From the article: "As the summer dragged on, the Nordic wool bible Laine magazine was forced to apologise for having too many white faces on their pricey knitting retreat. The auto-cannibalisation doomsday clock had gone so far that now even the instigators were having their privilege severely checked. Ysolda Teague, a Scot who had been one of the leading social justice knitters, published a lengthy apology on Instagram"

I don't know where you live, but clearly what the article was discussing went beyond North America.

Unfortunately you'll find these issues across Oceania and Europe as well. Germany just appointed their first anti-racism commissioner in the last election.

Germany of today is a byproduct of post-war Germany.

What is the primary product?

Top 3 are Cars, Auto parts, and Pharma [1]. No, I'm not jesting.

[1] https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/top-30-export-products-o...

The primary product of a war tends to be great big heaping piles of dead people.

Unfortunately, North American culture has a habit of spreading throughout the world.

Fourtunately, that seems to be less and less the case. Ehich just makes those issues, e.g. morality in Instagram knitting, all the more obvious.

Why unfortunately? If it spread, that meant people liked and sought to emulate it.

Or because it was heavily marketed by Hollywood and American entertainment. Which I am sure you will claim are only popular because they're just that much better than local entertainment, and that this has nothing to do with how local entertainment has only locals to fund it, while American media is effectively globally funded.

That's a very optimistic take.

American culture really caught on only during world war II, when people around the world experienced first hand the sheer wealth of American soliders.

It works in the context of being a wealthy superpower with access to almost limitless energy sources(mainly oil), but attempts at emulating it outside of this context look silly.

Case in point: new housing in my corner of the world is in large part sprawl. People flock to it, because they crave the same amazing amount of living space Americans usually enjoy.

Problem is, as a percentage of wages, fuel is easily at least four times as expensive around here. Also cities aren't nearly as car-oriented as in the US.

Oh I'd be careful.

It's a humanity thing ... not a region.

History is full of "oh those people over there do that thing, how silly" and then it happens in their own backyard. We're all human.

This. I can identify a variety of purity spirals in non-North American cultures.

It does seem, however, that US-based social media companies set up systems that foster and fuel them, like warm a Gulf of Mexico (am I a racist for using that name?) makes hurricanes (not an intentionally racist suggestion).

Here is a question I don't know the answer to: are purity spirals common/problematic on WeChat?

I can assure you this is 1) not limited to knitters and 2) not limited to North Americans.

Montreal Quebec is looking très nerveux right now

You might read more of it. It appears to be discussing a human phenomena, not a regional one.

These problems are certainly not limited to North America. Where do you live that isn't dealing with any of these problems?

the floyd tragedy triggered a lot of anti-police protests in western Europe, where police brutality is thankfully rare