I mean they're right
American culture definitely exist and is pervasive, it's just shit
A lot of popular music genres popularized in the US were the result of people rebelling against American “culture.” Rap, hip hop, blues, rock, metal. These were not only demonized by those who praise American culture, but often created by people who were fucked by the US and its “culture” before they realized they could capitalize on it instead
Metal was actually rebelling against British culture. Metal did not originate in the US.
This dude is a dingus but America is undeniably a cultural powerhouse. Most of that culture is never expressed broadly because it's unprofitable to do so, but it manifests everywhere as a simple expression of creativity until/if it can be commodified, at which point it loses all lustre.
If a folk band performing a gig to a small bar in China is cultural expression, then so is a garage band doing the same in America. If a mural is painted on a building in Cuba as cultural expression, same goes in America. Tagging and bombing are cultural expressions. Cooking a fusion dish is an expression of American culture.
Brands are dead non-culture and identifying them as culture is pure consumerism, so this take is rightly dunkable, but anyone in this thread denying America has culture is denying that humans are inherently and insuppressably creative animals, even when living in alienation.
Not necessarily but America is by and large populated by immigrants and the descendants of immigrants. Any nation doing the mosaic/melting pot/whatever is doing culture when its members synthesize across lines like that.
Yes a big part of our culture is business, making money, spending money, consuming. Succe$$ for us means making something that lots of people pay money to consume, whether that's movies, songs, iphones, or touchdowns.
That person in the replies summed it up almost perfectly, but they revel in their commodity fetishism.
In your opinion, if anyone around the world wants to take their revenge on the assassination of Soleimani and intends to do it proportionately in the way they suggest - that we take one of theirs now that they've got one of ours, who should we consider to take out in the context of America?
Think about it, are we supposed to take out Spiderman and SpongeBob? They don't have any heroes. We have a country in front of us with a large population and a large land mass, but it doesn't have any heroes, all of their heroes are cartoon characters, they're all fictional.
I see what you mean and I agree to an extent, but if Trump was assassinated a very huge part of the population would definitely go buck wild. Probably the same to a lesser degree if Hillary or Obama were assassinated. I think the difference is that they're figures that are heroes to a part of the population, and devils to another part (I think in all cases the part of the population that despises them is larger than the part that adores them).
Bit idea: Iranian operative who uses an ongoing mr beast challenge as an opportunity to assassinate him
Literally any american cultural export and you pick Domino's. Who the fuck cares about Domino's
It's not even in my top 5 corporate pizza franchises, lmao. Even Little Ceasar's pizza is better and their whole thing is that it's always available and the cheapest possible option.
In India for whatever reason Dominos is a dominant force
If you're gonna pick fastfood then choose KFC, Pizza Hut, or 7/11. All immensely more popular than Dominos globally
Brands are culture for bazinga brains. :soypoint-1: :melon-musk: :soypoint-2:
At lease someone in the comments mentioned mass shootings, the most richest part of american culture.
So consumerism and commodity fetishism is American culture? They're just admitting it now?
Like where are those iPhones and Nikes made? In America? Of course not lol.
It sorta' is. This dude is actively ignoring the labour embodied in the commodities he's describing (mostly non-American) and attributing their value solely to America.
It is though. Or at least a form of it.
It shows a complete disregard for the interpersonal relationships that created said commodity. Like the country it was actually manufactured in.
The value of the commodities according to the tweet is because they're "American brands", an idea that is devoid of the physical nature of the commodity, and is an almost religious idea that vastly transcends the use value of the commodity. These people believe Nike shoes and apple smartphones are worth something outside of their use value just because they're "American".
The Americas as a whole have a unique culture that's made up of the many different immigrant groups that came here. It annoys the hell out of me when Americans act like this is exclusive to them. The Caribbean alone has more racial diversity than Queens, but you'd never know that because they don't have the propaganda machine to blast it everywhere.
oh amerika has culture alright. [narrator: the culture is mass shootings and also sitting in 20 car long fast food lines to get your mcburger and nuggies)
ok but unironically like 50% probably of the best (popular!)music has been made by artists who either primarily lived in amerika .
spoiler
___take the velvet underground,or fucking talking heads, nine inch nails, the doors, iggy pop,the 13th floor elevators, or the beachboys .... or more "experimental" shit like early sonic youth, and swans (and these guys actually preformed a lot together in their early days since they were both part of that who no wave scene or whatever, wouldve been a hell of a time to be at one of those shows..).... or even suicide, theywere pretty dope
wven rap you know we got fuckin kendrick lamar and danny brown and denzel curry and the wu tang clan and etc. (i may or may not be extremely partial to modern rap) we got tons of killer rappers here
as much as it pains me, the ukkk gave us a massive amount of great fucking (popular) music too.... joy division, david bowie , the cure, radiohead (i dont even like radiohead lol i just know that theyre general regarded as one of the best "rock" bands so), uhhhh pink floyd and kate bush too . also the more ""obscure"" shit like cabaret voltaire and throbbing gristle, these guys basicallywere some of the few bands pioneering industrial and sadly most ppl have never heard of either of them
Those are broadly American/western brands, and global consumerism as a culture, if you can even call it culture, is a typical American thing but that says more about an absence of a real culture imo
The top grossing film of all time (adjusted for inflation) is confederate apologia.
How comes that you can find the cultural products of the global imperial hegemon all over the world?
Surely, it must be because that culture is objectively superior and not because of Marxist materialist nonsense about the predominant culture being that of the ruling class.
