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Comment by skissane | Hacker News Reader

> I await your Subaru Outback rant.

Yes, it is a bit of a silly name, because if you actually go to the Outback, you won't find many Subaru Outbacks there, because they aren't actually designed for those conditions. What you will find, is heaps of Toyota Landcruisers and Nissan Patrols, which are.

> But really, imagine how made-in-Mexico Mexicans feel about Taco Bell

No doubt. But I wonder how many of the many people who condemn Taco Bell as "cultural appropriation", would even think to make the same criticism of Outback Steakhouse?

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In a technical sense, I think Outback steakhouse is a classic example of cultural appropriation. However in practice, I think the "cultural differential" (difference between the cultures) and "market differential" (which one gets patronized more, a place authentic to the culture, or an appropriator?) are important details for identifying an instance of such appropriation as problematic.

If there are authentic Australian steakhouses in America or globally that are struggling or dealing with people having strange misconceptions of Australian culture, while Outback is thriving and eating into their market while perpetuating said misconceptions of Australian culture (I have no idea! It's possible...), it would be a smaller-scale but similar case to Taco Bell and the variety of struggling family-run mexican restaurants, or non-mexicans being confused/surprised/ignorant about authentic mexican food.

> dealing with people having strange misconceptions of Australian culture

Misconceptions of Australian culture are rather widespread in the US. Some Americans seem to think films like Crocodile Dundee are representative of mainstream Australian culture, when they aren’t. Films like that are taking stereotypes about the small minority of Australians who live in remote rural areas, and then exaggerating them for comic effect. The vast majority of Australians live in big metro areas, and have a rather different culture. It would be a bit like if someone saw a film about rednecks in the Ozarks and thought it was representative of the average denizen of New York or San Francisco.

Of course, in part it is just as much Australians’ fault for selling that kind of cringey stuff to Americans as it is Americans for lapping it up. The late Steve Irwin (of “Crocodile Hunter” fame), was likewise playing up those stereotypes in his on-screen persona. Some more recent cultural exports (for example Bluey) have done much better in this area

And rather obviously Outback Steakhouse is exploiting this ignorance as part of its marketing rather than challenging it

It's pretty common for people to watch movies like Deliverance and then think that wide swaths of America are like that.

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