Nationality on the internet

[isay]

When I am on the internet I tend to assume that everyone I am talking to is American or British so I am surprised when I meet someone who is Dutch or French with immaculate English. This got me thinking "Why should I be surprised?" seeing as the internet is international,simply put the questions I am asking you are:
-Do you sometimes fall into the same trap that I do and simply assume that everyone you talk to is of a similar nationality?

And more importantly:
-Can the concept of nationality be applied to something as encompassing as the internet especially with its notable lack of language boundaries?

EDIT:
Additional question the observations of Cpt_Oblivious/XKCD and riskroWe have led me to think about another question:
- In your mind, given enough time, could the internet become a nationality of its own?


(Thanks to Cpt_Oblivious for pointing out a missing word)

 

[Cpt_Oblivious]

When I am on the internet I tend to assume that everyone I am talking to is American or British so I am surprised when I meet someone who is Dutch or French with immaculate.

With immaculate what?

And as a rule: The foreigners speak better English than we do, I learned that from MMOs with the Scandinavians.

For your second question there's an XKCD comic somewhere about saying "I'm from the internet". I'll try to dig it up.
Found the Internet Nationality map.

Spoiler: Very Big

 

[teisjm]

I don't assume people are the same nationallity as me.
I'm Danish and theres only about 6 million people in Denmark.
I DO assume that the majority of people on the internet are either ass-holes or retards though. (even though they somehow seem to be a minority here on the escapits)

 

[Nmil-ek]

Being close to europe and having played games on multiple EU servers if the choice is ever available no I know the majority of people on the internet are more than likley foreign maybe thye just post in different sites or something.

 

[Nimbus]

-Do you sometimes fall into the same trap that I do and simply assume that everyone you talk to is of a similar nationality?

Nope, never.

-Can the concept of nationality be applied to something as encompassing as the internet especially with its notable lack of language boundaries?

Um... Wait, what? That dosn't really make sense. Nationality dosn't need to be "applied", it just "is".

 

[isay]

@Nimbus
The way I see nationality is that it is a way to define yourself in terms of where you are, so can you really define yourself in terms of location when you are on the internet.

 

[Cpt_Oblivious]

@Nimbus
The way I see nationality is that it is a way to define yourself in terms of where you are, so can you really define yourself in terms of location when you are on the internet.

Quote people for attention, don't use @Person.

 

[Doctor Panda]

Most of the people i interact with in real life every day aren't the same nationality as me (I'm an australian living in australia - about 1/4 of our citizens are international-born and we have a lot more than that as permanent residents, and they tend to be clustered near universities like the one i live right next to).

And if I'm on the internet I interact almost entirely with people from other countries...

BUT i think it would be naive to think that the country i was born in doesn't in some ways affect the way I act and think. Certainly my parent's generation didn't have the same completely multicultural experience I'm having now, and they're responsible for a lot of my upbringing. I imagine the more these tools allow us to interact with people who are geographically distant, the less important the concept of nationality will be - my kids will be exposed to ME who was exposed to more vaired stuff you see...

 

[Bobbovski]

No, I usually don't know/care what nationality an internet person belongs to at least if the conversation is written in english. The only time I might make assumptions about a person's nationality is if they write proper Swedish (I'm Swedish myself), then I usually assume they're Swedes.

 

[riskroWe]

The internet has become its own nation; with no government, no national language, no boundaries, no armed forces, no land claims, and the biggest population the world has ever seen.

 

[Cpt_Oblivious]

The internet has become its own nation; with no government, no national language, no boundaries, no armed forces, no land claims, and the biggest population the world has ever seen.

I've put the map into the first reply.

 

[rainman2203]

I don't let nationality figure into my thoughts of online people until I get to know them. Until then, everyone is equally igornant in my eyes.

 

[The Infamous Scamola]

I'm Italian and even I tend to assume that everybody is either American or British.

 

[Bibliomancer]

I'm never surprised at the extent that non-Americans or denizens of the U.K can speak English. Americans generally can't speak nearly as many foreign languages as those in other countries can. I can speak English (obviously) and enough Spanish to get by, but nothing beyond that. I'm always impressed when I meet people from Europe of somewhere that can speak 4 or 5 different languages.

 

[RedVelvet]

I used to get that a lot ^_^ Everyone was like: You're Flemish? D : Because I was typing fluently in English. But hey, it's the internet. I was once shocked to see a video I posted on youtube to be most popularly watched in Kazakhstan

 

[gdnvs]

Considering I'm Dutch it would be a bit odd if I assume everyone else is dutch. But whenever I play an online game I ussually play European servers, so I assume everyone is German and I'm almost always right.

 

[Time Travelling Toaster]

Nope not really as I've seen very few people that I thought were from a particular area in the world and some of the people on the Escapist are very fluent so that lends credence to never assuming

 

[HentMas]

being i am Mexican, i sometimes asume the mayority in the internet is from the US, but i have being wrong several times, even more when they are commenting about the "illegal Mexican inmigrants" and are not even from the US... that and i like chocolate!!

 

[Acidoctor]

No, I usually don't know/care what nationality an internet person belongs to at least if the conversation is written in english. The only time I might make assumptions about a person's nationality is if they write proper Swedish (I'm Swedish myself), then I usually assume they're Swedes.

Don't forget us, the finnish people. We talk swedish too... well... some of us.

 

[RedVelvet]

Considering I'm Dutch it would be a bit odd if I assume everyone else is dutch. But whenever I play an online game I ussually play European servers, so I assume everyone is German and I'm almost always right.

Depends on what game you're playing. I used to play the Euro servers of Knight Online and I played on Shattered hand on Wow. So I assume everyone is either respectively Turkish or Swedish