Is it the American way to complain about the US, or is it that other countries aren't worth complaining about?

if you haven't heard people from other places complain about those places, you haven't been listening much. everyone complains!

Try a space that's in their native language. Feddit.org is primarily a German-language instance and its users are complaining about Germany all the time.

Also, everyone complains about the US, especially people who live on the continent of America but not in the US.

Most people, Americans included, prefer to speak well of their country to foreigners and complain to countrymen. My hypothesis is that Americans perceive online spaces as uniquely American spaces where we complain to our ingroup, and folks of other nationalities tend to think of online spaces as “international waters” and are more guarded as a result, which leads to this perception.

Everyone complains about their own country. The Japanese complain about Japan all the time too - the whole "salaryman running off to start a ramen shop" dream is a complaint about th country. Just because you can't see it means you're not understanding subtext.

What language do you think Japanese or Spanish people complain about their country in? How often do you visit communities (online or wherever) where these languages are spoken? What nationality do you think I am?

Spanish people complain about Spain all the time. Very low wages. Japanese people not as much.

Every country has problems. America is so big that its problems become everyone else’s problems too. If America sneezes the world catches a cold.

No, it's an international thing to complain about the US nowadays. 🙂

"I don't think I've ever heard..." friend, you literally live in an information silo. Do you speak Spanish? Because you probably aren't hearing anything about Spain if you don't. Do you follow any British media? Because they're not coming to an American forum to bitch about Britain. You probably don't care enough to even notice if someone was talking about another country, so how would you hear anything?

What's uniquely American is making your internal drama everyone else's problem.

Every person I have ever met from has issues with their home countries.

One of my best friends was from Pakistan and when I asked him about why he left, he used to bitch that “the three things my country doesn’t have are…

L

A

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I work with a guy basically ran away from Sierra Leona in the late 90s with nothing but the clothes he had on. Then spent 3 months as a slave on a fishing boat until winding up in a refugee camp and then working his way to America.

This past weekend I had a conversation with a women in NYC who had to flee her home country of Peru in the early 90s because a group called Shining Path were killing everyone around her.

She spent years workin in cruise ships and the hotel/resort industrybefore seeing a classified add that told people to apply for the citizenship lottery in the US. She did and she won, she got to NYC in 98 with 600 bucks in her pocket.

So yeah we all have issues with our home countries, some significant and some trivial and contrived.

I don't think I've heard a genuine complaint from a Japenese person about Japan

I have and plenty. It depends on the person, the setting, and how well you know them.

old.reddit.com/r/india

Have fun. 

Everyone had complaints about their own country. It might not be all conveniently on one platform or online at all. Or it might even be forbidden or negatively impact your social score.

Anyhow. Still it's highly important to see on which level the complaints are. Currently comparing the US with the EU for example, I'm sorry, but the US is in some deep shit. Yes, over here we also have some (some even related) issues but your pre-trump situation was not all that hot to begin with (as a citizen) and went downhill fast now. It's highly likely the US will turn into some once-important but then irrelevant country.

I have plenty of complaints about Australia (and plenty more about the US). This quote from The Lucky Country (1964) still perfectly sums up so much of the country:

Australia is a lucky country run mainly by second rate people who share its luck. It lives on other people's ideas, and, although its ordinary people are adaptable, most of its leaders (in all fields) so lack curiosity about the events that surround them that they are often taken by surprise.

Australian houses are glorified tents that are too hot in summer and too cold in winter because It DoEsN't GeT cOlD iN aUsTrAlIa. Our economy is entirely built around digging shit out of the ground and selling it overseas, and selling houses back and forth between slumlord investors. Our federal government is paralysed into inaction by fear of the blatantly partisan and hostile media, who are currently deliberately trying to stir up panic about fuel shortages. Our government is still too scared to criticise or stand up to Trump, and completely caved in to the zionist lobby after the Bondi shooting attack. I could go on.

That said, I would much rather have our current Labor government in charge at the moment than any realistic alternative, because despite my complaints I do think they're generally competent and they are generally trying to make things better (I just wish they would be more bold, they have a huge majority for a reason). I certainly wouldn't want to live anywhere else either.

I hear people complain about their countries all the time.

In Turkey teenagers complain ALL the time about how liberals and SJWs are ruining Turkey.

(Seriously tho keep an eye out on them, there is unchecked fascism spreading)

Everyone is whining about the USA.

People always complain about their countries in some form or other. Maybe Americans are just the loudest lol?

People outside of a few countries don't speak or read English all that much and hence would not be on primarily English speaking communities like lemmy, they have their own locally popular websites

We do have complaints about our country here, too, but they are junior league against the problems the US government is causing for its subjects.