A lot of these things haven't happened to me, probably because I started in online fandom later (I think) and I'm not actually in America-centric fandoms that often, but I'm really horrified to hear they happened to you. Posting in the wrong time zone - WTF.
I can, however, really agree that fandom often gets very US/possibly also Canada-centric, to the detriment of non-US fans. A discussion I remember about this recently was about how some fandoms (in this case it was vidding fandom, I believe) are very centred on a particular big con where all the important and interesting things happen and anyone who wants to be anyone goes there... and that this is of course completely dismissive of fans outside North America who would have to shell thousands of Euros/other large amount of the currency of their choice to get there.
God, I'm trying to get this comment into a semblance of order and get some more examples out there, but it's difficult because I've never really talked about these things before. And my brain keeps going "but those are just LITTLE things!" when I think about things like use of the term "grammar/spelling/etc. nazi" (when, you know, I'm German and "nazi" is a friendship-ending insult for me) or assumptions about availability of canon, or silly things like the whole "Fifth Amendment!" or "Freedom of Speech!", or Veterans' Day, or...
And of course I'm still relatively well off, because I lived part of my childhood in the US and am therefore both a sort-of native speaker (although I do have an accent in speech nowadays) and get more of the US-specific stuff than someone who's never been there.
ETA: Incidentally, I see all of this a lot more and a lot more blatantly in *ism discussions - I only realised just how much I'd been used to the /specifically American/ feminism discussions when I ran across a German-speaking feminist blog and suddenly saw things being talked about that were relevant to me but a complete nonissue in English-speaking feminist discussions. And then I realised that somehow I'd come away from those discussions with the unconscious belief that feminism in the US was at the forefront of feminism worldwide and feminist movements in the other countries were lagging "behind" somehow, and that all the interesting feminist discussions must be happening in English. And... I know where that belief came from. This is less to do with fandom and more to do with feminist blogs, but I *do* see this kind of attitude in fandom as well.
no subject
I can, however, really agree that fandom often gets very US/possibly also Canada-centric, to the detriment of non-US fans. A discussion I remember about this recently was about how some fandoms (in this case it was vidding fandom, I believe) are very centred on a particular big con where all the important and interesting things happen and anyone who wants to be anyone goes there... and that this is of course completely dismissive of fans outside North America who would have to shell thousands of Euros/other large amount of the currency of their choice to get there.
God, I'm trying to get this comment into a semblance of order and get some more examples out there, but it's difficult because I've never really talked about these things before. And my brain keeps going "but those are just LITTLE things!" when I think about things like use of the term "grammar/spelling/etc. nazi" (when, you know, I'm German and "nazi" is a friendship-ending insult for me) or assumptions about availability of canon, or silly things like the whole "Fifth Amendment!" or "Freedom of Speech!", or Veterans' Day, or...
And of course I'm still relatively well off, because I lived part of my childhood in the US and am therefore both a sort-of native speaker (although I do have an accent in speech nowadays) and get more of the US-specific stuff than someone who's never been there.
ETA: Incidentally, I see all of this a lot more and a lot more blatantly in *ism discussions - I only realised just how much I'd been used to the /specifically American/ feminism discussions when I ran across a German-speaking feminist blog and suddenly saw things being talked about that were relevant to me but a complete nonissue in English-speaking feminist discussions. And then I realised that somehow I'd come away from those discussions with the unconscious belief that feminism in the US was at the forefront of feminism worldwide and feminist movements in the other countries were lagging "behind" somehow, and that all the interesting feminist discussions must be happening in English. And... I know where that belief came from. This is less to do with fandom and more to do with feminist blogs, but I *do* see this kind of attitude in fandom as well.