There Are No Girls on the Internet - We Ruined Travel for Instagram Likes

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00:00:23.280 There Are No Girls on the Internet is a production of iHeart Radio

00:00:26.140 and Unbossed Creative.

00:00:30.000 I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet.

00:00:37.160 So, Mike, as I know you know, and some of the listeners by now know, if you listen to the last few episodes,

00:00:42.700 I have had kind of a rough few months.

00:00:44.860 And during that time, I have basically stopped using social media.

00:00:48.560 I just didn't really have a ton to update anybody on other than, you know, another day in the hospital with my dad.

00:00:55.860 And honestly, it was getting to the point where scrolling social media would make me feel bad because when I did check in with what folks were doing online, I was then confronted with all of the ways that everybody around me continued to live their lives while mine had essentially stopped.

00:01:11.700 So during that time when I was off social media, when I took the occasional trip or did the occasional traveling, I was really out of the habit of posting online at all.

00:01:21.000 So I didn't. And I realized that with everything going on, not toasting about my traveling and my trips actually made me feel weirdly more connected to those experiences.

00:01:33.120 At one point when my dad was in the hospital, I found this campsite near his hospital.

00:01:38.960 Fun fact, it's the only legal campsite in Richmond, Virginia.

00:01:41.840 And so I was able to go to the hospital and do hospital things with my dad during the day.

00:01:47.240 And then for the evening, retire to this campsite and sort of really get that sort of nature recharge in the evenings I was looking for, like by a campfire.

00:01:56.100 It was probably one of the nicest, coolest, most unique campsites I've ever been to.

00:02:01.280 But because I wasn't on social media, I wasn't posting about it.

00:02:04.080 And it weirdly felt kind of good to not be posting about it, right?

00:02:07.580 I got to have this experience truly be focused around being something that, you know, spiritually nourished me and filled my cup personally, as opposed to really focusing on how do I need to present this to the outside world?

00:02:21.000 How can I validate that this experience is as cool as it feels to be me experiencing it to others via social media?

00:02:28.480 Does that make sense?

00:02:29.760 It does make sense.

00:02:30.540 It makes a lot of sense to me, you know, a guy that has maybe a couple dozen followers across like all of my social media accounts.

00:02:38.520 Yeah, that makes total sense to be really focused on your own perception of things and not focused on trying to present it to others.

00:02:47.040 You know, maybe not the best strategy for explosive podcast growth, but in terms of personal satisfaction, it feels pretty good.

00:02:55.340 I was going to say, they say the best relationships, and I think this also goes for podcast host and podcast producer, are one where one person is very online and then the other person is like never online, has no idea what's happening online. Maybe that's what we have going on here.

00:03:10.020 Yeah, that sounds a bit like our dynamic here. I'm happy to play my role of not knowing what the hell is going on and counting on you to tell me all about it.

00:03:19.000 So as you know, I'm still sort of reintegrating back into my life, back into the world, which

00:03:24.620 I got to say has been challenging given how depressing a lot of the news is these days

00:03:29.980 and how depressing the world seems these days.

00:03:31.940 I feel like I got a little bit of a late start to all that.

00:03:35.540 Like I was in my own depressing world.

00:03:38.140 And then when I reentered the rest of you all, I was like, oh, stuff is bleak.

00:03:42.820 Oh, everybody else has also really said, okay, cool, cool, cool.

00:03:47.480 Getting caught up, getting caught up.

00:03:48.500 Yeah. You thought your dad dying was bad. Did you know about politics?

00:03:53.760 Truly, I, in some ways, I was like lucky to be kind of spared from that. Like election night, I barely tuned into what was going on. I'm not sure if I should say this. As far as I know, my dad went to his heavenly home thinking that they were still tallying the votes and that we still didn't know the winner.

00:04:15.500 So I really, we've all taken a little bit of a intentional break from what was going

00:04:20.260 on in the news cycle.

00:04:21.560 And so I really want today's episode to sort of be a break from the news cycle as I'm sort

00:04:26.300 of getting caught up on everything and kind of like travel itself.

