EU vs. US drama in circlebroke thread about an Anti-American jerk in MorbidReality (np.reddit.com)
SubredditDrama
46 ups - 18 downs = 28 votes
74 comments submitted at 21:14:27 on Dec 14, 2013 by krutopatkin
EU vs. US drama in circlebroke thread about an Anti-American jerk in MorbidReality (np.reddit.com)
SubredditDrama
46 ups - 18 downs = 28 votes
74 comments submitted at 21:14:27 on Dec 14, 2013 by krutopatkin
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/r/circlebroke has zero self awareness.
It had its moment of clarity, and that moment has well passed.
Meh. 'We are the real circlejerk' has been a running theme for ages.
I have been there since shortly after Faces of Atheism and I would argue that the whole 'We are the real circlejerk' thing seems more like a defense mechanism for people with opinions in direct opposition to reddit to just blatantly counterjerk and turn the sub into a shit show.
Make no mistake, /r/circlebroke is extremely divided right now. Most posts these days contain a huge amount of dissent.
Most people there don't even know what a circlejerk is anymore.
I've stopped using srd's subreddit style by mistake for a while so that's the first time I see your flair. Why do you have it?
the topic was brought up, the mod who made it was sad they couldn't use it on anybody, then i asked if i could have it
That's a really good reason. Thanks!
It can be misused, just like calling things a circlejerk or counterjerk. It's the nature of discussing the topic instead of the jerk itself, which is something that's more or less inevitable.
There's always someone there to say 'oh this is just a counterjerk'. Of course, it's a bit of a trick, figuring out if they're right or if they just don't like the way the consensus is heading. Consensus and circlejerk are two different things, and people on both ends tend to forget that.
But given the roots of the phrase in agreeing with said accusation, and the sidebar tone, it seems /r/circlebroke is trying to sidestep the risk of falling into jerkery by refusing to take itself too seriously. Which isn't altogether a bad idea. One of the differences between consensus and jerk seems to be conviction.
For weeks, maybe a few months.
Bit more than that. Lot more, really. I remember making jokes about it last year.
I praise them for being able to type so clearly with their heads ever so far up their asses.
I still remember the times I'd get blasted by some of the cronies over there because I dared not defend EA for all their shitty products and marketing decisions. I still remember fondly back in March or so when SimCity was released and CB was so bent up that they literally could not decide whether to defend EA or not.
I've been a participant since around May '12, but the good old days (e.g. golden age?) has long been gone and I still subscribe, but only in the hopes that someday there'll finally be a quality post again.
[deleted]
Says the guy who regularly posts to /r/shitamericanssay. Have you looked in the mirror lately?
Edit: this was /u/iwannafuckellenpage, for those wondering.
and created a subreddit dedicated to making fun of bad music circlejerks.
CB worked in the beginning because everyone was self-aware. Those who fight monsters should take care that they never become one.
I disagree, that subreddit has never "worked".
Its always been like putting a fedora on top of a fedora and saying "look at how much cooler I am than that guy with 1 fedora"
Its like trying to bail water out of a sinking ship by replacing it with lemonade.
Your ship is still sinking - you all just think it tastes pleasant.
That's nice.
>Nope. I go into the thread about China landing on the moon, "We did it first!". I go into a thread which uses British English in the title, "Can anyone translate that into freedom?". I go into a thread in /r/WTF about a sign outside a school that says, 'all teachers are armed', and people are saying, "This isn't WTF, this is America!". If there's a /r/todayilearned thread about 'the government has done x', which government does it mean? The American government. If I post something with a £ sign, everyone asks me to translate it to 'normal currency'. If I go into /r/worldnews, "Muslims are invading Britain, trust me, I went there on a stop-over once and saw THREE muslims!".
The guy definitely has a point there. It's certainly not going to be a popular opinion, but there you go.
It does reflect that Americans comprise of nearly a majority of reddit's userbase. In comparison to other countries, criticism of America will be heavy, but so will praise of it.
