[ SECRET POST #6070 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #6070 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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[Baldur's Gate 3]



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[Date a Live]



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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 56 secrets from Secret Submission Post #868.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

If I squint I can see it as OP making a broad generalisation about America but the design of the secret (leading with distances, the picture choice, placing everything else below the picture of the ‘The US is the whole world’ globe) really makes it about how easy it is for Americans to go to cons and meet up with fandom friends. And as has been pointed out repeatedly, that isn’t the case.

Maybe if OP had left that bit off and instead explained about time zones, merch availability, duty fees, etc the message wouldn’t have gotten lost. You can’t blame a community for reacting to what they’re presented instead of what they weren’t.

[(Anonymous)]

Um.

OP's secret is 6 lines long. 3 of them are about time zones, merch availability and duty fees.

The American commenters almost exclusively focused on the other 3 lines about shorter distances and more cons (which is still true for the OP).

The 'community' ignoring 50% of the secret is not the OP's fault.

[(Anonymous)]

If no one understands what you’re saying, your communication is the problem. And if you can’t understand how the secret design influences how the secret comes across, FS probably isn’t the right place for you.

[(Anonymous)]

Or maybe the American victim complex is just really kicking hard for the local USians who just have to tell someone who literally has it worse than them how terrible THEY have it.

[(Anonymous)]

DA

?? The entire point of the secret was about how far away they are and how hard it is to travel from where they live. Everyone is trying to point out that it's actually harder to travel in the US for various factors than what OP thinks. ???

Oh noez, the people I thought were super privileged actually aren't. How mean of them to say so.

[(Anonymous)]

And no USian in the thread has attempted to understand just how remote OP has said they are, and that because of that remoteness all the difficult distances the USians are quoting still seem easy to them, if they could reliably get a con or a friend meet up out of it.

[(Anonymous)]

It's funny how everyone except the Americans can understand the secret and OP just fine.

[(Anonymous)]

People know what timezones and merch being expensive means. They just chose to clown on the OP about distances because that's a beloved pasttime of USians on the internet. They just screwed up by not actually establishing where OP was from, and looked a bit silly afterwards as a result. It's not that deep.

[(Anonymous)]

I think people don’t understand the time zone issue because OP says they are trying to make sense of the time zones rather than pointing out US-centric fandom happens at odd times for OP. There’s a lot of validity to this secret except the bit about cons and travel being easy. It may be easier but that isn’t the same at all.

[(Anonymous)]

If people in the US can't understand that timezones in other countries make things hard, then that's a general knowledge problem, not OP's problem.

The thing is, easy is relative. A lot of the US people have talked about relative distances, and how normal, easy distances for them might seem incomprehensible to someone from western Europe.

But then when OP said that the nearest city from them is 28 hours away (not the nearest city with a con or friends, the nearest CITY, full stop), so that to them any of the distances commenters were taking about travelling to cons in the US seemed easy. After that, well, suddenly relativity went out the window and OP couldn't possibly understand how hard the people in the US had it. (With, interestingly, no sympathy being given to the OP, possibly because their remoteness and isolation was just incomprehensible to the US commenters, just like distances in big countries can be incomprehensible to those in small countries).

OP

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, I was trying to make a point with the image choice. I found that pic by googling "Americentrism".

The vibe I was going for was that US folks are not really encouraged to see themselves as part of a global community, but as the main characters. The people I've interacted with online from Europe, Asia, etc are generally really considerate about timezones and currencies and differences in situations - they are often interested to hear about what life is like for me here in Aus, without making assumptions or value judgements about it. Americans are pretty different. I think just subconsciously they are used to being privileged/centred, globally speaking - it is noticeable, and it is annoying. And bear in mind that I'm an Australian - a country generally thought of as white, "first world", and English-speaking. I've had to check myself and humble myself regarding English-language centrism, and making assumptions about what life is like in countries seen as non-white. It's embarrassing, but super worth it.

Obviously it'd be silly and pointless to conclude All Americans Bad - it's not so much an individual problem as a cultural thing. But it is incredibly frustrating to vent my irritation about it and be met with a bunch of Americans trying to correct me and laugh at me for not knowing Everything about their country while they do not seem to know or care to hear about other countries. To take hearing about the situation of someone in another country as an opportunity to demand that everyone instead talk about how hard things are for Americans. Annoying!