Does anyone else get the impression that Americans think they created the internet, that it is American and that only they use it? I keep coming across content on the web made by Americans which uses phrases like ‘the country’, ‘the government’ and ‘us’ which seems to assume that it will be consumed by other Americans. Before now, of course, I’ve just let it slide; but for the last few months it has really began to get on my nerves. It seems extraordinarily arrogant for them to just assume that the internet is American, or an American invention. After all, the web was created by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, a Brit. It had very little to do with America, and far, far more people across the world use the web than just Americans, so why do they speak as though they are only talking to other Americans? I suppose it goes back to what I was saying here a few weeks ago about Star Trek and American exceptionalism: now that the USA is no longer the mighty democratic utopia it always took itself to be, for Americans to stick so stubbornly to the attitude that their country is greater and more important than all others, looks increasingly arrogant and out of place.