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You know, I see quite a few of these YouTube videos where Americans compare stuff to what happens in Australia. It is not these that peak my interest, but rather that the global Americanisation is so ubiquitous. Everything about modern life is largely the same in the western world. Have a think about the computer age and where that originated. The internet and social media are American inventions. Smart phones are a big part of this and they too are a US innovation. Beyond this, to more prosaic trends and think about working out, bigger muscles and tattoos. These too, are American cultural shifts, which occurred over the last couple of decades.
The Americanisation Of Your Life
The aesthetic obsession with white teeth has come to us via Hollywood and screen vanity. Dentists have driven this and extended it to having perfect, straight, white teeth. That could be a parallel with another American theme, thinking perfection is being straight and white. The ubiquity of all these cultural trends has been achieved via the digitization of everything. Seeing these influencers online and spending 10 hours a day watching screens has rapidly advanced this Americanisation. Fashion has long been led by America, especially for the youth. Pop music, movies, video games, clothes, and celebrity glamour are all American led in many ways.
American Capitalism Exported
Many of the shops you visit are all the same due to the extreme concentration of corporate power via mergers and takeovers. Monopolies and duopolies are prevalent in every sector. Governments have failed in their remit to protect competition for consumers. They have been bought off by vested interests and lobbyists. Shareholders are king and CEOs and boards feather their own nests via stock buybacks to create a billionaire factory. Private equity and asset managers rule the world in the 21C. These are all American business initiatives, which have been exported across the globe. The fact that workers are way down the list of priorities for these companies follows on from these Wall St driven behaviours. Less competition means both consumers and workers get shafted by American capitalism. Now, we are seeing Trump crony capitalism reaching new heights in corruption and kleptocracy.
Trump’s America
Donald Trump is a convicted felon, elected President by 76 million Americans. Disregard for law and order is now another American proclivity, especially when it serves partisan advancement. White supremacy is back in Vogue, not that it ever really went away. It had just spent a little while underground. Racial profiling is coming back in a big way by law enforcement in America. Anti-immigration is being promulgated by white supremacists and neo-Nazis like Elon Musk and others online. Musk has 200 million followers on X. If you cannot trust the judicial system in your own country as a citizen you are f*****! If the DOJ, DHS and FBI are all in the hands of corrupt extremists you have little hope of receiving free and fair treatment.
American Multinationals Pay Bugger All Tax Downunder
The Americanisation of our lives is not only skin deep, as it runs further than that. Our own governments are bullied and coerced into enacting things like tax laws which favour American multinationals operating in our countries. Big Tech does not pay its fair share of corporate tax, as it shifts profits to tax havens to avoid paying tax where it operates. Google, Apple, Microsoft, Meta, Uber and Amazon all do this, ripping off Australian governments and tax payers to the tune of tens of billions of dollars per year. Many young folk and old blithely utilise these digital services filling their coffers with money but are ignorant of this reality. Pepsi and News Corp also avoid paying corporate tax vie this sneaky shifting of profits to low taxing havens. The rest of us workers pay our income tax every year. Big companies do not pay their fair share of tax.
The Americanisation Of The AFL & Sports Betting
If the entertainments and programs you watch are American or Americanised they are filling your head with cultural assumptions. Sport is beloved downunder, but we are seeing the AFL and NRL copying American sports in how they operate and promote the game. The very idea of team sports with names like the Tigers etc came from America around the start of the 20C. The new head of the AFL seems to be a copycat rather than an innovator in his handling of this billion dollar sport. Corporate bookmakers and online sports gambling are another American led behemoth shitting on our sport and TV screens. Kids growing up thinking that betting on sport is the new normal is the outcome.
American Fast Food & Home Deliveries
Everywhere you go and look, you see an Americanised vision, which charges you a subscription or a fee – user pays. Fast foods are an American innovation too. Maccas, KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, Hungry Jacks/Burger King, Wendys, and the list goes on. Drive throughs and home deliveries are all American inventions as well. Obesity is rife downunder and endemic in the United States. Sugary soft drinks/soda in extra large sizes, burgers and fries, refined sugar, salt and fat in everything – these are recipes for unhealthy dietary outcomes. Add in Uber Eats home deliveries and not getting up off your arse and walking to the shop and you have an America tidal wave of bad health outcomes.
Sedentary Living A Modern American Invention
We sit on our arses behind desks at work or behind the wheel in our vehicles, and then on the couch in front of a screen at home. We might feed our faces with takeaway food whilst watching streaming services. You might drink premixed cans of spirits and soda, like bourbon and coke etc. These are all American conceptions. Do you ever get the feeling that you are living in an American dream or nightmare, depending upon your perspective? Your dress, diet, entertainment, shopping, job, digital money, insurance, tribal sporting affiliation, aesthetic sense, social media, shares, and attitude to life more generally have all been largely defined by America. The state of your health could well have, also, been influenced or impacted by all or some of these things.
AUKUS and becoming the tacit 51st state of the USA means that we are onboard this American bus whether we like it or not. The world is run by big business and not so much by governments, especially in this era of zombie neoliberalism. Hot dog with mustard anyone?
“In a new poll of 2,045 people conducted by Australia-China Relations Institute at the University of Technology Sydney, 54% said they were concerned about US interference in Australia, a jump of nearly 20 points since 2021.
This narrows the gap with the level of concern about interference from China and Russia, which has steadied around 64%.”
Truth Social Propaganda
“Authoritarians and their regimes like to spell shit out for their subjects. Some of you older folk may remember that the USSR had a news organisation/newspaper called Pravda. This was the official platform of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Pravda meant truth and many of us in the west used to roll our eyes at what passed for truth and facts over there. Now, we have Truth Social and Donald Trump in America. The parallels are pretty frightening in this post-truth world. The thing is that people are getting dumber and that naming something like this is enough for the unquestioning among us. Irony is a rare commodity in the United States in the 21C, perhaps more so than these rare earths the Donald goes on about so often. Propaganda folks! “
Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of What Price Life?; America Matters: Pre-apocalyptic Posts & Essays in the Shadow of Trump; and other titles. NOW AVAILABLE AT APPLE BOOKS & GOOGLE PLAY BOOKS. Google Play Books AUDIOBOOK
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