In Poland, there is a LARP group that roleplays as contemporary Americans

https://twitter.com/PenBercifield/status/1530466376204398592

by doener • 4 years ago

197 99 4 years ago

twitter.com

rightbyte• 4 years ago

Huh? There is no end to how niche subcultures people can invent to have a club/community.

mauvehaus• 4 years ago

Ohioan by birth. I'll give it to them.

selimthegrim4• 4 years ago

Seconding (also an Ohio native). The woman with the Ohio State top, the one with the Browns jersey guy sitting down in the background and the arrest were gold.

scruple• 4 years ago

That Tim Couch jersey is really the best photo in the bunch. I'm originally from southeastern Ohio but I was born in Pittsburgh. A Steelers fan living in Ohio notices these sorts of details. If I happened to be back home in Ohio for some reason and I ran into that guy on the street, we'd strike up a short conversation for sure. Whether by accident or on purpose, Browns jersey guy nailed it.

throw93232• 4 years ago

Poland is quite influenced by US, down to using american accent in spoken English. Neighbours are more influenced by UK.

docdeek• 4 years ago

I always thought the accents in English were driven less by country and more by specific teachers. In France I taught a lot of college students in English and their accents varied a lot depending on who had taught them English. Some had perfect British accents, others clearly American.

tjoff• 4 years ago

In countries that do not dub their movies/TV (which I think both Poland and France do?) I imagine that has a huge influence.

And today probably even more so from youtube/twitch/tiktok/etc.

RicoElectrico• 4 years ago

It surely is, the infatuation in the 1990s must have been insane. I think Polish employers' treatment of workers is a product of that and high unemployment of that period. "Januszex" mentality is still going strong.

rvba• 4 years ago

Netflix drives the accents nowadays.

jccalhoun• 4 years ago

My Polish friends lived in the USA for a decade but there were still times that they definitely had some UK pronunciations on words.

danielEM2• 4 years ago

I think our teachers teach British English, American English is at most a side note during classes. No offense or so, but British sound to me personally like something that requires more effort thus kind of more "??sexy??" - if you know what I mean

orangepurple5• 4 years ago

This was not true before the 2000s. British English was predominant, and may still be.

Semaphor4• 4 years ago

From the linked facebook page [0], translated with deepl:

Larp 4 th of July is a morality drama about the lost American dream. It is a story about hope, about a small homeland, about searching for one's place in the community.
On July 4, 1776, the United States of America declared independence. Newcomers from the Old Continent wanted to create a new state in America, built on democracy, freedom and equality. For decades, millions of people driven by the American dream were drawn to this beautiful country to finally become somebody, regardless of their birth or social class.
More than two hundred years later, many Americans are living under different conditions than the nation's founding fathers imagined. Barely making ends meet, they strive to be family members and worthy Americans, despite poverty and exclusion. Though they live on the margins of society, their home - a small town cluttered with caravans and cottages wobbling in the wind - is for them the essence of 'the land of the free and the home of the brave'. This is a story about them.

[0] https://www.facebook.com/4thofJulyLarp

sdoering• 4 years ago

Thanks for sharing. It gives more depth to the images and tells the story behind those images better imho than just the Twitter feed.

I did fantasy LARP in my late teens till my early thirties. And when organizing cons we would often have an underlying subtle theme that aimed for societal issues.

But this shoots our meager things way out of the water.

Semaphor4• 4 years ago

If you want more, there is [0] a background PDF. But with 13 pages it’s over the limits of the free version of Deepl, so you’d have to translate it piecemeal ;)

[0] https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DTQg-17wEJCFQqK4I9xfyEQgI5a...

decremental2• 4 years ago

It's funny how clear things are from the outside when you're not exposed to American propaganda.

nyolfen• 4 years ago

this is perhaps one of the most mainstream narratives about america present in media and writing

azinman2• 4 years ago

Can you expand on this more?

FooBarBizBazz• 4 years ago

It sounds like the "man, are we glad we didn't emigrate" club.

...

