Say "Hello": A Meaningless Rebellion Against Cultural Imperialism

Cultural imperialism may sound at first like a grandiose political concept, but when we look at how it manifests in everyday life, it often plays out like a tragicomic scene: we sing along to English songs whose meanings we don’t understand, we yearn to live amid the sets of Netflix series filmed in cities we’ve never visited, and so on...

So yes, cultural imperialism is a huge absurdity. But precisely because of this absurdity, it works so effectively: it shapes our minds, our desires, our tastes, and even our dreams.

In short, cultural imperialism is defined as the process by which a relatively powerful country spreads its own cultural products, values, and lifestyle across the world, thereby transforming the imagination and daily lives of other societies from within. Communication and media scholar Herbert Schiller describes this as the process of integrating into a U.S.-centered global system, with media serving as its primary instrument.

This concept is not merely about “we watch foreign films, brother.” Hollywood films, American TV series, pop music, fast food, brands, fashion, social media platforms, and the English language together sell a single “lifestyle package.” This package is often glamorized with images such as “freedom,” “individual success,” “unlimited consumption,” and the “American Dream.”

If you think about it, often no one forces us into this. We willingly, joyfully, and playfully embrace it—and at some point, we begin to regard our own culture’s creations as “dull,” “outdated,” or “provincial,” while accepting someone else’s lifestyle as “normal.”

Think about it: why does this happen, and to what end?

"American Dream", -how ironic!- is a grand narrative sold not only to American citizens but to the entire world: work hard and you will succeed, desire enough and you can rise above your class, as a free individual you can shape your own destiny.

Of course, this narrative is controversial and riddled with inequalities even within the United States, but from the outside, it appears like a gilded package.

Meanwhile, people in different corners of the world, even before they have set foot in their own cities, yearn to walk as if on New York streets, post stories as if living in Los Angeles, and dress like the characters in American teen films set in U.S. high schools. This is one of cultural imperialism’s most “successful” aspects: people begin to construct themselves according to scenarios from countries they have never lived in.

Right at the heart of this entire system, in 1972, Adriano Celentano took the stage and said: “If the issue is not meaning but merely sounding American, then I’ll give you a song entirely stripped of meaning—a truly ‘American’ song.”

“Prisencolinensinainciusol” consists of words that sound like English but have no meaning in any language. Only “all right” is understandable. In other words, Celentano imitated how a non-English speaker perceives American English!

This song is a parody about the inability to communicate. The artist said he wanted to make a song “about not being able to communicate.” The lyrics are deliberately meaningless; the real experiment is how people respond when something “sounds American.” Indeed, it was initially barely noticed, but through television performances and later social media, it became a cult classic.

The subtle irony here is this: Celentano imitates American English but empties it of all meaning. He leaves before us the magical-sounding voice of cultural imperialism as an empty shell. And as we watch this shell, we laugh and playfully shudder:

“How long have I been admiring such hollow things?”

Moreover, precisely because of its meaninglessness, this song becomes part of the American-centered pop culture universe. The system even succeeds in absorbing and repackaging a product that mocks itself!

“Tu Vuo’ Fa’ L’Americano,” from 1956, is a musical slap to the rising American admiration in postwar Italy. Renato Carosone portrays Italian youths in the streets of Naples who dress like Americans, drink whiskey, and dance boogie-woogie. The song’s title can be roughly translated as “You Want to Be American” or more colloquially, “You’re Acting Like an American.”

Carosone does not speak as a preacher judging this character, but as a friend who joins in the game: “You want to be cool, you play rock’n’roll, you play baseball—but who’s paying for your Camels? Your mother!”

It shows how absurdly inflated the American costume appears when placed over local economic realities. This song reveals another dimension of cultural imperialism.

An imported state of “cool” entirely detached from one’s own language, local life, and economic conditions. While Celentano’s song empties the sound of American English, Carosone empties the imitation of American lifestyle.

One plays with language, the other with behavior; but both ask the same question:

“Who do you really want to be?”

Research on youth in Türkiye shows how deeply American pop culture influences young people’s daily lives, language, and sense of identity. Turkish youth clearly consume American pop culture intensely, while simultaneously developing their own humor, critiques, and local adaptations in response.

That is, on one hand, young people watch American TV series in their original language and incorporate English words into their everyday speech. On the other hand, they remix this culture through local jokes, social media language, and Turkish songs.

From this perspective, what is happening in Türkiye today is not a one-way “absorption,” but a hybridization.

Perhaps somewhere inside us, there is a voice saying:

“You want to be ‘someone’ now… But the real question is, who are you?”

I believe much of the success of “Prisencolinensinainciusol” lies in its complete meaninglessness. The song demonstrates how powerful sounds that have no meaning but feel “American” can be. Celentano’s game captures cultural imperialism at its core: sometimes, it is not meaning but merely the “American sound” that suffices.

“Tu Vuo’ Fa’ L’Americano,” meanwhile, mocks youth who ape American excesses—and pushes us to reflect on our own lives: How many of us, despite our own economic and social realities, strive to wear the costumes of images that don’t fit us?

These two songs offer not a furious manifesto against cultural imperialism, but a meaningless, danceable, humorous, and memorable rebellion. Perhaps that is precisely why they are so effective.

Because today, cultural imperialism is not only an abstract concept debated in academic papers—it is a daily experience lived on dance floors, TikTok, YouTube, and mall corridors.

Continue to think of yourselves as consumers of culture, when in fact you are often merely its playback artists.

So, say Hello!

Dance to these songs, enjoy them; but please, don’t laugh...

Say a big “hello” to cultural imperialism—and to the meaningless, funny, musical, hybrid, and colorful rebellions we have created against it.

^{A surreal image representing cultural imperialism. (Generated by artificial intelligence.)}