The immigration causing an "island of strangers" thing.

[shyestrange@deadrobots.social]

The immigration causing an "island of strangers" thing. I don't get it. In modern Britain it's odd to try and strike up a conversation with someone in a shop or on a bus. It's weird to try and get to know your neighbors. Kids sit alone in bedrooms with headsets on. Adults sit in silence staring at their phones.

I live next to what is considered an immigrant area. It used to have the highest crime rate in the county, but now has one of the lowest. You walk around and see all these kids from different countries playing out together, using English as the common language.

There's all these small random shops that have appeared. People walk around doing things. Theres sights, smells and music, with a vibrancy that has generally faded in Britain over the last few decades.

Go into the city centre and it's dead. No independent shops anymore, no music or art scene. No culture. Just trendy bars, fast food chains, and overpriced luxury apartments.

British culture is dying for the same reason culture is dying everywhere in the west. Because everyone now lives online in tiny algorithmic bubbles controlled by big US corporations.

Every British person in my apartment block just walks passed me looking straight ahead blank faced. But when it's only the Eastern European man, with the odd clothes and broken English, who in the corridor will randomly have a laugh with me trying out new British slang words he's learnt - I just can't see the island of strangers logic.

#ukpol #immigration