This is America

Don't catch you slippin' now

Look what I'm whippin' now

This is America (Woo)

[...]

Grandma told me

Get your money [...]

usrn• 4 years ago

Everyone calling it "the land of opportunity" has no idea how expensive living inside is now and how little opportunity there really is. You might make a lot (although only if you are part of the PMC, laborers don't make enough to live which is why so many have dropped out and there's a "shortage" despite a surplus of unemployed men) but it nearly all goes to rent.

pessimizer• 4 years ago

Somebody with a facebook account needs to tell them that "caravan" is British English. We say "RV." "Cottages" is a bit dicey, too. To Americans, a cottage sounds fancy.

edit: didn't register that this was an autotranslation...

synergyS• 4 years ago

Hahaha omg is this real, hilarious - where can I see more?

orangepurple5• 4 years ago

Ohio

popcalc• 4 years ago

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.167402419028199&ty...

trompetenaccoun2• 4 years ago

Amazing. I wonder if they speak English too, I'd love to join.

Detected at one fail at least though, these are clearly Europeans: https://i.imgur.com/lw0ujOG.jpg

culopatin2• 4 years ago

What does LARP stand for?

danielrpa• 4 years ago

Live Action Role Playing

culopatin2• 4 years ago

Thanks!

timbit42• 4 years ago

Teach a man to fish...

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=LARP

0des• 4 years ago

There was already a correct answer but you have to try to be cute. What sense does that make?

sandworm1012• 4 years ago

Cool, but they need better props. Where are the guns? Surely someone in Poland owns a pickup truck. They also look far too healthy.

Canada has a thriving American larping community too: Alberta. Also Vancouver, but that is mostly US celebs pretending to still be in america, which is cheating imho.

wrzuteczka• 4 years ago

All pickup trucks in Poland have been sent to Ukraine and are now used by the Ukrainian Territorial Defense Forces

orangepurple5• 4 years ago

Poland is seizing private property and sending it to Ukraine? Yikes!

cmrdporcupine4• 4 years ago

I mean, I'm from Alberta originally and I trash it all the time, but you shouldn't tar the whole province with the same brush. It's mostly just rural and southern areas and the smaller cities (Red Deer, etc.) that this stereotype comes from. Take a look at a provincial election results map for Edmonton, it's almost all orange.

Also, historically southern Alberta was settled by Americans while central/north by Ukrainians, Germans, and Brits. Where I grew up rural west of Edmonton was more blue collar and small mixed farms and predominantly Ukrainian descent, and the whole stereotype of country music and cowboys didn't reflect my reality. It was more perogies and polka than rodeo and yee-haw. Though that stuff sorta came into the picture later.

light_hue_1• 4 years ago

Eh. Friends from Alberta like to say this. But the reality is that almost every district in both Calgary and Edmonton is held by conservatives and has been for decades. The picture is far less rosy (Hah!) than you're making it out to be.

sandworm1012• 4 years ago

Edmonton is the SF or NYC of alberta. Go to the northern half of the province. Good luck finding a driveway without a pickup truck. I was there for two months before is saw another 2-door non-muscle car.

orangepurple5• 4 years ago

There is not enough tailgating (party) action. No drinking out of the back of a pickup truck. No kegs in sight. Not a single dually. No Bud or Miller beer cans punctured with a 12 inch hunting knife being chugged out of their side. No wine bags hanging off tree branches with trashed sorority girls slapping them. No McDonalds or KFC visible on any tables. No chips either. Nothing has bullet holes in it. Needs more squatted trucks, donks, homeless encampments, choppers, fentanyl, heroin, cocaine, meth, weed, cigars and gang activity. It's too unrealistic.

scotty79• 4 years ago

beer cans punctured with a 12 inch hunting knife being chugged out of their side

What's up with that? Why would anyone do that?

orangepurple5• 4 years ago

I almost forgot a few things: large white styrofoam drinking cups, lean/purple drank with promethazine (thanks for reminding me, Mike Jones), "grillz", and huge gold chains worn around the neck reaching down to the waistband.

