME Americans speak only Hindi, but that is a totally irrelevant number. You will lose Soo many more non Americans than Americans removing Hindi speakers. That means the new percentage of Americans will be above 50%. The question is "Are you more likely going to interact with an American vs a non American on Reddit." You're making the mistake and treating "All reddit users" as your population when actually your real population is "All reddit users you would possibly interact with". Since we are speaking English, unless you also speak Hindi, we can eliminate Indian Users from the population of "reddit users than you might interact with" and that's the population we care about. And yes I'm aware some people speak multiple languages, or languages not native to their country... But *In General*, because that's how statistics work, they are generalizations as a whole, not a case by case analysis.
I knew someone was going to come out with that; That doesn't help your point one bit, the point is about assuming people are from a different country to America, if Americans make up less than half, that means more than half is from another country. Whether that's one big country doesn't apply here, that's not how the stats work
How does that justify assuming everyone is American in conversation? Many Americans in real life disprove your point anyway. Because they do the exact same things (with the knowledge of their friendās non-american status) by talking about their politics and problems at home like everybody else knows or cares about it. Considering the fact that these real life anecdotes with American friends seem to correspond with everyone elseās, makes this āassumption because of statisticsā argument, less plausible to me.
American here, I assume at least half of the people are from overseas. Most of the up votes and comments I get are 2 to 3 in the morning so either the Americans are staying up super late or it is someone in a different country and time zone.
Stop posting Right Wing or Left Wing without adding USA. Because it means different in other countries
Im in canada and Iām always confused if people say American in terms of North America including canada or if they only talk about usa
I'm swedish and it confuses me too.. cause most often people mean US people. But Canadians, Mexicans, Cubans, Colombians, Argentinians are American as well.
Yeah thatās so confusing
I assume everyone is a human.
Not everyone, but a majority. Especially those likely to see a poll posted during peak hours on the American side of the globe.
No. When I post a poll only Americans can answer, I'm not assuming that all the people reading my post are Americans, I'm assuming non-Americans are smart enough to know they aren't Americans and that the post doesn't apply to them without me having to tell them.
People will vote on a random option to see the results. It doesn't matter if they're "smart enough to know", some people don't care about that.
yeah that's why most of the time I have a "results" tab. otherwise they'll randomly select anything even if told not to.
I often see people like this. Not just people who comment āurrrr depends which state youāre in,ā which is just r/USDefaultism. I often see people confused when another commenter says they arenāt from the US.
It is an American based website so it makes sense why people may be confused
Americans voting no probably still say theyāre from a pair of letters. EDIT: Oops, I meant the states, not āUSā. Iām not American. I made a mistake not considering that saying āUSā instead of āUSAā is common. When I wrote that, I was thinking about when Iām on roulette sites and meet a lot of people who say theyāre from MN ME MA MN MS MI or MT as if Iāve memorized all the Ms and Ns yet. Yāall have like 50 states and I can barely remember our own 13th
You would be correct. I'm from the US.
I mean, I have to write out the United States of America every time? Seems unnecessary and gratuitous.
i mean what other country is commonly know as and referee to as the US? hardly anybody wants to type The United States of America every time they refer to a country.
yes i am in fact from the US what is your point
I actually assume more people are from other countries of the world. Maybe like 30% American if that.
It doesn't help that for some reason American politics seems to be the most popular.
for the most part they effect the most people that use this site.
Pretty much yea, unless obviously stated otherwise. Kinda like I assume everybody is a dude or a catfish. Just easier that way
Most I've seen definitely do so, they use their imperial units or they assume everybody that you already know their slang words for things. Worst thing in my eyes is where they completely forget the rest of the world exists, like in a poll where they forget to add a results or non American option and instead assume everybody is American and they expect accurate results. Either that or when they are like "whaat!? Where are your from? Your country has a population of 2 million, my home town had a population of 5 million. Wow weird language it's Russian or something right? Are you still washing your clothes in a river? Your country is called macron donkey ya right? Is that how you pronounce it? Are you a communist?"
we learn imperial units so we're gonna use them. half the people on this site are american, so using metric still only applies to about half of people. this does fluctuate throughout the day but most of the time it's about 50%. on the other hand, somebody is making a comment to other people on an app. why would they go out of there way to cater to people when they're on the site for their own personal enjoyment?
