Sorry for the clickbait title. Have a blurry picture of a cat as an apology.
But as someone who does NSFW art for a living, talking to a client who reads and writes at the level of a 12 year old (and shows the same level of ignorance about the world outside their country) makes me really uncomfortable. Technically they're a legal adult, but I feel like I'm talking to a child.
I like to be friendly and pleasant with clients, but when the conversation feels like I'm explaining very basic concepts like how weather or seasons work in other countries, or how an 8 hour drive isn't shorter because we use kilometers instead of miles, it just feels wrong when paired with the adult artwork I'm also drawing for them.
Like, legally it's fine, but it does make me wonder if it is ok to draw NSFW artwork for someone who doesn't really feel like an adult intellectually.
Also #notallamericans, but I'm sure Americans on here know full well what I'm talking about, and have to deal with it a lot more frequently than I do.
EDIT: This is less supposed to be "Americans dumb" and more like "Some Americans seem to have the knowledge base of a child and that makes it hard to work with them in an adult context." I'm not just trying to start an America bashing thread here, I'm more venting about a very specific problem where I have to create adult art for adults who have the writing style and comprehension levels of children.
i love to hate on americans but americans are not particularly dumb or ignorant, they are more educated than most countries, it's just that they are just "too rich" (have a strong currency) compared to their actual material condition and education. a homeschooled construction worker in bumfuck Louisiana can easily pay for an internet subscription and 20 bucks for a commission but a comparable person somewhere in asia or even europe probably doesn't even have a smartphone and most certainly doesn't speak english.
maybe i am biased because in my country people show a similar amount of ignorance and it's just normal to me, but i think demographics is still a far better explanation than psychological analysis.
Yes, I saw a graph the other day which concluded America is technically a great place to be 'dumb', as even their 2 lowest literacy rate brackets have a higher or similar income (adjusted for cost of living) to the average income of the highest literacy brackets in the other countries.
Not that literacy is the definition of smart - I know plenty of brilliant tradesmen and artists alike - but reading comprehension is an important part of politics and political messaging, and possibly why even with our own fascists in the UK, I don't think we'd ever have a truly Trump like figure. That guy gets away with speaking like an actual 7 year old.
The quality of education is dogshit though. Its like someone who eats nothing but fistfuls of candy saying they eat better.
I didn't mean for this to just become an America bashing thing, I edited the post, it's more a problem I've only ever noticed with American clients, not clients from anywhere else, and not all Americans, many are fine. I would certainly agree that ignorance favours no one nationality, I think your idea about money and exchange rates could be it. I know fellow Australians who can't afford to commission an artist even with pretty high salaries due to high cost of living, so they just don't have the disposable income for it that an American with a comparable salary might.