Your question isn't worded very well. Are you saying we were colonised by Americans, or vice versa?
I'll give my take, regardless. The U.S. became the dominant world economic and military power following the Second World War. Many of the world's advanced nations were practically destroyed, but the U.S. came out pretty well; I believe at one point they owned over half of the world's wealth. Though we are loathe to admit it, the UK has been beholden to the whims of U.S. power since then, to the point we're referred to as a "general" or "junior partner".
Independent movements, even those that successfully displaced the Nazis before anyone else managed to get a look in, were crushed and deposed by "liberal" Allies. In the case of the Italian partisans and others, this sometimes even meant restoring old fascist collaborators. The European Union itself was largely financed by the U.S. to sway us toward their economic model. This was reflected militarily in NATO.
With all this comes the means to heavily propagandise the world. When you have no choice but to follow the lead of the dominant economic power, it makes sense that media will begin to narrow and certain worldviews will become consensus. It's curiously rare to find any substantive criticism of the U.S. economic or foreign policy; at most we can criticise their healthcare or legal systems, and even then generally in a cursory way.
The same goes for cultural media, as well. I'm less clear on how this happened, but roughly by the same economic-driven means as the above. Everyone wants to make money in the U.S., transatlantic companies buy the license for tried-and-true entertaining American media alongside increasingly diminishing local stuff. It's hard to underestimate how big an impact television had over the course of several generations. British people may know about great BBC dramas, and each respective country may have their beloved local favourites, but everyone of a certain age across Europe will probably recognise Dallas. Generally, the UK punches well above its weight in terms of publishing literature, but that's partly down to our elite university system, and ironically partly due to American snobbery which associates the "old world" with sophistication.
Finally, it goes without saying that the internet is essentially an American creation. Before techlads start jumping down my throat, of course other countries developed the same tech but our version of the internet is derived from the old ARPANET. Microsoft, Google, YouTube, and Facebook are American companies.
Now I'm not saying that no cultures exist aside from U.S. culture, but there's a reason I can flip on Netflix and watch American shows in virtually every country I've been to. Up until a few years ago, maybe, I probably would have been able to bring up American films and get at least a passing recognition of what I was talking about. When I hear people speaking English in Europe, the accent isn't British, but American. We even identify ourselves in a cultural bloc we call "Western".
>>447565 What I tried to ask was why does the American culture differ so significantly to British, assuming that the United States were originally a string of British colonies.
So I suppose with this newfound possition in the world, media capabilities and a driving principle of wealth and profit, such stuff as tea and crumpets took a back seat in the common conciousness.
The people in America for the most part didn't want to be British, as evidenced by the revolution. You'd likely be looked on as a bit weird for carrying on the customs of the overlords you just fought off, right?
>>447567 They weren't just British colonies and there have been many waves of immigration from other countries too. Then there's the whole passage of time thing too.
I feel like American influence is waning in this regard. Their biggest strength and their biggest weakness is their religious devotion to the good word of Capital.
As the global tides shift, the American state has effectively lost control over what it actually uses its soft power for. Silicon Valley is beholden to nobody, much to the chagrin of American politicians, both liberal and conservative. The big Hollywood films are all blatantly aimed at China now, because that's the biggest, juiciest market.
We're rapidly entering a period where global commerce is more powerful than the strongest governments. Some would argue it already is. But I think what that means is we're living through the end times of patriotism and the concept of a distinct national identity.
Of course we'll always have our cups of tea, big ben and memes about how far away the toilets are in Spoons, but that's not a culture, is it. The same applies in the states. The things we identify with as our cultural touchstones are much shallower today than in the past- In all other regards, our actual way of life is interchangeable with a German, or an American, or an Australian, or a Japanese. There's a few oddities to each of them but beyond that, it's all largely the same cycle of going to work, eating processed foods, watching telly and shitposting online.
>>447567 Sorry mate but I think this is a silly question. You're asking why two populations that were once whole might seem different if you divorce them from each other and let them develop independently over three or four centuries? Would you really expect them to be identical?
Even then our cultures are still incredibly similar, at least moreso than we'd like to admit.
>>447584 >Sorry mate but I think this is a silly question.
I should have gone ahead to realise the same of Australia, too. I still feel there is some interesting quality to it, like tracking the significant changes and how or why they occured, but you're right - i put very little thought into it.
>>447569 I saw something once that said more Americans have German heritage than British heritage. It's just pure luck that they happen to speak normal instead of foreign.
>>447602 You basically never hear an American identify as having English, the only people I've seen proudly talk about their English roots are Mormons who are almost definitely using it as a whiteness credential.
I'm not sure that British culture was lost in the US.
In-fact the US colonists took the best bits of British culture -- democratic representation, property rights, freedom of speech, presumption of innocence, common law -- improved on the concepts and encoded them into their constitution.
If the US had taken (say) continental European (Catholic) culture instead, then it would now look more like South America...
Americans actually retained a stronger connection to their English roots than we did. The same happens across colonial societies, the outside other and isolation enforce a stronger adherence to the mother countries identity and customs.
They're very English but it's the English that had a civil war and banned Christmas.
>>447574 >Of course we'll always have our cups of tea, big ben and memes about how far away the toilets are in Spoons, but that's not a culture, is it. The same applies in the states. The things we identify with as our cultural touchstones are much shallower today than in the past- In all other regards, our actual way of life is interchangeable with a German, or an American, or an Australian, or a Japanese. There's a few oddities to each of them but beyond that, it's all largely the same cycle of going to work, eating processed foods, watching telly and shitposting online.
This is barnacles. You don't recognise your culture because you live in it so when life gives you lemons you just think of it as routine that you make lemonade but for others it just isn't. Japanese people are completely mental but even your Aussie is a curtain-twitching lunatic.
Nationalism has repeatedly been declared dead but it blows liberalism the fuck out every time the two come to blows.
>>447616 This kind of logic is daft, it presumes there's nothing wrong with South America and the various peoples merely lack agency.
Even that was the CIA. A lot of South American drug rings were established by the CIA directly in order to import their product into the USA, thereby providing funding off the books for their black ops.
I have seen it argued that there is a direct causal link between the CIA's regime change activities in the 70s and 80s, with the drug and gang violence epidemics amongst black communities in the 90s and onwards.
>>447626 I've "seen it argued" that the CIA invented crack to oppress black people. But that's generally regarded as a conspiracy theory that did not happen.
It's a matter of historical fact that the CIA were directly involved in large-scale drug trafficking. It's also a matter of historical fact that the FBI engaged in a decades-long campaign of illegal repression of domestic political groups under the COINTELPRO campaign, with black rights groups being a primary target.
The extent of the CIA's involvement in the drug trade is the subject of dispute and the idea of a deliberate conspiracy against black people is a bit of a stretch, but it's not completely insane.
It doesn't have to be a deliberate conspiracy, that's honestly a complete non-sequitur leap to make from what >>447626 said. The crack epidemic in black communities was almost certainly just collateral damage as far as the security agencies were concerned, but it was nevertheless related.
There's basically no pie the American intelligence agencies haven't at least tried to stick their fingers in for the last 70 years or so. In some cases they've been successful, in others not so much. Sometimes their actions appear to defy all logic- Being powerful doesn't always imply competent. But either way, you have to be thick to deny the level of influence they've had.