Hello all, it is with a heavy heart that I must admit that I have become the drama that I always sought to avoid for this server. In this case, I could easily let sleeping dogs lie, but I’m somewhat exhausted and I don’t really see the point of continuing here if there isn’t some semblance of justice or rational thought to be found. More to the point, if Lemmy continues to display outright hostility and toxicity towards Americans at every turn, there is virtually no chance that this platform will ever develop beyond its current fringe status.
Although this server is based in Canada, I think we probably have a good number of Americans, and also despite recent events I think Canadians and Americans are fairly similar and have historically gotten along quite well with one another. I’m curious if a more diverse array of people will find any value in my actions, or if I’m truly just shouting into the wind. Strap in, because this is gonna be a long one.
This all started yesterday when @DankOfAmerica@reddthat.com made a post to AskLemmy. The original post read as follows.
I responded here. I had indeed noticed the constant derisive comments regarding Americans, although I didn’t agree with the assumption that such comments were made by Russian/Chinese agents, and stated as much.
In my view, the responses to both OP and myself in that thread constitute clear evidence that at least one of our assumptions was true. In response to being called out on their hateful behavior, a number of users proceeded to double down, attempting to gaslight myself and OP and even suggesting that we were actually the Russian spies 🕵️♂️
Several hours later, one of our users decided to make a post “exposing” my behavior on !yepowertrippinbastards@lemmy.dbzer0.com. Despite the fact that I hadn’t utilized any moderator powers during this saga, he found my words to be offensive enough to post on said community. The post was eventually removed because it was unsuitable for the community, but not before I had replied in defense of myself. This was unfortunate, although understandable, because I felt that my response was something that Lemmy users could benefit from hearing.
I made this post because I want my fellow sh.itjust.works users to judge whether my actions and thoughts were reasonable, and I also want to expose this individual for what they are. My first option was !fediverselore@lemmy.ca, but it’s not allowed to post drama that you’re involved in. Also, I’m not really looking for the opinions of people who subscribe to drama communities on Lemmy, but rather the opinions of the average sh.itjust.works user. So here’s the screenshot of the removed post.
Here’s my reply.
It’ll probably be easier reading if you go to my profile and/or his profile. Although the post was deleted, the comments should still appear in our profiles.
To summarize, this user bullied a brand new user into deleting their account, responding to an innocent, highly upvoted meme with this comment
He let’s me freely hang out at his nice place full of amenities so I can’t badmouth him
Lmfao, no, you can, you just like the taste of boot, and the benefits he gives you (that he only has because he exploits people like you) too much to.
Also, those last two points in the meme, as well as this being your only post on a new account strongly suggest that this is a troll, or at the very least, a really sad LARP, rather than observations made by someone who has ever spent any time at all with any actual rich people.
Two days later, he decided to call me out for mod abuse, despite the fact that I hadn’t removed a single comment of his. Now he’s decided to move over to lemmy.dbzer0.com, thank goodness.
But overall, aside from the specifics of this drama, I also want y’all to render judgment on whether or not Lemmy tends to exhibit a toxic attitude towards Americans. Notice that I said Americans, not America. I don’t give a shit if people criticize and blatantly shit on America for the decisions that our government makes. But it’s far too often that Lemmy users go beyond that line and decide to hurl personal insults towards Americans, often in completely non-political communities. I’ve always had thick skin and an open mind, so if I’m getting annoyed by it, my assumption is that most other Americans will find it intolerable. And although we don’t need to be a majority American site by any means, the sheer numbers dictate that if Americans find this site intolerable, it will never achieve mainstream success.
And if I hear one more fucking person say that America only joined World War 2 after it was already over, or that we were cowards for not joining sooner, I swear to God I’ma start criticizing the metric system again 😂
EDIT:
Thanks for the replies, I’ll try to be less of an arrogant prick going forward and in return I’d like people to reflect on my words from time to time. My primary motivation is making Lemmy better and having more diverse viewpoints, I wouldn’t have called anyone out if I didn’t feel that some of you are creating an environment that is self-destructive towards our goals in that regard. But maybe I’m overreacting, I would just ask you to put yourself in other people’s shoes before making comments, and remember that we’re all on the same team here, even the North American Scum
America isn’t a true democracy. There’s gerrymandering, and electoral college, and first past the post. But it used to have one little bit of democracy left at the federal level. And then America voted for Trump.
Kamala didn’t even get the popular vote. Because Americans didn’t think it was worth trying to win that like they did in 2016. The popular vote is the bragging rights to say the government doesn’t represent the people, and Americans didn’t want it.
So, Americans chose to be thought of by the world as fascists. Not all of them, but most of them didn’t get up and choose otherwise. Few enough said no, that more were able to say yes. The default American image is a fascist. Nobody should be beholden to a default image, but that is the starting point. The mode average.
