In which Jonathan Bradley reminds me why I busted my guts for three years to get a US book deal.

“I’m also not American, and that will always leave me liable to be a footnote. On the internet, people read the New York Times, not the Sydney Morning Herald. They talk about what was on NBC, not what was on Channel 9. They read Pitchfork, and its opinions on bands from Brooklyn, not Faster Louder and its opinions of bands from Newtown. And it matters more when a Newtown band is on Pitchfork than when a Brooklyn band is on Faster Louder. And, yes, there are Australian websites for all these things. But they are defined by their exception. Pitchfork is for a general audience. Australian sites — sites for an entire nation, as real as America — are a niche interest.”

Read the whole thing here.

In short, just as white-ness, male-ness and straight-ness render you “neutral,” so does American-ness. 

Back when I was shopping my book around a couple of years ago, a lovely agent (lovely because they bothered to respond with substantial feedback) wrote back to me to say that while they thought my proposal was “smart and original” and “probably right,” it would be difficult to sell because, as a non-American, I wouldn’t have the same understanding of US dating culture as a native would. I wasn’t particularly bothered, as I’d signed with another agent just the day before, but I found interesting the assumption that “outsiders” couldn’t possibly understand US culture (despite the fact that, as Jonathan writes in his post, we grow up surrounded by it), US culture is sold to us as neutral. No one worries whether Ariel Levy or Jessica Valenti or Hanna Rosin could possibly understand Australia or Canada or the UK - at least, not to same degree. It is just assumed that their insights are universal.

But that’s hegemony for you - and that’s why I spent at least a year longer working on my proposal than I otherwise would have, in order to sell to the publisher than I did. Because on the internet especially, the conversations I’m most interested in take place on American cyber-soil; in publications like the New York Times, Salon, The Atlantic, Slate, The New Yorker, Feministing, Jezebel, and NYMag. And being part of that conversation in a non-niche way means being in America: if not literally (although I will probably move there next year, albeit more for emotional reasons than for professional ones - because I can’t shake the feeling that NYC might be my “soul city”), then at least virtually.

That said, I wonder how much US cultural dominance stems from confidence. The fact that it markets itself as culturally neutral. I can think of Australian publications that are just as good as their US counterparts, and indeed which I think could compete with them easily if they marketed themselves as being for a “global” (read: English-speaking) audience, rather than solely - or primarily - for an Australian one. I understand this doesn’t work so well from a commercial perspective, though. That while going global might increase your influence, diluting the national audience is a turn-off to advertisers. 

Related: On not being in America: notes from beyond the centre of the universe.
A tale of three cities.

Elsewhere: “To be American on the internet might be like what it is to be anglophone in the world.” (Screw Rock'n'Roll)
English is a dialect with an army. (The Atlantic)

75 notes
  1. nerd-bird-blog reblogged this from freshmouthgoddess
  2. nezua reblogged this from freshmouthgoddess and added:
    Fascinating stuff. I read all the links. Love thoughts on language, power, culture, war.
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  4. trixibelle reblogged this from freshmouthgoddess and added:
    The same could be said for Tumblr.
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