Give Me Your Huddled Masses
Thanks to an anon on wank_report for all the links.

SPN fans Legoline and benitle wrote a long post called Workshop: Faking It: Pretending You're A US Citizen When You're An Ocean Away. It covers immportant issues for SPN fic writers like how big the United States is, how the social security system works, and the need to spell colour as 'color'.

Oddly enough, the writers aren't Americans or native English speakers. They talk a lot about the US as if it had just one culture. They make several mistakes. And maybe they just went a little over the top at points:

High school/college-based shows like Glee or Freaks & Geeks will give you a first impression of how the educational system works and where you need to do some further reading. If you're into shows like Criminal Minds, CSI or various police shows you can get a feeling for law enforcement (which might come in handy if you're writing a fic from Henriksen's POV about chasing the Winchesters). If you're willing to invest the money, there are plenty of textbooks about Criminal Investigation that show and explain various techniques of interrogation etc. to students of criminal science. These books are usually very expensive, but it's worth keeping an eye on Amazon marketplace or eBay - sometimes they pop up there for a few Dollars or Euros.

Initial response was positive, until someone asks if the OPs are just talking about dialogue, or are they saying the narrative should sound American too. 'Because the latter would be incredibly offensive.'

benitle responds that it's the writer's call, but they're just trying to help fic writers hide their non-American-ness. And kaboom, wank explosion!

Highlights

We should be more like HP fandom with their Britpicking leads to "Britpicking! We don't need no stinking Britpicking!"

Obligatory Fandom Flounce by starbright_73. followed up with "It truly felt like a finger pointing at all us non-Americans for being lesser." She also writes an LJ post about how 'it still feels like fandom is pissing on me for not being the right nationality.' Much ranting in comments there.

'I don't want to be upsetting, but you guys should know that about half of this stuff is either flat out wrong or does not apply to the country as a whole.' First response: You're just mean!

withdiamonds tries to find something everyone can agree on.

Um, it doesn't matter what race or class someone is, it still takes the same amount of time to drive from Indianapolis to Houston.

latentfunction won't let that stand:

Not necessarily. Someone without the money for toll roads, regular car maintenance beforehand, decent food and lodgings along the way, a buffer fund to fix the car if it breaks down halfway, gas, etc, is going to have a different trip than someone who can afford all of these things. It may be the same distance but that doesn't automatically mean it's the same time.

That's all folks! Except for the rather amusing anon-meme bonus comments.