My first reading is 'WhatsApp', which just makes him sound like a pretty lame superhero. My second reading was an assumption that it was a US state code (maybe

My first reading is 'WhatsApp', which just makes him sound like a pretty lame superhero. My second reading was an assumption that it was a US state code (maybe I could have arrived at Washington if I thought for long enough about it) and that there'd be a comment here very much like yours but complaining about 'US defaultism'. So no, it probably isn't that common outside of Australia, but this is so so common, and bear in mind it's usually a US thing. (Anything 'national' or talking about 'the nation' generally means 'the US' on HN, for example.)