Which is why the idea of an "anti-American" circlejerk where 68% of the userbase is American is so absurd to a non-American Redditor.
Are you for real? The anti-America circlejerk is perpetuated by angsty American teens that have no scope of reality.
So criticising your country = circlejerk? Wow, this is why nobody likes Americans. The Anti-American circlejerk is about as real as misandry.
How goddamn blind are you to the anti-America circlejerk are you? Going on and on about how America is an oppressive police state and horrible in every way isn't criticizing America, its just being an idiot with no scope of reality. There are many valid criticisms of America but reddit is really quite terrible at actually addressing them.
Then said non-American redditor is clearly not aware of American self-loathing on reddit.
Actually, Americans only constitute about 45% of reddits users.
Still a majority though
I believe they constitute a plurality.
He does have a point but it swings both ways.
You can usually guarantee that the only people who get involved in the US vs UK circlejerk are people who have absolutely no fucking idea what it's like to actually live in the country they're running down.
For example, for every, "hurr durr the UK is being taken over by Muslims" (less than 8% of the UK population is Muslim) comment from an American there will be a, "hurr durr American's all have guns" (slightly more than 50% of all American households contain guns) from a Brit.
It's the usual Reddit problem; people discussing with absolute authority a subject they know almost fuck all about.
Edit: spleeing
> I go into the thread about China landing on the moon, "We did it first!".
Funny, I just read every top comment in worldnews and news and not a single one said anything like that.
http://i.imgur.com/RYBRFYx.png
Oh, you found one burred in the 4000 posts down before? Well fuck ignorant Amerikkkans, such a circlejerk!111 how dare there be a single ignorant or nationalistic person on muh reddits
The second top comment is defending against the anti america jerk while simultaneously calling China a "four year old [needing] a booster seat at Pizza Hut". And most of the comments replying are basically "Yeah, we did it first" or "Yeah, we send a rover to mars".
Also there are highly upvoted comments "joking" about how China will now fill the moon with garbage.
Oh and this video was on the rise before OP deleted it because he couldn't handle the criticism. It was placed on 5 in /r/videos within 2 hours.
Damn,I'd hate to get superdefensive over nothing. Americas hono(u)r and pride is at stake! Fucking foreigners!
...
This is not going to do wonders for my karma when I wake up tomorrow!
I am not defensive, I am exasperated that you are in a thread mocking circlebroke, say a circlejerky comment, then end it with "It's certainly not going to be a popular opinion, but there you go."
You might as well just say "I know I am going to get downboated for this, but [comment everyone agrees with]"
That's far from a circle jerk comment. Every single time I've seen the sentiment expressed (and there have been probably at least five occasions) it gets downvoted to at least -50. Americans are fine with receiving criticism and praise from other Americans. From foreigners, the only thing they generally want to hear is praise.
>From foreigners, the only thing they generally want to hear is praise.
Well, sometimes, foreign people's criticisms of the US are based on generalizations and ignorance, as opposed to researched inquiry or lived experience. (To be fair, this can be true of Americans' criticisms of the US as well.)
Generalized praise might not tell the whole story, but it tends to be more accurate than generalized criticism.
Wow, that is a really big generalisation dude.
>From foreigners, the only thing they generally want to hear is praise.
Yes, and it's unfair, untrue and pulled out of your ass.
All I can say is that your experiences clearly don't mesh well with those of other non-Americans.
You didn't go around on a massive nation-wide survey and asked people what they want foreigners to think about the US, so stop throwing around personal opinion and experiences as a fact.
> Well fuck ignorant Amerikkkans, such a circlejerk!111 how dare there be a single ignorant or nationalistic person on muh reddits
Oh wow you've really convinced me with your argument of overused and unfunny tropes.
Sports dude, holy fucking shit. If you really want to press Reddit's patriotic buttons, say anything about any sport that isn't (American football).
