Accused of being "foreign" when playing online?

[Scubamike1978]

How often do you get noted as being "foreign" when playing online?

As someone not from the USA I am often pinged by other players as sounding "foreign". This is somewhat amusing given that - for an American - 95.5% (actual percentage) of people are "foreign".

Me, I come from a country that accounts for 0.06% of the global population which means Americans generally figure I'm British - or if they are pre-pubescent a "Britfag" - or Australian. For a Kiwi (a native of New Zealand or a small nocturnal flightless bird with a long beak, not the Chinese Gooseberry) this evokes the feeling a Canadian gets when confused for someone from Kentucky.

On one occasion I was accused of being Iranian to which I IRONICALLY replied "Yes, I am from Iran, we all speak with English accents there". This meant for the next 10 minutes I was the subject of an unrelenting tirade of abject, incomprehensible hatred. Sorry mate, NZ is part of Operation Enduring Freedom (many of my best mates deployed for the Gulf last Monday) and we're in the South Pacific, next stop Scott Base, Antarctica, not Islamabad.

Anyone else had similar experiences? Where are you from and who do you generally get confused for?

 

[neems]

Oddly enough, once or twice I've had people think I'm Australian, when I am in fact British. No idea why.

 

[Hey Joe]

People think I'm French for some reason.

Although that may have something to do with the fact that when I go online I tend to talk in a french accent and my screen name is "J'ai voudrais un croissant"

 

[sapient]

The Bigot Brigade is usually out in full force on games like TF2 or Halo, because so many idiots have such easy access to them. To the majority of America, anyone who isn't a low-middle aged white male is lower class, and ironically, considering the standard of life for the "average drunken slob". There are more foreign people who have made it big, it's simply some pumped up Redneck taking out his rage after a long hard day of burger flipping.

 

[Saskwach]

Oddly enough, once or twice I've had people think I'm Australian, when I am in fact British. No idea why.

The other way around here. It makes no sense, our accents are NOTHING alike.

 

[Thisusernameisjustanotherwasteofspace]

Whenever people ask me where I'm from, and I say Serbia, the question that immediately follows is "Isn't it freezing up there?" (Since people tend to mix Serbia and Siberia).

Also, on one occasion, some guy started spamming me on AIM, saying he knew me. When I told him I wasn't from the US, he replied: "Don't lie, if you're not from the US, how come you can speak English!?" (the sentence was in netspeak)

 

[marfoir(IRL)]

The instant someone hears you are Irish they do the WORST impersonation of an Irish accent ever, like some kind of knee-jerk reaction they spout "top of te mornin' ta ya seamus". Every time I hear it I doe a little inside :|.
Also Americans are disturbingly interested in me...(9 times out of 10)

 

[Veteran]

I have the problem of trying to speak up for people that are being trash-talked, those doing the trash talking immediately pick up i have a British accent and i have to then endure comments like "British Fag" to which i generally reply (and no offense to any Americans reading this) "Shouldn't you be eating a "Hamburger" and "Liberating" some poor country?"

I've also decided to spend an entire play session on xbox live speaking German, i got comments like "Go back to Africa!" and "speak American you dumbshit!" doing that, which generally causes me to piss myself laughing.

And yeah, i'm always insulted by Americans, no-one else.

 

[Sinharvest]

I know how you guys feel. Im from south Georgia (U.S.). And if you have a "redneck" southern accent you automatically get labeled as missing your front teeth and being overly uneducated and backwards. On Wow my guild got use to me and my friends accents. I know on alot of online games iv played, Ozzies are usually really good/fun players. I havnt played with many brits though. On Final Fantasy online(yes i know) I was in an all HK(Hong Kong) guild. Those HK guys are really friendly and know english very well. Best thing i probly learned from those guys is how to say WTF in their laung.

Btw i probly get more shit from people living in my own country online than from peps from other countries.

 

[Akirasfriend]

I have been labelled as Canadian, Irish, Scottish, German and Australian in my time. I would've thought the English accent was easy to pick up on, but there you go. And this was all by people with North American accents (I would say Americans, but some of them could've been Canadian). What is it with the majority of the Americans I've met online believing that they're at the center of the universe?
Everybody knows Manchester is the center of the universe. \o/

 

[Sinharvest]

Once i went to VC Canada and some guy thought i was Australian. 0_o -wtf mate

 

[Girlysprite]

I don't do a lot of netspeak. But by names i choose, or when I type something in my own language, people tend to think I'm Swedish. I am Dutch. Though the confuse over that is quite logical for outsiders.

By the way, I have known some German people on games, and a few of them spoke English just like the evil Nazi's in comedy series and movies do. They don't even do it on purpose, that just how they speak English. It cracked me up.

 

[DunKology]

I have the problem of trying to speak up for people that are being trash-talked, those doing the trash talking immediately pick up i have a British accent and i have to then endure comments like "British Fag" to which i generally reply (and no offense to any Americans reading this) "Shouldn't you be eating a "Hamburger" and "Liberating" some poor country?"

I usually go for the "I'm sorry, I forget... who founded your country again?" approach. Tends to shut them up with confusion.

Once again, no offence to the Americans, just the ones calling me out on X-Box Live.

 

[VikingRhetoric]

I have a rather generic american accent, so no.

Although my incredibly racist indian accent does piss people off immensely.

 

[Manta173]

No offense to the general HALO population out there, but stop picking on us hicks.... from my experience its the dense frat guys that play halo, or the 13 year old kids who think that they are the greatest thing on Earth.

Please for the sake of the country don't take them as a representative sample of our population.

 

[blackadvent]

I've actually been insulted for being American. Then again, I was playing Counter-Strike Source.

 

[Sniper_Zegai]

I've actually been insulted for being American. Then again, I was playing Counter-Strike Source.

Just get out!

only kidding, I dont really play CS much anymore, given the fact I suck at it.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

I got called a N***** because I was an Erudite on Everquest.

Despite regularly having Factor 50 Sunblock on my anaemic skin.

 

[VikingRhetoric]

I laughed at that more than I should have.

 

[Moe The Bus Driver]

I've been called Fraiser before. I was amused by the reference actually.