00:04:29.940 It'll be a little bit of escapism and a chance to really explore who we are and how we show

00:04:34.640 up in the world without the crushing pressure of dealing with all the disasters waiting

00:04:38.740 for us back home.

00:04:39.620 Which brings me to my central question that I want to talk about today.

00:04:43.200 Similarly to how I didn't really share the details to my very cool top secret camping spot, does social media ruin and take the fun out of travel?

00:04:53.260 So right off the bat, y'all know that we have kind of a love-hate thing going on with social media here at Tangody. 0.98

00:04:59.240 I am not out to demonize social media and say like, oh, it's those damn phones ruining everything. 0.85

00:05:05.040 Because I think that when we outright demonize technology, it really becomes way too black or white. 0.95

00:05:09.320 And then we're not able to come up with reasonable frameworks for its use and for its place in

00:05:14.180 society.

00:05:15.140 Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

00:05:16.240 And as we've said a lot of times on this show, there's a lot of positive things that we get

00:05:20.020 from social media and the internet.

00:05:21.760 So yeah, trying to flatten things down into simple black and white doesn't really do anybody

00:05:26.020 any good.

00:05:26.780 But isn't it fun to just focus on one negative thing and just like really hate on it for

00:05:32.300 a little while?

00:05:33.220 You know, it's my absolute favorite.

00:05:34.520 But I will say, I would never have been able to do the amount of meaningful solo travel as a Black woman on my own in many places, if not for social media. But it is, for me, often fun to just dig into the research and what people are saying about the negative impact that social media and technology do have on travel.

00:05:54.180 So pretty high level. There are places that the entire internet swears up and down have been completely ruined by social media, specifically like influencer types, I think. I did a little bit of very unscientific research. And by that, I mean, I searched on Reddit. And there's apparently a bunch of popular tourist destinations that travelers say are just done, cross them out. They've been ruined. They're cooked. It's over. Do you want to know some of those destinations?

00:06:20.480 Yeah.

00:06:20.860 I mean, I feel like I probably have a sense, but what did Reddit have to say?

00:06:25.640 So Portugal, which you're welcome, everybody.

00:06:28.660 Mike, you and I spent about a month in Portugal, I guess, ruining it for everybody.

00:06:33.760 Yeah, I guess we caught the tail end because I thought it was awesome.

00:06:36.700 But there were a lot of us there, us non-Portuguese.

00:06:40.380 Oh, if Portugal would have me permanently, I would gladly go.

00:06:43.720 I'm sure me and like a million other Americans, I'm sure, are saying that right now.

00:06:47.940 Bali, have you ever been there?

00:06:49.840 No, I've never been to Bali.

00:06:51.080 I've never been to that part of the world.

00:06:52.280 I would love to go.

00:06:53.240 But I guess maybe I shouldn't, but I still want to.

00:06:56.360 According to Reddit, you maybe missed the boat on that one.

00:06:59.240 I spent about a month in Australia and a lot of Australians vacation to Bali because it's

00:07:04.320 not that intense of a flight.

00:07:05.800 Like it will be a very intense flight for me coming from the East Coast of the United

00:07:08.660 States.

00:07:08.960 And so I sort of had a kind of a fascination with it kind of early on from that trip, but

00:07:14.480 I've never gone.

00:07:15.320 And if you ask Reddit, it's too late.

00:07:17.280 Don't go.

