American people annoyed by internet...

[Bazzlad]

AMERICANS ANNOYED BY "ALL THIS
INTERNATIONAL ****" ON INTERNET
Web's Increasingly Worldly Flavor Threatens Americans' Worldview

PULLMAN, WASH. (SatireWire.com) — The profusion of international news available on the Internet has made it increasingly difficult for the average American to ignore the rest of the world, a trend researchers say threatens Americans' long, proud history of disregarding anything not about them.

"With all the foreign newspapers and multi-cultural sites, the Internet is making it almost impossible for the average American to remain uninformed and apathetic," said Samantha Lessborn of Washington State University, which conducted the survey. "Americans can still do it. But it now takes effort, whereas before it was as easy as turning off Tom Brokaw whenever he said 'In South Korea today...'"

According to survey participant Danny Grisham, a 22-year-old from Cheyenne, Wyoming, it's not just the plethora of international news on the Web that is irritating. "Look, I can get around the news. I just turn off Reuters headlines in MyYahoo," he said. "But even some of the search sites like Yahoo and Alta Vista are available in different languages. Like everybody in the world doesn't speak English. Yeah, right."

"I can see where it's important if we're, like, beating some country in the Olympics or bombing them or, ideally, both," Grisham added. "But if some Colombian drug lord sinks a ferry full of Israeli soldiers in North Latvoania or Serbo-Malaysia, or wherever, and Americans aren't involved, what has that got to do with me?"

Other respondents said they were appalled, not just by the availability of non-U.S. news, but by the way important U.S. news is reported by some of these foreign sites. "Yesterday, for instance, the St. Louis Rams beat the Atlanta Falcons, OK, and I go to the London Times site and it's not even there," said Chip Pernadge of Kansas City, Mo. "Jesus, no wonder those guys lost the war and had to give Hong Kong back to Canada."

Sensing a market opportunity, Net Nanny, makers of Net Nanny filtering software, announced this week it will introduce NetNarrow, an English-only product that automatically filters out content that appears to be international. Specifically, the software looks for world datelines and keywords indicative of irrelevant foreign stories, including "Shiite," "post-Apartheid," and "Bob Geldof."

Survey-taker Craig Barker of Brooklyn, New York, said he will be among the first to get NetNarrow. "On the Web, there are so many ways to get news from so many different places, I could really get some fresh insights into what's going on in other countries if I wanted to," he said.. "But I don't want to."

"You'd think these Internet people would know that," Barker added. "I mean, that's why the Internet is called America Online, right? It's supposed to be about America."

Source: http://www.satirewire.com/news/0010/international.shtml

[father smurf]

Editor's Note: It seems that after reading this entirely fictional story, some investors/customers of Net Nanny believed the company actually was going to produce NetNarrow software. As a result, Net Nanny asked SatireWire to please assure people that this is not the case. No, really.
Copyright © 2000-2001, SatireWire.

[chicken]

Excellent The AOL ending is the cherry on the cake!

[tigerboyce]

ha ha yeh that AOL bit is very funny

[MadduckUK]

yes its satire but i reckon its not too far off the truth

[Bazzlad]

yes its satire but i reckon its not too far off the truth

Mass stereotype.

How much international news do you think these fine upstanding young brits read?

[MadduckUK]

if they cant read the news then they cant form opinions, so they probably just think the US is where there fave "musicians" come from

[99Flake]

I thought the America WAS the world? How dare these new fangled Europeans have news!

[tigerboyce]

init

[JPreston]

Mass stereotype.

So, why'd you post it?

[awm]

Sadly true, except Americans don't really care that much about US news either. How do you think we manage to get such incompetence in Washington? Easy, we care more about Paris Hilton than who our elected leaders are.

[vicar]

True same goes for us or almost any other country, if one is going to be cynical about it all.

[awm]

To different degrees though. Americans are notoriously clueless about all things non-Hollywood. I see your point though and I'm sure I'd grumble about my fellow citizens being clueless no matter which country I live in.

[JPreston]

Speaking of ignorant americans:

"On what date did the 9/11 attacks take place?"

[Bazzlad]

So, why'd you post it?

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sat·ire (sāt'īr') Pronunciation Key
n.

1. A literary work in which human vice or folly is attacked through irony, derision, or wit.

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More taking the mickey out of people's thoughts of Americans - as a constant visitor (unless you live there I'm there more than you) I can tell you it's 100% not true.

Just like I don't wear a bowler hat. Or have manky teeth.

[kalniel]

It depends where you go and who you meet. As a visitor it's quite likely you are visiting places that are used to, well, visitors

I worked in the states for 6 months, which wasn't a huge length of time, but I saw a wide variety, even though it was a very technological and relatively multicultural San Diego. The scientists were very internationally aware - most of them were 'aliens' after all. But the 'normal' americans that I met through where I was living rather than where I worked.. I'm afraid they really were fairly stereotypical.