I recently picked a fight with a blogger* (although I think we might have reached a detente now.)I don't often do this. Normally, I make friends with other bloggers, since blogging interaction is an important part of this self-expression we call blogging - sometimes the friends we meet on the 'blogosphere' are the only people who actually read our blogs!
But this blogger pushed my buttons!
The blogger in question is actually a very fluent and compelling writer and her blog is written in a great 'stream of consciousness' style. I just hated it because her blog clearly illustrates the mindset of some Brits I've met. She is the sort of person I moved away from Britain to escape!
Her writing represents every judgemental, negative character trait traditionally associated with a miserable minority of British people. For example, when it comes to 'my kind':
"Red-headed men are surely the most unattractive male specimens on the planet at the best of times, but they look even worse with their horribly pale, freckled skin... "
Thanks, lady. Us gingers can't hear that enough.
Of course, I find this comment offensive - but I don't sweat it. Yes, I know that British men are considered unattractive in the UK. That's the basis behind the Militant Ginger blog!
Fortunately, in more civilised places like France or America, red hair can be seen as attractive, so I don't take her stupid comment to heart. I think this blogger says more about herself with that nasty opinion than anything about redheads.
Still, I guess it could be worse. Since our blogger's rants are blissfully anonymous, she could just of easily have really rocked the boat and written: 'Black men are surely the most unattractive male specimens on the planet,' or 'Asian men look even worse with their horrible yellow, hairless skin...'
She probably just doesn't want to be labelled as a judgemental, vacuous racist. So she winds up just being labeled judgemental and vacuous instead.
Still, I guess everybody's entitled to their own opinion - and as far as opinions go, she's got lots more of them. One of the others that got up my nose was:
"It's strange the way that I still get a shiver of repulsion down my spine when I hear a certain kind of English accent, normally a Southern one. I immediately think to myself "Wanker!" When I hear a southern accent, I immediately assume the person is culturally arrogant and more privileged than me, without knowing anything about them."
Since I've got a received-pronunciation English accent (what a Scottish bird might easily identify as 'southern') I took this comment personally too (just like I did with her opinion of redheaded men.)
But it's just as vacuous and judgemental as the previous rant, so I shouldn't lose any sleep over it. It just makes me sad - another typically negative 'Brit' stereotype from our opinionated blogging pal.
I think it was George Bernard Shaw who famously said: "It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him." Our blogger's clearly a proponent of that theory. Somebody speaks - so she judges them based on how their voice sounds.
One of the most refreshing things about moving to America is the absence of this 'accent assumption.' I think it's a curiously British obsession with class that immediately makes Brits judge somebody by their accent (and assume this new person is either socially inferior, 'one of them' or 'stuck up.')
This blogger's judgemental attitude illustrates one of the major difference between Brits and Americans.
For the most part, Americans are more or less confident about who they are and what their place is in the world, no matter how humble their upbringing.
A dirt poor, gun-owning, truck-driving Pennsylvania resident might feel out of place at a multi-million dollar Hampton's yacht party, but certainly wouldn't feel 'inferior' to the WASP'y guests (the Van Der Beeks and the Chuffington-Herberts.)
Instead, in Britain, we get taught to have an unhealthy obsession with how other people perceive us. There's no such thing as the 'working class' any more, but some people still have a 'working class' chip on their shoulder.
Likewise, the middle-class scramble desperately to keep up with the Jones, while their children descend the other way. Public schoolboy Charles Smythe goes to University, adopts an estuary accent and becomes 'Charlie Smith' - at least, until his parents pick him up in the Volvo at the end of term.
Whatever class niche we're born into, far too many Brits spend their lives making an upward or downward scramble out of it. It all rather sad, really.
Reading this blogger's rants and opinions, it just reinforced how pleased I was to be shot of the dark and dreary mindset of Brits like her. In the vast majority of blogs I've read, one invariably comes to like and sympathise with the author, even if you don't agree with them.
She manages to achieve the almost impossible - becoming more and more unlikeable with every blog post she writes. I find it quite astonishing really. Almost compelling. Part of me wonders, if we met face to face, whether she'd be just as unlikeable in person or whether we'd actually get on (as bizarrely sometimes happens in this sort of situation.)
In any event, I'd just like to let North American readers know that our friendly blogger is NOT typical of my countrymen (although not nearly rare enough, either.) For some much better British blogs, check out the list of links I have on the right hand side!
* her blog is here, but be warned that it is targeted towards adults and somewhat explicit in nature.