Main subs will take a shit on soccer any day of the week. I usually have a lot of fun saying "handegg" in conversations about American Football.
Do people really get offended over that?
To be fair, a lot of that praise ("this isn't WTF, this is America!") is " 'murica" style satire.
Yeah, which is what's so irritating. 'Oh, there's an article about this country? Lets make it all about America!'
or
'Highly upvoted ignorant comment about a country based off of the observations of an American that's been there for three days, if at all'
'correction by native'
'America circlejerk/bash that country'
or there's the always classic
'foreigner, instead of American, being critical of America in some way'
'Americans jump on it, shit on the dudes country, shit on the dude, and proclaim America to be fine, no problems, except for that one, but its tiny and your country sucks because you had a genocide 150 years ago'.
Never really seen that one too much, but I'm going to say there's both a strong pro america circlejerk and an equally strong anti america circlejerk.
SnapShots: 1, 2, ^Readability
Maybe the drama will spill over here that way it can be extra, extra Meta™
Well in that case there's /r/SubredditDramaDrama
Circlebroke is extremely paranoid about this sort of thing. They see anti-American circlejerks in absolutely everything; apparently if you're not actively raving about how awesome America is, you're being anti-American.
/r/ShitAmericansSay could honestly just be a mirror of CB at this point. Of course, that would be boring.
Ironically, they espouse dogmatic and abrasive patriotism that is often stereotyped in Americans.
And in redditors, from which they're trying to distance themselves from.
/r/ShitAmericansSay is a really weird subreddit. It seems way more bitter than most subreddits in its vein. Like they aren't laughing as much as they are really angry. I don't get it really. Sometimes I find the posts pretty amusing, but the comments are just a little sad.
Shit____Say(s) are usually bitter if SRS, /r/ShitAmericansSay, and /r/ShitStatistsSay are an indication.
It's more absolute bewilderment than anything else.
I discovered that sub through the random button and had to click away almost immediately. The Murica stuff irks the hell out of me to begin with. SAS made me outright angry.
See, the thing is the rest of the world doesn't really grasp humor the way they do in America. See, Americans have a really excellent concept of sarcasm, which is easily lost on Europeans. They interpret it as genuine ire. That's why /r/ShitAmericansSay misses the mark.
EDIT: sorry guys it was a joke.
[deleted]
Yeah. Definitely went over poorly.
its not that its that they always gotta be contrarian smug assholes about the particular topic in that thread
Pretty much. I like /r/circlebroke but whenever America comes up they essentially turn into /r/MURICA with more words.
I remember a thread where a CB-er highligted some redditor's post. The redditor asked 'does that happen often over there?', referring to in-program advertising (the bar at the bottom with 'watch program x saturdays at y'). The CB-er went on a huge rant about how the post was anti-american when the guy was just asking an honest question. That was the last straw that made me unsubscribe from there.
Similar story; someone asked in eli5 why there were bibles in hotels and motels. There was nothing about the question that was rude or aggressive, it was just genuine curiosity as to why every hotel had a bible. CB wrote this up as an atheist circlejerk attacking religion
Almost every single time somebody complains about an anti-American circlejerk or a pro-Europe circlejerk, he/she turns out to be a jingoistic xenophobic redneck. While there definitely cases (mostly depending on the sub, /r/worldnews for instance has an appalling anti-American bias), because of this, I've seen the 'anti-American circlejerk' at many times is just an excuse for some American Redditors to justify their bigotry.
Even as someone not from the US I can actually see that there are too many instances of anti-US sentiment which will get annoying. However one of the top responses will most of time be someone defending the US (which is fine) and calling out the circlejerk. A lot of the other anti-x circlejerk posts often don't get the same luxury.
Americans will literally moan and whine about everything.
If you are not raving about how great America is or how America is better than any other country mentioned in the thread then you are being 'anti-american'.
What about the Americans who moan and whine about how much they hate America?
Yes, what about Reddit?