I've noticed that, oddly, England follows the US pretty closely in culture. Does anyone know why that is? It seems to me like any crazy concept that springs up to the US reaches England very soon.

Is it the shared language and the ease of communication?

All of Europe follows US to some extent.

There is Hollywood and most of stuff in internet in English is written by people form the states.

But then there is also the U.S. geopolitical and economical hegemony. People copycat everything american hoping that magically some of that success would stick too.

Results are weird. Some people advocate saving tap water here in Finland. Despite our country having very large number of lakes and swamps and no foreseeable shortage of water.