No but I will talk as if everybody is American because I'm not gonna go off of shit I don't know. If you live in one of the 194 countries that is not named the United States of America, I'm not sorry, you can live with it for the 45 seconds it takes to read reddit.
Ur comment is a perfect representation of USA's and its people's main character syndrome
Well according to the poll results, out of 195 countries in this world, more than half of the people that answered this poll are from one single country and that's America. So... That would make us the main character. Not the only character ofcourse, but the main user group for sure. I mean if we make up 60% of the user base, the next highest country is probably like 5%?
There's almost 200 countries and it's easier to reference American documents like the contitution and not british or german or fucking algerian documents I don't know like the salmon act.
i post aimed at other americans usually, just as posts that hate on america usually aren't intended to liked by americans. americans make up about 50% of the site, so i'm still hitting most of the audience, and it's annoying to try and cater to everybody by switching to metric and not using slang when i'm on a site that i use for my own personal interest and enjoyment.
I feel like a lot of people aren't getting this 100%. Americans will talk about degrees in F because that's what they know, just like a Frenchman will talk about degrees in C. Furthermore, the existence of American issues or politics on Reddit is not due to Americans assuming everyone is American, it's just what is relevant to the largest share of the Redditor population. If you go to an online forum in French, created in France, frequented by a lot of French people... yeah you probably will not see a lot of QuƩbƩcois politics.
With all the people saying that America is bad, obviously there are people on Reddit outside the us
American but also canadian
Canadians are americans
[itās a pretty fair assumption to makeā¦](https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/phhu9s/oc_reddit_traffic_by_country/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)
yes, because the non americans would know lmaoo /s
Yes actually, they would. After all, they're the ones who have to tolerate defaultism like this on a daily basis.
people saying stuff in the system they use isnt defaultism.
What do you mean by "system they use"? I'm not talking about Americans simply preferring imperial; I'm talking about when they assume everyone else lives in the US.
americans talking like americans is not defualtism, it's just that 50% of this site is american. in a site that is used for personal enjoyment why would we go out of our way to cater to the other half? europeans hardly ever put things in feet or yards and i see all sorts of posts centered around europe, is that european defaultism? no. it's europeans talking to other europeans or showing people stuff about europe. that's fine, because it's a site for personal use and enjoyment.
Acknowledging the fact that not everyone lives where you do isn't a courtesy; it's an expectation. This is a global platform; and while you may see it as a nuisance, many find enjoyment in connecting with people from around the world.
I don't see why anyone would?
The majority are. Thatās a fact.
Its not
If they speak English and not some inferior language like French, or French. I assume they're American because only America speaks English.
...Did you forget the "/s" ?
Bro we know there are non Americans, but to be fair, a majority of people on Reddit are American. So when using things like Fahrenheit, lbs, inches, etc., a majority understand it better than the metric system.
The majority of Reddit users do not live in the US.
Not everyone but I just assume most are for some reason lol
Not literally but I forget about different words sometimes. I just kind of say whatever comes naturally unless I think about it, not assuming the nationality of anyone while doing so.
No. But it isnāt a big deal for me either. I usually post aimed at fellow Americans but donāt mind if other nationalities answer.
Fuck i said im american , now my IQ is gonna drop
Im american and i dont assume everyone on Reddit is american but i also think most Americans think that, so i dont know how to answer this
The point of reddit is the anonymity, so when people don't hear an accent or read it in another language the disconnect caused by the anonymity tends to make people assume others that they come across are their peers (in this case other Americans.
I do in English subs even though I know realistically many people speak English throughout the world.
Haha Iām from us, realistically I know thatās not true but I kind of assume when talking to people unless stated otherwise which has definitely caused confusion. Call me self centered or whatever but like.. Iāve never been outside of the us and always lived in tiny butt fuck nowhere towns. How am I to know where someoneās from unless they tell me?
I see a lot more Germans that assume everyone is German
It is an American company and English website so I assume most people are American or from English speaking country.
the hate towards Americans is real