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tweet by Melanie Balke: If you’re having a bad day just remember that the Salzburg airport has a counter for people who flew to Austria instead of Australia

Edit: Dang it’s fake

  • MasimatutuOPEnglish
    63·
    9 months ago

    I’m sorry, I really did not put that much thought into the post. But you do realise there certainly are examples of Americans who are not all too familiar with the geography of the rest of the world, and additionally, I actually know of a person who accidentally flew to Rome in the wrong country.

    • TheTimeKnife@lemmy.worldEnglish
      63·
      9 months ago

      And there are examples of the same from every European country. It changes nothing about what I said. I know you didn’t put any thought into it. That’s my entire point, maybe Europe should put a little thought into being nationalist assholes.

      Furthermore, I’ve met a lot of Europeans and I know yall know next to no geography knowledge outside of Europe and treat European geography like world geography. So again, the high horse is very much imaginary.

      • MasimatutuOPEnglish
        43·
        9 months ago

        Yes, I am perfectly aware, and again, I apologise. But the British and Irish are too close to Austria to possibly make such a mistake, and New Zealand and English speaking Oceania are too close to Australia, and the rest of the English-speaking world is either too small or too poor to be significant.

        And, while it is by no means a good way of thinking about people, stereotypes are based on something, and in this case, it might have something to do with that Americans, due to the size of their country, don’t interact with the rest of the world quite as much. Again, I am not trying to say that this is an accurate representation of reality in any way.

        Edit: typo

        • TheTimeKnife@lemmy.worldEnglish
          22·
          9 months ago

          Stereotypes are literally not true, that’s my entire point. Believing them makes you an ignorant moron.

          • MasimatutuOPEnglish
            32·
            9 months ago

            Stereotypes not applying to everyone does not mean they apply to no one.

            Check this out, for instance: https://www.cfr.org/news-releases/americans-lack-knowledge-international-issues-yet-consider-them-important-finds-new

            “Less than half of the respondents were able to identify Afghanistan as the country that provided al-Qaeda with safe haven prior to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, despite America having waged a war in Afghanistan due to this fact for nearly two decades.”

            “Just over half could identify Iraq on a map, even though one hundred thousand American soldiers were in the country just a decade ago.”