Zero-K US Tournament 11/1/14 Sign Up In This Post

(removed offensive polandball)

Lucky for you guys, because I'm pretty sure there are more 'muricans in the 1v1 top 50 than any other country.

Kind of sucks that I'm mocked for the country I was born in based on generalizations broadly applied to 320,000,000 people you've never met.

quote: However, for the purposes of this tourney, there's just one in top10

Seems like strange but convenient moving of the goal posts. Only two top10 players showed at all.

Good to see admins and devs sanctioning and participating in prejudiced anti-nationalism.

This all kinda reminds me of Starcraft 2, where the American and European regional championships are always inevitably dominated by dem Koreans... let's hope ZK never becomes popular in Korea.

kaen
Maybe it's just me but it seems like in Europe we are pretty used to making fun of each other's nationalities in a friendly way. So when we make fun of American things it usually isn't meant to insult, but rather as friendly banter. As long as it stays friendly I don't really see anything wrong with having some of that.

You can make fun of us, too. I don't know, something something about the stereotypical Estonian being pale white and extremely introverted or whatnot :)

quote: it definitely distracts from your weaker main argument.

I wonder what do you construe to be my primary argument?

quote: My complaint is that this thread in particular and the community in general vilifies and mocks the US disproportionately

Citations please? In particular, i'm interested where have you found the following:

quote: trendy anti-American circlejerk. The most important part of building a community is to pick a group and ostracize them until they no longer feel welcome, then pick another group and repeat

In particular, i'd also like any specific quotes of you being "judged by your nationality".

Warning: Excessive nationalism detected. Objective: Prevent locking of thread. Suggested action: Calm your honks. Alternative option: Exterminate offenders.

B-b-but TheEloIsALie! The comic is neither political nor a discussion. Don't you be hating on Sprung for cheering (almost) everyone up! :[

quote: If you know that certain nationalities react upset about a display of their national stereotypes

I think you might've said something evil without even noticing. You just generalized by implying that "nationalities react upset" when you should've said "people react upset"!

[honk]You are worse than kaen! D: bannuna[/honk]

Well, I don't record every instance of anti-US sentiment I encounter online. Usually I just roll my eyes and am grateful to know who is and is not worth my time. I'll make sure to do so moving forward though, will post results.

But let's take a moment to analyze the instance that sparked my original post:

Pictured, we see Australiaball inquiring about goings-on to Americaball, who is adorned with sunglasses (for context, sunglasses in meme images typically indicate a character who believes himself to be "cool", but is often unaware that he is in fact the subject of mockery). In the second panel Americaball responds, stating that "the most merican [sic] tourny ever!" is under way. In the background, three Euroballs stand on a podium and are drawn with eyes appropriated from the popular "trollface". This indicates that they are deriving pleasure from Americaball's ignorance to the irony of Europeans winning the "US" Tournament. Americaball goes on to chant "U! S! A!" to himself, indicating that he is not only too stupid to realize the irony, but is also so driven by his quixotic patriotism the he ignores the defeat and insists on the exceptionalism of his nation over all others.

This obviously depicts Americans as self-absorbed, idiotic hyper-nationalists incapable of even simple pronunciation. A very popular prejudice among non-Americans who are happy to put the entire US population into one neat little box of homogeneity. Which is fine, because one idiot making one idiotic cartoon does not bother me that much. But then, look at the upvotes:

Anarchid
mojjj
TheEloIsALie
TheSponge
sprang
[ISP]Lauri
ikinz
Orfelius

Everyone on this list saw this cartoon, understood the implications as described above, agreed with the sentiments, and thought it was important to express their approval in no uncertain terms. And these are not just randoms, several of the names there are prominent members of the community. That is why I indict not just Sprung but the community at large (including admins and devs) for condoning this.

I've also done a brief search to find some old threads with anti-American sentiments. These are the findings from just the most obvious and minimal amount of research one could responsibly do. The initial posts are not necessarily offensive (most discuss recent current events), but characterization of Americans as fat, hapless sheep unknowningly enslaved by corporate overlords ensues in the comments. Worth mentioning that two of these were posted by no less than Licho.

http://zero-k.info/Forum/Thread/5119
http://zero-k.info/Forum/Thread/5601
http://zero-k.info/Forum/Thread/7661
http://zero-k.info/Forum/Thread/5840