Heather has written a wonderful and timely entry on weblog hate mail and how horrible people can be when they’re not talking to your face. Timely, since I got my own wonderful personal attack this morning: “there are plenty of misguded [sic] expats living abroad who no [sic] SO much more because of their current foreign surroundings… if you can’t tell your [sic] being an “expat snob” … read your post on when you returned to South Bend for the wedding.” I was confused at first because I couldn’t remember any rampant snobbery on my part when I got home. I had to go back through the archives and the only thing I could find was this incident with the dumb teenage couple on the plane. So, just to clarify, I wasn’t being an expat snob in that post, I was being an intellectual snob. My mockery had nothing to do with the girl’s nationality and everything to do with her NOT KNOWING WHERE ONE OF THE CONTINENTS WAS. It’s not like that is some random bit of trivia, now is it? And I felt my slam on the local school system was entirely justified, given that I’M A PRODUCT OF IT. Oh, and we call out bad writing around these parts too. I guess that makes us grammar and spelling snobs.
And you know what prompted that little diatribe? My praising Australia’s contribution to tsunami relief. I didn’t even mention the US in that post (and explained to a few folks in the comments that I didn’t intend it as a slam). Yet somehow, just because I live overseas, every time I say something good about another country it has to be interpreted as a criticism of the US. Come on, back me up folks. That’s ridiculous, right?
amy
January 27, 2005 — 8:51 pm
DUDE! that post over at Dooce prompted me to respond for the first time ever over there. That was f’d up!
And really, this is YOUR blog. This is ‘Planet Web-Goddess’. You can say that pink monkeys fly out of your butt and if people out there have a problem with it they can just GET stuffed. (or write something with their OWN friggin’ bandwidth)
And anyone who knows you would never confuse your intellectual/grammar snobbery as ‘expat snobbery’. that’s my domain (wink).
people take this stuff WAY too seriously. They need to get a HOBBY!
Frances
January 28, 2005 — 1:26 am
Absolutely ridiculous! Making an observation and celebrating what people around the world are doing that is good is merely being informed and responding. Having a voice in the world, stating an observaion, is hardly grounds for accusing you of being critical of the United States. People take things too personally in my opinion. I don’t know a single human being that is perfect…but I Do know that we ALL deserve to have a good laugh at ourselves sometimes. In addition, we all deserve to celebrate goodness. Geography is relative, people are people and goodness is goodness.
kristen
January 28, 2005 — 2:27 am
my goodness. living overseas for any extended period of time does give people a different perspective on the world. but that is a good thing! wouldn’t you love to take all the good parts about all the places you’ve lived or even visited and roll them up into your own little happy place? i know i would.
oolookitty
January 28, 2005 — 5:54 am
It’s even worse if you live here and dare to make a comment that in any way disparages the educational system, etc. Then you get “if you hate America so much, then why don’t you leave? This is the greatest country in the world, you know!”
All this from people who (generally) have never been outside the country, barely know that there ARE other countries out there, and have no idea about living conditions in other places.
Sigh.
The Backer
January 28, 2005 — 12:08 pm
“You can say that pink monkeys fly out of your butt and if people out there have a problem with it they can just GET stuffed. (or write something with their OWN friggin’ bandwidth)”
Now Web-Goddess, wouldn’t you agree that Amy has a point? BACKER OUT!
Anonymous
January 28, 2005 — 12:14 pm
Isn’t it funny that the backer made you look and actually see if you were being a snob…oh, but he was right…ouch.
Kris
January 28, 2005 — 12:44 pm
Okay, this is the most random argument ever. So far I’ve been accused of making some cricism of American in my tsunami relief post, and of being an expat snob by mocking a girl who didn’t know where Australia was. I feel very confident that both of those aren’t true. So if you have any actual complaint to raise against me, please do. Otherwise you’re just a meaningless troll, trying to get a rise out of somebody to inflate your own small ego. Didn’t most of us grow out of this shit in high school?