People not getting when you are pretending to be the "Ugly American"

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Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2003 20:07:49 +0000
From: XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Subject: YYYYYYYYYY posts

I was reading your posts on ZZZZZ today regarding the land down under. It's
not really my business, but the idiotic and ignorant things you said, in the
name of the glory that is the U.S. made me feel sorry for you. Writing
those things did not make you sound cool or intelligent, it just made you
sound rude and Americentric (which is not a good thing). You should embrace
diversity, or be forever engulfed in your own egotism and ignorance. Every
place, every person, and everything in the world is different. . . no two
lady bugs have the same spots. If you can't learn to accept differences
then where will you go and who will you be?

No one is a "red blooded American" we all origionally come from somewhere
else, and if you look far enough back (Pangea. . .when there was only one
land mass) we all come from the same place!

you should go other places. . . leave the U.S. and embrace other cultures. .
. .yes everywhere has culture. . . look up the definition and you will see.

I'm not trying to offend you or be snobbish, I'm just trying to help you
understand why it's not okay to be AMericentric

sincerely yours,
a friend

― Jon Williams (ex machina), Wednesday, 12 March 2003 20:49 (twenty-two years ago)

What bad stuff did you post about Australia? And has this person not seen that one Simpsons episode?

― hstencil, Wednesday, 12 March 2003 20:51 (twenty-two years ago)

Hey, I've learned to play up my "Ugly American" routine at work to get out of doing things I don't want to do. Like post. I pretend not to have heard of half the countries we do business with, shrugging "We don't have other countries where I'm from" and I put airmail sticker on UK packages, and guess what, they don't ask me to do the mail any more. ;-)

― kate (suzy), Wednesday, 12 March 2003 20:52 (twenty-two years ago)

Sometimes I put on a po' 'merican white trash accent which I find f-in hilarious, but I wonder if passers-by think that's how I always talk.

― Sarah McLusky (coco), Wednesday, 12 March 2003 20:55 (twenty-two years ago)

I compared an the company that peddles Foster's to dumb Americans to the Nestle having 3rd world mothers give their babies (nutritionally poor) powdered milk.

I said that the biggest cultural contribution that Australia could aspire to was Marsupial Bestiality websites.

Among general bashing of the lack of any good music from Australia. (Somewhat true)

― Jon Williams (ex machina), Wednesday, 12 March 2003 21:01 (twenty-two years ago)

Foster's: Australian for piss.

Australia did give the world the Saints, the Birthday Party, and the Scientists, tho.

― hstencil, Wednesday, 12 March 2003 21:04 (twenty-two years ago)

Umm...Isn't the real question here: "Why don't people think it's cute when I act like an asshole?"

― Marcel Post (Marcel Post), Wednesday, 12 March 2003 21:06 (twenty-two years ago)

ha!

― felicity (felicity), Wednesday, 12 March 2003 21:09 (twenty-two years ago)

troll

1. v.,n. [From the Usenet group alt.folklore.urban] To utter a posting on Usenet designed to attract predictable responses or flames; or, the post itself. Derives from the phrase "trolling for newbies" which in turn comes from mainstream "trolling", a style of fishing in which one trails bait through a likely spot hoping for a bite. The well-constructed troll is a post that induces lots of newbies and flamers to make themselves look even more clueless than they already do, while subtly conveying to the more savvy and experienced that it is in fact a deliberate troll. If you don't fall for the joke, you get to be in on it. See also YHBT. 2. n. An individual who chronically trolls in sense 1; regularly posts specious arguments, flames or personal attacks to a newsgroup, discussion list, or in email for no other purpose than to annoy someone or disrupt a discussion. Trolls are recognizable by the fact that they have no real interest in learning about the topic at hand - they simply want to utter flame bait. Like the ugly creatures they are named after, they exhibit no redeeming characteristics, and as such, they are recognized as a lower form of life on the net, as in, "Oh, ignore him, he's just a troll." Compare kook. 3. n. [Berkeley] Computer lab monitor. A popular campus job for CS students. Duties include helping newbies and ensuring that lab policies are followed. Probably so-called because it involves lurking in dark cavelike corners.

Some people claim that the troll (sense 1) is properly a narrower category than flame bait, that a troll is categorized by containing some assertion that is wrong but not overtly controversial. See also Troll-O-Meter.

The use of `troll' in either sense is a live metaphor that readily produces elaborations and combining forms. For example, one not infrequently sees the warning "Do not feed the troll" as part of a followup to troll postings.

-- The Jargon File

― Jon Williams (ex machina), Wednesday, 12 March 2003 21:11 (twenty-two years ago)

Actually, no offense Jon, but Marcel Post has been around longer than you. He's just particularly good at the lurking part of Netiquette.

― felicity (felicity), Wednesday, 12 March 2003 21:12 (twenty-two years ago)

I think the title question is quite good, FWIW.

― felicity (felicity), Wednesday, 12 March 2003 21:13 (twenty-two years ago)

Jon: Pot, meet kettle. Kettle, m-- You are an odd bird.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Wednesday, 12 March 2003 21:13 (twenty-two years ago)

Actually that was glib. The long form: Jon it should be obvious that if you stopped posting huge graphics and long passages of Japanese script on threads where they don't belong, we might be more sympathetic to you in such threads as these. You continually call other people trolls, but I often fail to see the purpose of many of your posts other than to rile or confuse people.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Wednesday, 12 March 2003 21:17 (twenty-two years ago)

But the point of my post was to be an asshole

― Jon Williams (ex machina), Wednesday, 12 March 2003 21:19 (twenty-two years ago)

The well-constructed troll is a post that induces lots of newbies and flamers to make themselves look even more clueless than they already do, while subtly conveying to the more savvy and experienced that it is in fact a deliberate troll. If you don't fall for the joke, you get to be in on it.

What kind of twat wrote this? You can recognise and ignore pathetic trolling behaviour without having any interest in being 'in on it'.

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 12 March 2003 21:22 (twenty-two years ago)

I think comparing Foster's to Nestle and people taking me seriously = a stroke of genius.

― Jon Williams (ex machina), Wednesday, 12 March 2003 21:23 (twenty-two years ago)

i rather enjoy jon's posts fwiw (SHOCKAH!!!!)

― gygax! (gygax!), Wednesday, 12 March 2003 21:29 (twenty-two years ago)

That definition must have come from a loathsome and smug troll who is convinced that acting an arsehole makes him cleverer than everyone else. Lots of trolls clearly think this. (And I think I'm on pretty safe ground mostly with the male pronoun.)

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 12 March 2003 22:14 (twenty-two years ago)

Among general bashing of the lack of any good music from Australia. (Somewhat true)

Avalanches destroy this statement.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Wednesday, 12 March 2003 22:21 (twenty-two years ago)

Jon, I'm going to send you an angry email!

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Wednesday, 12 March 2003 22:22 (twenty-two years ago)

[Fine post reluctantly deleted by moderator at poster's request.]

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Wednesday, 12 March 2003 22:34 (twenty-two years ago)

thanks :)

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Wednesday, 12 March 2003 23:04 (twenty-two years ago)

Damn, now I wanna know what that post said!

(mail me Jim? ;P)

― Trayce (trayce), Thursday, 13 March 2003 04:48 (twenty-two years ago)

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