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.

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.

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’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.

My advice is that we don’t always have to engage with with every opinion on the internet.

I especially consider this advice when an .ml or other far-left instance user posts tankie propaganda, rather than engage with it or make a meta post about it, just ignore it. Block the user and move on.

There are many many inherently negative and unhappy people online, not just here. These kind of people aren’t going to be swayed by random comments, they will just trap you in their negativity.

Everyone should empower themselves and use their individual moderation tools like block or mute, they may find they have a better experience. Not that we should block any one who disagrees with us, but there’s no reason to be brought down by someone who finds it their life mission to harass or bring down an entire group of people.

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

My impression is that Lemmy has a sizable demographic of people whose communities have been banned from Reddit. I’m thinking hexbear especially, but a lot of .ml and others too. Several violently pro communism anti west groups. (I have a theory that they’ve been defusing to other instances too, but idk.) I think that’s part of the reason why you get so much America bad rhetoric.

Thanks for the transparency. As I’ve stated in other comments, I am American and I typically have better interactions here than on other social media sites. I really like seeing which community the individual is from and seeing the upvote/downvote ratio. If there is baseless criticism, most of the time it is either dropped when I ask them for more detail, or an actual discussion springs out of it. Finally, I’m a big fan of sh.itjust.works and happy to be here. I wouldn’t have any judgement to give; the internet is harder to tolerate everywhere as more users become bitter and/or hateful.

I think the “jealous europeans” part shouldn’t have been said. advice: Don’t say you or your country are better than others.

I literally joined sh.itjust.works because aggressive people are my weakness. If I post something with good energy and someone attacks, I’m not a brawl enjoyer; I go straight to kill mode. I considered Canadians a peaceful species, so I made an account here.

In my own realms it’s the aggressive people who attack others that I remove. I do not want my new users interacting with them, old users having to interact with them, them to appear to be the face and persontype of my place… I also rule with an iron fist tho. I value diverse ideologies and viewpoints but do not tolerate aggression.

Maybe you are not assertive enough in preventing bullying among your flock and one just reached up and bit you. A clear warning first and to make the bullied person feel they are not in the wrong, then send the bully to another instance if they continue.

Reminds me of a post where someone was being viciously attacked for innocently sharing their view.

I actually felt I had to step in and reassure the poster they were ok after and it seemed to help.

I don’t know how people like that are allowed to roam the varying areas. Just make them reroll far away.

Seems like one of that type of person bit you and you lashed back and in so doing “overly defended” america in saying others are jealous; and then you got the downvotes.

I don’t see the hate of Americans issue as much as it being acceptable to viciously attack people if not personally sharing their viewpoint; and that shouldn’t actually be acceptable behavior. It should be highly looked down on and removed. Being civil isn’t just words; it’s the energy one conveys toward others.

edit: also people joining or initially starting in just any instance and eventually rerolling to one more fitting them is a natural thing which happened here.

I had indeed noticed the constant derisive comments regarding Americans,

May I humbly object that without numbers to confirm the mentioned anti-American bias (I have no idea on the question myself, and I have no desire to start such a study either) but without any data of how many comments have been posted, how many have been analyzed, and where they were posted, what % of those were blatantly anti-US and even how is defined that ‘anti-americanism’—and I don’t mean a few selected examples, I mean real stats—all of this is nothing but personal opinions that may indeed be correct, but can also be completely not correct.

It not only depends one’s own sensibility it also depends where one is looking at and what they’re looking for

I mean, would I read content from say an instance like hexbear I’m pretty sure I would find a lot more anti-US comments (but I would also find a lot more anti-anything, and overall braindead-shit) but if I was making the odd decision to eat shit myself, I would not complain it taste like, well, shit.

But maybe I’m just another of those anti-Americans? Maybe not.

Edit: typos and clarifications.

I’m American, we are rapidly turning into this century’s Nazi Germany.

This is not a drill, pay attention to reality

I still prefer SJW to any other instance, because of threads just like this, afascinating discussion regardless of the foaming at the mouth replies about temporary political trends, like who’s president. I’ve found much more of anti-religious bias at SJW over the years. I just assume that the poster or commenter is either very young or very old and move on with my day. The young will grow up and lose their suspicions by gaining life experience and meeting those practicing different faiths. However, I don’t care about insults/bitterness towards fellow Americans.

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.

Everybody hates somebody.

Dude, you rock. Don’t even bow down to the negs that you are getting. You legit stood up for me even though you don’t agree with me. That’s an admirable, and increasingly rare, trait.

I’m American, and apparently very annoying to some, so I get my fair shair of hate. But at least when it’s thrown my way, I get that some people think I’m a dick.

But you have always been a straight up, no bullshit kind of guy. Honestly we need more admins like you.

You’re one of the reason that this instance is the best instance on Lemmy.

I look at a lot of your measured responses and always tell myself that I should respond to people that way. But I never do, cuz I also devolve and always end up saying shit like, “You keep crying. I’ll keep posting. Please block me if you don’t like me.” lmao

Stay strong, brother!