kylehotchkiss2• 4 years ago

Throw in a camo hat and yeti branded goods.

dang• 4 years ago

Please don't take HN threads into nationalistic (or regionalistic) flamewar. Last thing we need here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

zach_garwood• 4 years ago

None of them are fat enough to convincingly pull off American. We're a portly bunch.

totetsu• 4 years ago

Living in Japan, every time I see video from someone's phone from some American street, all I can think of wow, everyone one is so big. There's not even a mix, everyone is just big.

daniel-cussen• 4 years ago

In California it's different, to see the American footballs (tiny head tiny feet everything in between gets bigger and is biggest in the middle) you have to be like...in certain wings of hospitals I saw some folks at that weight. Yeah I remember perfectly, fattest I had seen in my whole life, looked like upright blimps. So some parts of hospitals, and also...downtown Walmart, though there they're not in such bad shape, unless they're in a cart.

But mostly you don't see them, they stay at home watching those with the opposite weight disorder so they look good on the interface between the famished and the gorged...the TV. I went to a lot of castings and the women who really got work looked skeletonized, you have to look bad to look good on TV.

trompetenaccoun2• 4 years ago

More like not self-hating enough.

macinjosh3• 4 years ago

Euros wishing they were Americans. Sounds about right.

iqkznnft3• 4 years ago

You had to go and make a nasty comment.

You know, EU and US have many cultural differences, but the commonalities are more important. We are freedom loving societies and we created the Western world together. When you look at the big picture, comments from people like you, who want us divided, are really rounding errors.

macinjosh3• 4 years ago

Looks to me like they are mocking poor uneducated Americans. That's being nasty. Making fun of "White trash" might be entertaining to you and them but to me it is bigoted and hateful.

nsxwolf2• 4 years ago

Except for American flags I don’t find any of this recognizable.

ianleeclark• 4 years ago

And to me, it reminds me of home. It probably depends where you've spent most of your time in the country.

enobrev• 4 years ago

Sent this to a few Ohioan friends and they promptly and proudly replied that the LARPers nailed it.

nsxwolf2• 4 years ago

Do Ohioans have boxing matches in the forest?

dubswithus• 4 years ago

Good effort but I don't think anyone from Ohio wears chelsea boots.

selimthegrim4• 4 years ago

I have, just not when I’m in Ohio.

dontbenebby• 4 years ago

Do they carry red cups? I bought some after dropping the pint glass I use for drinking cold water, but apparently they were redesigned.

(I've actually never been to Poland, got the sense hosteling in the EU that folks have a very warped view of Americans... we usually just have a few bottles of Yuengling and watch Die Hard, not shoot an AR-15 in the air and launch salvos at our neighbors.)

This is funny, except for the one getting faux arrested.

(I used to read about your not so secret police during in school suspensions, because I'm autistic.)

influx• 4 years ago

The Eastern Europeans who came to visit me in the USA wanted to try two things: Red Solo Cups and Smores.

krapp• 4 years ago

Smores I understand, but red Solo cups are literally just cheap plastic cups.

karaterobot• 4 years ago

My first reaction was to be mildly bothered by the overwrought stereotypes on display. On second thought, having lived in rural America for most of my life, I can verify that this is about as accurate to life in rural America as most LARPs I've been in are to life in medieval Europe. That is: fantasy unencumbered by research. As in all things, I hope it's done out of curiosity and not with a sneer at people's misfortune, but fair play.

trgn• 4 years ago

sneer at people's misfortune,

I wouldn't be surprised if this is mixed in. People love to see the mighty fall. I was surprised how much of the throwaway news filler in Europe is about random Florida-man stuff.

Although, to me, it seems like the main motivational force for this is "nostalgie de la boue", a desire to participate in trashy low-life culture. It has positive connotations too; a temporary freedom from mores and responsibilities of civic life. Mardi gras, music festivals, St Patrick's day, ... they all are an opportunity to let loose.

Toutouxc• 4 years ago

I was surprised how much of the throwaway news filler in Europe is about random Florida-man stuff.

