This is a sacrifice I'm willing to make to prevent yanks from appropriating Australian """culture""" (day drinking before voting, overpriced cocaine, the C word, Hills Hoist)
I actually agree that it's a completely different word from a cultural standpoint, and I don't find it offensive when an Australian says it most of the time. That said, there is nothing more obnoxious than hearing a reddit-brained American try to drop it to be edgy, thinking they sound worldy. It's a worse version of Americans saying "wanker", though that might actually be more lame.
The biggest factor in accent is class. Lower paid working class Australians will generally have a broader more classically stereotyped Australian accent. Your ruling class, national bourgeois, PMC, richer petit bourgeois etc will have a private school voice that comes off a little bit upper class English, a bit mid-atlantic.
There's the historical factors that contribute to Australia's usage of the word c*nt too.
If you go back a century or so, there was a pretty clear "class" divide (in a non-Marxist, Bourdieuvian sense) between the working people and the ruling elite.
Australian larrikin culture was deeply skeptical of authority, pretentious people, and those who sought to join the ranks of the ruling class (or at least to emulate them.) Partly by its historical roots in lower class culture and partly by intent, larrikin culture would be crass and vulgar because this was like a shibboleth; if you were capable of engaging in the vulgarity then you'd signal to the other people around you that you were "one of them" rather than being like a haughty, polished Eton College graduate who would instinctually turn their nose up at that sort of stuff.
What that means is Australians use often use the term c*nt as a term of endearment but that will only be with people who are on the same level. You wouldn't hear an office worker using it as a term of endearment to their boss or supervisor but when they are around workmates having a drink together, you're much more likely to hear it then.
It's a really interesting cultural phenomenon but I'm completely in favour of banning the use of the word c*nt in this space because the alternative will only provide a flimsy pretext for chuds to claim that ackshually they were using the term "like an Aussie".
Yeah, I can pick out Melbourne vs Sydney accents, and even Sydney East vs North vs West (and the various cultural group differences such as Mediterranean-influenced Australian), but it's not something most people would pick up on, even many Australians. Someone from out in the country is gonna think the West and upper North has harsher vowels than them (a holdback of First Nations English vernacular) and the others are just posh city boys.
It's more like someone from London being able to pick up what street you're from.
Reddit had a very long era where lots and lots of "I just watched Tennant's Doctor Who and I need to LARP as a kind English gentlesir now" types that also really, really wanted an excuse to say a locally-recognized-as-misogynistic slur but with an imported excuse for why it's not a misogynistic slur while still using it as a misogynistic slur.
Cornfed nerd from Ohio: "U fuckin wot, m8? I swear on me mum that you don't understand that when I say c--t I'm being congenial and everyone says it and I say it to me mum all the time. So stop being a c--t like Literally Who Anita Sarkeesian and Literally Who Zoe Quinn you c--t!"
It's all in the tone. Mate or the c-word can be both positive or negative here. You hear people say "thanks mate" (positively) and "what a dumb c-word" (negatively) just as often as the opposite.
it depends on your instance whether it's turned on or not. but yes, lemmy has a slur filter. hexbear has it turned on so our posts get slurs turned into removed and posts with slurs from other instances get turned into removed on our side.