And all the bigoted right wing European governments are what?
All the unelected head of states in Europe are democratic?
And all the bigoted right wing European governments are what?
Which ones? At the moment I only see Italy and Hungary.
France’s far-right can’t come to power as the other two third of the Parliament is Left and Center blocks.
UK is labour: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premiership_of_Keir_Starmer
The Dutch are in a coalition with the Centrists and the Farmers: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schoof_cabinet
Germany has to vote again in February: https://feddit.org/post/6479021?scrollToComments=true
Even Austria has a Centrist government: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nehammer_government
The European Parliament 2 first groups are Center-Right and Left: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenth_European_Parliament
All the unelected head of states in Europe are democratic?
Which ones? The kings and queens who have no political powers, or the prime ministers who come from the party with the most votes?
this is a nitpick, but Trump actually closely lost the popular vote once all sources were fully accounted for.
With 96% of the vote in, Trump has, according to the Associated Press, 49.97% to Vice President Harris’ 48.36%, or 76.9 million votes to 74.4 million.
Drag can’t find your statement in this article. Did you send the right one?
I’ve almost stopped using Lemmy because of the kind of content you’re describing. I’ve never even told anyone I use Lemmy because I don’t want them to judge me by association. The politics on here is extremist, hateful, divisive, and non-fucking-stop.
I disagree that it’s not CCP/Kremlin bots and shills. I think a LOT of it is. Without ongoing support from those malicious authoritarian governments, Lemmy.ml, lemmygrad, and Hexbear would have half the content and engagement.
Have you tried blocking political and news communities? That helps to reduce this kind of content
I’ve intentionally left it unblocked because I want to do my part to make the fediverse succeed. But at this point that might be the best approach. I’ll probably do that or just leave.
For what it’s worth, I’ve always appreciated your positive and helpful contributions here. If Lemmy was full of users like you it would be fantastic.
Hopefully that allows you to stay. I recently posted a list of 20 non political communities on !newcommunities@lemmy.world if that can help
Thank you for your nice comment!
Notice that I said Americans, not America
I don’t see any crticism of Americans on here, though I could not read your fine print, and I need to preface the rest of what I will say with I want the best for Americans.
And if I hear one more fucking person say that America only joined World War 2 after it was already over
That is an act that America did, and it was definitely motivated by ensuring control over Germany instead of USSR. No Americans were offered the freedom to not storm Normandy. Your lead comment of “Chinese/Russian agents” behind your angst is also something America would say.
That Americans/Westoids trust America in its justification for war on Russia and future war on China, that they trust America after an election where both parties conspired to elect Netanyahu’s favorite for genocide, is a problem Americans are too powerless to stop. A defining characteristic of Americans/westoids is being misinformed as a result of their trust of, and identity wrapped up in an evil America.
There is a strong likelihood that what you perceive as toxicity to Americans is toxicity towards those defending their trust of America.
Overall, I think that any mod or admin should use another account to post personal takes. Use the moderator account only for meration and post any personal takes on a personal account.
In general, I agree, but I’m concerned with the prevalence of vote manipulation and shithousing on this site, and I feel like my past track record on this account is one of the only ways for me to protect myself from the constant baseless accusations of being a Russian shill, being a right winger, etc.
I feel that someone needs to be able to counter the increasing tendency towards absolute ideological purity that is strangling this platform, and if people don’t know me from a hole in the wall, it’ll be that much easier to discredit me when I try to criticize the circlejerking that goes on here.
In other words, I’m a human being, and I have opinions, and I’m flawed. But that doesn’t mean I can’t or don’t try my best to act objectively and in the best interests of the server when I’m performing my admin duties. That’s reality, and hiding behind alt accounts just to pretend that I’m a pure paragon of justice on my admin account isn’t really my style, and I don’t really see how it would benefit anyone.
I have to say, the first paragraph of your reply does not give the impression that you want to argue in good faith…
I agree wholeheartedly. My assumption was that such behavior was simply a symptom of the relatively larger proportion of Europeans on this site, and their obvious jealousy and insecurity regarding Americans. I still believe that is the most likely explanation.
That sounds like you think all Europeans are jealous of Americans, and that they have good reason to. It comes off as troll-ish at the very least.
I don’t really care about this kind of drama here. I think people are allowed to have opinions. Attacks on people based on -isms are not cool, but let’s be real… aren’t jokes that target Americans punching up in some of the contexts you’re referring to? And that’s usually fair game.
As for jealousy towards Americans, I truly don’t believe that’s the case.
If there were underlying jealousy, it’d be more towards the country being relatively safe during WW2, having not been bombed or invaded the way Europe was, and having that massive advantage as it grew as a nation.
