• Warl0k3@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    The cultural backlash comes not from ‘pronouncing things correctly makes you sound educated’ but because people that do this are adopting an accent for one singular word, and that is often perceived as them attempting to imply some connection to that group/culture that they do not have.

    Americans, white Americans especially, have essentially no cultural heritage to draw on. It’s why we latch onto things like a grandparent being from Ireland and thence go around calling ourselves Irish-American, or the confederate stans. People with a rich cultural history are generally viewed as extremely interesting, too, so when another american adopts characteristics from a culture they have no real connection with, it’s perceived as a deeply tacky attempt to gain social clout. Its akin to being presented with a lesser form of weaboo.

    (to be fair, this does happen with the perception of educated people too. “Use real words” and all that, so you’re not really wrong just a bit wide of the mark on the particulars)

    • MudMan@fedia.io
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      2 days ago

      What do you mean, “white Americans have no cultural heritage”? Your culture runs the planet and has been a going concern for several centuries across hundreds of millions of people. We are in twenty twenty five, good sir. AD. Place got colonized in the sixteenth century. Half of Europe was in a completely different country back then, even discounting all the American history that goes before that.

      And yeah, it’s weird that you latch on to foreign ancestry as a substitute. I’d joke about it, but I’m here getting all pissy about the US equivalent, so it’d be hypocritical, I suppose.

      • ThisIsNotHim@sopuli.xyz
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        2 days ago

        Not OP, but maybe it’s better phrased as “white Americans have a limited shared cultural heritage.”

        Waves of immigration make it hard to tell what of that 5 centuries is actually shared. It’s also viewed as tacky to try and lay claim to the bit before your ancestors arrived.

        If your ancestors were Irish and Italian immigrants from around 1850, going off about the Mayflower can be viewed as similar putting on airs

      • blackbelt352@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        It’s our national Mythology, we’re a land of migrants and refugees. People have been coming to this land for 500 years, yeah that’s a long time compared to our perspective, but there are traditions and cultures in Europe that predate even knowing about the existence of other land in another hemisphere by an additional 1000 years.

        And the culture you describe as dominant over the world while yes is predominantly white, is just unchecked capitalism and neoliberalism and a product of whoever controls the largest military and acts as the economic measuring stick to the rest of the world and that if any other nation were to unseat the US as the dominant economic and militant force, then their oligarch’s culture would dominate the planet.

        • MudMan@fedia.io
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          1 day ago

          Yeah, that’s your culture. I mean, time to own it.

          For one thing, the rest of us out here don’t make that much of a distinction between different US subcultures. Trump is American culture, Oprah is American culture. They’re all pretty much the same thing.

          For another, have some accountability. You guys did this, and yet you all insist it was not you you and you all feel so much more connected to wherever else. No. Stop it. Own it or change it.

          Also, as a side point, man, do Americans love to exoticize how old everywhere else is. Yeah, sure, there are a bunch of medieval castles around and a few cultural remnants in traditions, but by and large most European folklore is rooted in some 18th/19th century crap, just like in the US. Europeans aren’t out there having Saturnalia parties.

    • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
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      2 days ago

      Americans, white Americans especially, have essentially no cultural heritage to draw on

      I thought they drew from the varied backgrounds of the people that came over there? That’s a shitload of heritage