the default country
Assumed by Americans which is an important detail.
To be honest I also find myself assuming this frequently. And I’m rarely incorrect
As an American who just wants things organized clearly, I find it annoying too
If I was using a website called “Facebloke” that was well known to have been made and ran in the UK, I’d assume everyone on it was British.
I’m ready to discuss maple syrup on HoserLoonieSorryEh
Or the Australian version “Matebook”, full with Aussies.
Mate.
We call it Cuntface down here.
Well Al Gore invented the internet so the internet is more a.USA thing 🤣🤣
Heavily inspired by the french Minitel but yes
I wonder if a news community with a “no mentioning the US” rule would work. Not out of any hate, just as something arbitrary like “don’t use the letter E”.
There was one on Reddit that had a rule that no more than 50% of a story could be about the US and if the US was one of two parties they preferred the other point of view.
Howdy y’all bros. My name is Todd Bonzalez and I am from one of the great American places foreigners know from your TV shows.
its just the loudest voices that seem to drive the world.
To be fair, the US has the largest number of English-speakers of any country in the world. As a first language, it has five times as many native English speakers as second place (the UK). It also has one of the highest Internet penetration rates in the world, meaning most of those English-speakers are also Internet users.
The US is a single country that is three-quarters the population of the entire continent of Europe, and nearly all of its inhabitants speak English and use the Internet. So yes, if you pick a random user on an English social media page, odds are very good that person is an American. If you were to guess any random English-speaking Internet user’s nationality, “American” is the best possible guess. But go on a Spanish language forum or a French language forum and nobody will assume you’re American.
Consequently, Americans generate the majority of English-language Internet content.
Consequently, Americans generate the majority of English-language Internet content.
False. Yes, it is larger than any other individual English speaking group but accounts for less than a fifth of the total English speakers.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-speaking_population
I wouldn’t have guessed Nigeria is the third largest English speaking group.
Again, you are completely missing the point of the internet and English usage on it. People are using English as a lingua franca. There are a lot more non-native English speakers on the internet than native English speakers.
So no, odds are not that it is an American you are speaking to, just because that person speaks English. You are literally regurgitating the fallacy that OP is about.
We should really be counting English literate people, since nobody here is talking, and literacy is more reading/writing.
Literacy is pretty broad too. It doesn’t imply that it’s your native language, nor if you can speak the language (whether you can do that very well or not).
Literacy is going to be a bonefide requirement for most of the internet, with some exceptions, like text to speech and speech recognition stuff, people with disabilities who may not be able to see properly or at all… Stuff like that.
FYI
According to Wikipedia the percentage of English speakers located in the US is lower that 20%. Does this mean that only 1 in 5 users is from the US?
Population of the US: 334.914.895, Population of Europe: 745.173.774. 334.914.895/745.173.774 = 0,449%
English Speakers in the US: 297.400.000. English Speakers in Europe: 260.000.000. So you have about 37,4M more English speakers in the US than in Europe.
I’m sorry but this is nonsense. I’m in a lot of online communities where everyone uses English, despite it being nearly nobody’s first language. It just happens to be the only language that everyone there knows. Language is no indication of nationality, especially online.
And to be honest, in those places the assumption is usually that everyone is European, which I can imagine is just as annoying for the stray American.
I think you misunderstand.
What I am saying is that of all Internet users that use English, Americans are by far the largest group due to it being a very large country, (third most populous in the world) with a high Internet penetration (97%), and whose residents speak English as their main language (78.3%).
What I am saying is that of all Internet users that use English, Americans are by far the largest group
No, they didn’t misunderstand. It is you who are massively misunderstanding. You are suffering from the erronous assumption that people who speak English on the internet are native English speakers when that it is not so at all. People speak English on the internet because it is the largest commonly understood language. So people from non-English speaking countries are using it as well. And there are a heck of a lot more non-native English speakers in the world than native English speakers.
So you are most likely at any time on the internet to be speaking to a non-native English speaker, and thus definitely not an American.
But I would argue that the rest of the world also uses primarily English online. And just by virtue of being the rest of the world, outnumbers the Americans.