The success of the USA is generally because of its geographical location and the unfortunate economic conditions that hit Europe due to WW2. I don’t think it’s really because of anything special about American people or American culture.
I think people can be upset with Americans the way that people can be upset with trust fund kids who tell less fortunate people to pick themselves up by the bootstraps.
With that said… can’t you make comments without revealing yourself as an admin? I feel like that’s just going to trigger some people, lol
With that said… can’t you make comments without revealing yourself as an admin? I feel like that’s just going to trigger some people, lol
I dunno, there’s an option to “speak as moderator” but I literally never turn it on. But I figured if people click on my profile they can probably see.
It adds that little shield thing but as I said, I never use it.
I think jealousy was the wrong word to use, but saltiness feels more appropriate. It’s precisely because of the fact that America is only in its current position due to a series of recent historical events that makes it more frustrating for non-Americans. They seem to feel that we are undeserving of our wealth and power, and that they would do a better job if they were running this country.
I get the trust fund analogy, but what about the trust fund kid who donates a lot of money to charity and gets a medical degree and serves underprivileged communities in developing countries? It seems to me that many lemmings would still shit on that person just because of their birth, regardless of the fact that they’re trying to do the right thing.
That’s what I find frustrating, because it’s so counterproductive. If you still get shit on just for being American even when you’re actively trying to escape the corporate machine that controls every aspect of our lives and to connect with alternative viewpoints via Lemmy, you start to wonder why you should even bother.
All of your comments show up to me as having a red username, where everyone else is blue. I’m in Voyager. Either your role is permanently showing in my app, or you’ve got something messed up with the settings. Maybe the shield means “Hide your mod status” and you’ve got it backwards?
As for the benevolent trust fund kid…you’re only focusing on the good. Others are only focusing on the bad. Both are wrong. And I don’t think getting into the exact ratio would be productive, lol
I do empathize with the challenges of trying to feel like part of a community while being “othered” like that. I think the best thing you could do is to not have your username be glowing red for everyone.
Whenever a mod comes in commenting with their mod colour turned on, it makes it look like the mod is implying “Whatever I’m saying here is more important than anyone else’s comment because I’m a mod”. Whether you intend it or not, that’s how it can come across. And to anyone who has issues with authority (which will be a LOT of people here, lol), that’s just putting a target on your back.
You can’t change the comments that people post, but you can influence the kinds of replies you get.
The success of the USA is generally because of its geographical location and the unfortunate economic conditions that hit Europe due to WW2.
Do not forget slavery. This is huge to the success of the US.
I’m an American. I’m not one of the “good” Americans, though, since I’m disabled, not Christian, not capitalist, and not white. I’ve spent my whole life getting shit on as a third-class citizen by Americans steeped in American culture and public school education that has, at every turn, preached American exceptionalism and pulling oneself up by their bootstraps while totally ignoring every benefit offered to them and withheld from people like me.
I think that you’ve been lucky so far, but now that you’re being asked to sit the fuck down and listen while other people talk, you’re taking it badly. After a lifetime of privilege, it’s really easy to mistake being brought into line with everybody else’s equality for oppression; please don’t do that. It’s a bad look and sets you up to feel bad unnecessarily.
There are like 8 billion people on this planet and you’re one of about 330 million Americans. It’s pretty reasonable that your perspective isn’t the majority opinion, and that other people from other countries may also think their home is the best possible place to live and everyone else is an unlucky chump. Instead of dismissing all the critical comments as the kvetching of the jealous, unwashed masses outside your borders, it may help to look at them as nothing more than other people sharing their own viewpoints. Also, reading about events like Juneteenth, the MOVE bombing, the Kent State massacre, the Jackson State killings, and the Tulsa massacre may help you better understand why people from other places side eye Americans.
And seriously, the metric system is based on the physical properties of Earth and base 10 counting, not dead oppressors.
I’m American, we are rapidly turning into this century’s Nazi Germany.
This is not a drill, pay attention to reality
While you are probably correct that criticism of the USA (and of its citizens) pops up too often in unrelated topics, I think that you are basically just discovering what it is to not be the ultra dominant demographics on a platform. It doesn’t mean it’s right or anything, everyone should strive to make Lemmy a welcoming place, but it’s certainly going to take work on both sides. That said, I would like you to re-read some of what you wrote:
and their obvious jealousy and insecurity regarding Americans
For one thing, my command of the English language rules that out, which isn’t something I can say about many of you.
America controls the world, and Europeans are salty about it. I didn’t even realize how salty until I started using Lemmy
I swear to God I’ma start criticizing the metric system again
The amount of condescension dripping from your comments is frankly off the chart, and you should maybe take a minute to ponder whether you are actually behaving as you preach, rather than just being in your own American circlejerk, as you might have called it had the shoe been on the other foot.