I'd guess that that's mostly because the Joe from Florida is both far, far away (so they can publish unverifiable bullshit) but also culturally adjacent and his exploits or misfortune more relatable than, say, a guy from Uruguay or Vietnam. Also you wouldn't believe how many trash articles start with "American scientists".

morbicer• 4 years ago

Well LARPing is about fun. The stereotypes displayed are pretty tame. Real life could be stranger than fiction. Pennsylvanian church worshipping AR-15s https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/03/01/589808670...

the__alchemist• 4 years ago

From Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash:

McDonald's is Home, condensed into a three-ring binder and xeroxed. “No surprises” is the motto of the franchise ghetto, its Good Housekeeping seal, subliminally blazoned on every sign and logo that make up the curves and grids of light that outline the Basin.
The people of America, who live in the world's most surprising and terrible country, take comfort in that motto. Follow the loglo outward, to where the growth is enfolded into the valleys and the canyons, and you find the land of the refugees. They have fled from the true America, the America of atomic bombs, scalpings, hip-hop, chaos theory, cement overshoes, snake handlers, spree killers, space walks, buffalo jumps, drive-bys, cruise missiles; Sherman's March, gridlock, motorcycle gangs, and bungee jumping. They have parallel-parked their bimbo boxes in identical computer-designed Burbclave street patterns and secreted themselves in symmetrical sheetrock shitholes with vinyl floors and ill-fitting woodwork and no sidewalks, vast house farms out in the loglo wilderness, a culture medium for a medium culture.

scyzoryk_xyz2• 4 years ago

LARP-ing is becoming incredibly popular here in Poland it would seem.

I have some acquaintances who do a very involved War in Vietnam LARP with several dozen guys going out to Polish mountains for a week or two to pretend they're U.S. Military. It's very important to them, lots of attention to detail, lots of rules on how to stay in character.

It's fascinating to see Americans' reactions to these things. I don't think collectively Americans seem to notice the extent to which their culture has inundated the world, especially places like Poland where USA obsession is rooted in the 1980's and 1990's.

chiph• 4 years ago

When I visited Belgium a few years ago, one of the things that really stood out to me was all the ads for American media and brands. Netflix, Marvel movies, Patagonia clothing, and more. It had been 25 years since the last time I visited Europe (a business trip to Bavaria) and the change was really remarkable.

I now understand Rammstein's Amerika better.

paganel• 4 years ago

Even when visiting Western Europe coming from the Eastern part of the continent one can very easily have the same impression. For example I find that France is quite obsessed with the US and, dare I say, it also has a small inferiority complex (which, in a way, the US also holds when it comes to France). All the daily action now for young people happens just outside the cities/towns, where you have all those hyper-markets and fast-food joints, similar to the “spirit of the Mall” that came from the States. NBA is also pretty big, no wonder Tony Parker has become such a star.

Northern Italy is pretty similar, for example LeBron had lived there for a while and was an AC Milan fan, there’s commercialization of everything, a feeling of “you don’t really live if you’re not shopping”, that sort of stuff.

Again, the US holds its own Europe-related inferiority complexes, that’s why I think this cultural dynamic between Western Europe and the States is pretty interesting.

szatkus• 4 years ago

Couple years ago there was a Worms LARP in Poland. Yes, the game. People dressed up as worms, there were rules about movement in each turn, throwing granades etc.

raxxorraxor• 4 years ago

Is there another group that is LARP-ing as Viet Cong?

scyzoryk_xyz2• 4 years ago

No opponent actually, only jungle-like military operation.

montefischer• 4 years ago

Casual boxing rings in forests at night with suit-and-tied refs seem to belong more to the old, weird America of Desolation Row than the worn out Walmartland of today.

kylehotchkiss2• 4 years ago

This reminds me of that show Duck Dynasty where a family, against all odds, accomplished the American dream and spent all their earnings on like pickup trucks and not moving to a place with more opportunities

marton78• 4 years ago

Searched for "cultural appropriation", found nothing. Wow!

In Poland, there is a LARP group that roleplays as contemporary Americans

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