In other words, of all Internet users that use English, the vast majority is likely not American.
Of course I don’t have data to back this up, except anecdotally.
Americans generate the majority of English-language Internet content.
Doubt.
There are 1.3 billion people who use English on the internet as a first or second language.
Not all Internet users generate the same amount of content. In addition to Americans being proud blabbermouths in general, people from wealthy countries generate more content than those from poorer countries. The US is among the wealthiest countries in the world.
Although it is not the most representative, nearly half of all Reddit users are American. American media outlets have immense global reach. You can probably name four or five American media outlets just off the top of your head, even if you’re not American. The USA’s geopolitical power means people are always talking about American politics or what America’s leaders are doing, which draws engagement from Americans like a lamp draws moths. 7 out of the top 10 English-language YouTube channels are American (fully or partially).
It’s pretty much impossible to prove, but I think the claim that Americans generate most of the content on the Internet is likely true or very close to true.
It’s even more convincing if you exclude English Internet users from India, as a quick visit to any forum dominated by Indian users will cause you to quickly realise that the language used there is not really English but a mix of English and Hindi which is not comprehensible to non-Indians.
Again, the numbers you linked shows that you are more likely to speak to a non-American on reddit than an American. Your entire premise is flawed from the beginning.
The more egalitarian principle would be to not assume. I won’t deny that. People from more minority locales have every right to be upset at being marginalized.
But at the same time, whenever I read passive aggressive comments on socials from residents of crown countries or from EAASL people around the world bitching about US defaultism as if people are doing it just to be ignorant dicks, I can only think to myself, “Uhh, hello? What do you think the demographics of this space were? What did you expect?”
Americans are hardly the majority of the world’s English speakers, but for all the reasons you listed, they tend to remain a massive plurality, if not an outright overwhelming majority, of any mainstream online English language platform. No, that’s not a license to perpetuate US defaultism. But like… read the room, people. Your good fight is far more uphill than you seem to think it is.
I mean the us dwarfs other english speaking countries
Your comment is very typical of that (fallacious) US centrism. People write in English on the internet because that is the universal language. There are far more secondary English speakers on the internet than primary English speakers.
because that is the universal language*grince des dents*
because it is the international language of this days and time.Le français était à un moment donné, hein
Yeah XD Now english is the lingua franca
Tons of people speak English as a second language, on the internet
Yeah like India
135 million english speakers is less than 300 million
Mr Blott really really really likes to denigrate Americans. Don’t rain on his parade
What on Earth are you on about? “denigrate Americans”. They are pointing out facts. That you apparently are so fragile that you consider that denigration is entirely on yourself.
It does make it fun to stir the pot
I mean, we did invent this cursed network. It’s our job to ruin it.
One day, we will shitpost our way to freedom
Don’t be so self-involved. Try visit China for once and you will get sick of the word “China”, it’s literally in everything there :), like communist party’s intelligence service :)
The thing is we are not talking about visiting countries. We are talking about the virtual World Wide Web.
Haha. Like anyone lives outside the US
Ahh the United States of America. What a fascinating planet.
I completely understand the sentiment.
I also understand the sentiment that the internet is effectively a US invention dating back at least to ARPAnet.
I guess what I’m suggesting is: can’t we all just get along? At least we can now all communicate with each other.
We are trying to get along. We are already speaking English, which is a massive step in your direction. US commenters and posters don’t even bother to convert to kilometres or something. Or the worst: write about something that happened in AK as if everyone knows postal shortages of the US.
The crazy irony is that those from outside the US probably know way more than those in the US, in terms of stories about Alaska.
No hate here. There will be ups and downs.
At the end of the day, I’m happy to communicate with you.
Don’t ever talk about kilometres in here. Are you trying to spark an international incident?
FWIW ich habe Deustch gelernt. Aber ich habe die meistens vergessen 😔
Dein Deutsch klingt richtig gut 😄
Danke schon 🙃
If it makes it any better youre more likely to get an American who can convert Miles into Leagues before they even think about kilometers. We dont really use metric for anything, unless youre military or something.
The World Wide Web is not an American invention. Who invented what is completely irrelevant in this context anyway though.