In any way, being an admin/mod is a thankless task, so I for one appreciate you for doing that, and maybe everyone can learn a bit from sharing a community.
That’s fair, but somehow I never seem to see hatred directed towards any other nationality on Lemmy, aside from Americans. It seems like such behavior would inevitably be downvoted, as it should be.
But when it comes to Americans, it’s open season for people to take pot shots, and it always gets upvoted regardless of its accuracy.
I was being condescending at times, because people were throwing around insane accusations of me being a russian plant and refusing to acknowledge any validity to the complaints being voiced. Why shouldn’t I condescend those who spread senseless vitriol for no apparent reason? They deserve to be criticized and mocked, because that’s exactly what they’re doing to other people. The dude I was talking to literally bullied one of my users into deleting their account, then tried to put me on blast for no reason. I have more than enough justification to treat people such as those with disdain.
You all seem to implicitly think I’m somehow proud or bragging about America being the largest economic and military force in the world. That’s not even remotely the case, I think it’s entirely fucked. But that’s the world we live in. I’m just trying to explain what I’ve experienced and observed here, and understand what is causing that behavior.
For me, as an American, it’s easier for me to criticize America. I’m familiar with it and I can bring receipts. I will criticize certain actions of other countries but it feels wrong to start generalizing as I have neither the knowledge or experience of their day-to-day, culture, politics, etc.
I think this comment you replied to summarizes things well.
I’ll reiterate here that pot shots towards Americans would generally be “punching up” in some contexts, which usually isn’t as frowned upon as punching down.
Also consider that it could be, uh…self-punching? It could be Americans poking fun at themselves, being unhappy with the current state of the country (and who is set to become president – Elon Musk as vizier, with Trump returning for the pictures).
But when it comes to Americans, it’s open season for people to take pot shots, and it always gets upvoted regardless of its accuracy.
It was once possible to see the rise of fascism in the United States as something that was being amplified by media, amplified by foreign influence, amplified by propaganda, amplified by whoever made the most noise on Facebook.
Then the election happened, and Trump won. The reality that Americans as a whole are much shittier than previously imagined became undeniable, and that has really upset a lot of people’s worldview (myself included).
Trump’s federal cases got dismissed, and now his sentence for 34 felonies in New York State is “go on your merry way.” Fascism isn’t looming in the distance somewhere anymore; it’s literally eight days away as of this writing.
So yeah, it’s open season for people to take pot shots, especially when the US has been promoting itself on the world stage for decades as the height of moral superiority. And it’s very easy for people to conflate “Americans” with “an American”. If a specific person in a specific context is making that kind of conflatory (yeah, that’s a word) mistake continually, I may point it out, but I generally understand and I’m willing to give it a pass for the moment.
Yeah. You never know which type of American you have, but I’d guess the correlation of being on Lemmy is more likely someone that did not vote for fascism. I definitely understand citizens of other countries being bitter and/or upset.
I’d guess the correlation of being on Lemmy is more likely someone that did not vote for fascism.
And honestly, imo, more likely to criticize the US as an American. A lot of the criticism on here is coming from inside the country.
That’s fair, but somehow I never seem to see hatred directed towards any other nationality on Lemmy, aside from Americans.
You might just not hang out in the right places to see it, but anywhere there’s a European political community, you will see plenty of shit talk and hate and blame being thrown around, especially towards the bigger euro countries like Germany, France and the UK (though not limited to).
I’m not saying there isn’t a good explanation as to why you might have been condescending, or that you are a dumb proud maga American, or anything of the sort, but keep in mind that we can’t guess what you might be thinking, all we have to go on is what you write and some of it that I highlighted does make you look a certain way.
anywhere there’s a European political community, you will see plenty of shit talk and hate and blame being thrown around, especially towards the bigger euro countries like Germany, France and the UK (though not limited to).
Also, those communities discuss in their own language, that OP probably doesn’t read
Good comment.
Reminds of when LW realized their instance is not hosted in the USA but managed by a Dutch team using a German provider on Finnish servers.
As always, !AskUSA@discuss.online for US specific conversations.
So, you want the opinion of an average sh.itjustworks user? Well, here it comes.
First and foremost, I think you should let it go and calm down. I know from personal experience, arguing with strangers on the internet can be exhausting and it can rile you up. It’s not worth it.
And I’ve noticed an increase in inciteful troll posts on Lemmy in the past few days. The goal of those is to destroy the community by sowing division and hatred and these posts seem to come from both sides of the political spectrum. It doesn’t really matter what political flavor the content seems to be because the purpose is simply to break things. Those are troll posts and the content is designed to provoke anger and hatred. We should be careful not to fall into this trap, as an international community.