00:07:17.840 tulum mexico have you ever been there no i haven't and that's definitely a place that i'm interested

00:07:24.980 in a lot of people i know have like gone and had really positive experiences but i do have a lot

00:07:30.500 of hesitation because it just seems so overrun with tourists and not just tourists but like a

00:07:36.560 specific type of like all-inclusive ayahuasca seeking like new agey tourists to like eat pray

00:07:45.880 drink margarita i don't know it's like it seems kind of fun but also a little like commercial it

00:07:51.440 seems quite commercial in 2024 so we talked about this off mic but i'm you know how i was talking

00:07:58.780 about how i'm not doing christmas this year i'm just skipping christmas and so i was like oh if

00:08:02.760 i don't do christmas maybe i'll go to like a yoga or like retreat or something and so just doing the

00:08:08.880 most preliminary of research there are so many of them in tulum and i would say like all of them

00:08:14.500 look beautiful. It's like these really picturesque Instagrammable places, but I cannot not see that

00:08:21.640 and wonder like what exactly is the impact that a bunch of non-Mexican people coming to Tulum 1.00

00:08:29.400 to do a mindfulness retreat or a yoga retreat or whatever. I cannot see these beautifully 1.00

00:08:34.660 Instagrammable pictures and not wonder what is the impact on the locals? Like what is the

00:08:40.080 ecological impact as beautiful as this stuff all looks it's just very difficult for me to not see

00:08:45.820 this as a kind of like consumption question i think is a particularly difficult question because

00:08:54.080 tulum is a great example of a place that i think is marketed as like an ecological paradise of

00:09:01.080 pristine beaches and beautiful jungle and an easy place to just like hang out on the beach and relax

00:09:07.820 and decompress. But meanwhile, going there and enjoying those things is putting a lot of

00:09:14.160 environmental pressure on the very beaches and jungles that people want to see. And all that

00:09:22.880 relaxation and fun is maybe contributing to a lot of economic inequality and strife. So there's no

00:09:31.000 free lunch. No, I feel the exact same way. And part of me thinks it's kind of funny because

00:09:35.800 taking a step back the threads i was looking at on reddit with people complaining about these

00:09:39.740 different uh popular tourist destinations presumably are written by tourists themselves

00:09:45.140 who are visiting there and then cast whatever blame they have outward toward other people

00:09:50.180 saying that they're the problem like i'm trying to visit this place for vacation and all these

00:09:54.280 tourists keep ruining it for me i love going to a place and complaining about the tourists me too

00:09:59.160 and i have to say i mean it wouldn't be an episode of there are no girls on the internet

00:10:04.680 if we didn't ask, what is the role of misogyny here? Because all of these threads on Reddit are

00:10:09.740 people complaining specifically about influencers. And part of me wonders, are these actual influencers

00:10:16.220 like people who are creating content? Or is this just sort of a veiled way of hating on women

00:10:21.340 because women are associated with things like travel blogging and influencing and content

00:10:26.280 creating? And so it's just a way of hating on things that people associate with women. I always 1.00

00:10:30.940 want to ask that because i do think there has to be some thread of misogyny and woman hating going

00:10:38.440 on here with the vitriol that people talk about influencers or perceived influencers going to some

00:10:44.440 of these places i'm not saying that influencers that their behavior is above reproach like if you

00:10:48.820 are pushing people over to get your perfect selfie you're like holding up traffic obviously but part

00:10:53.980 of me wonders are these actual influencers or are they just like young women traveling that people 0.99

00:10:59.240 think are annoying so they're just hating on them and saying, oh, it's because I hate influencers 1.00

00:11:03.480 or ruining travel. Yeah, that's a great question. Is there any science about this, Bridget?

00:11:09.700 Well, there is actually a ton of research out there about how social media impacts travel

00:11:15.280 behavior. Now, some of it is pretty benign and some of it is really not so benign. So according

00:11:20.240 to the research, social media absolutely does impact where we travel. In a paper called Social

00:11:26.440 Return and Intent to Travel, published in Tourism Management, they looked at the concept of what

00:11:31.260 they call social return, and that is the amount of positive social feedback that someone's social

00:11:36.240 media posts about travel will generate. They looked at folks' intentions to visit Cuba, a place

00:11:41.340 that I've traveled and absolutely loved. They picked Cuba because I guess it seemed like kind

00:11:45.480 of an unusual tourism destination. They write, Cuba is considered a novel tourism destination

00:11:51.060 for U.S. travelers, as visitation is still restricted for most U.S. citizens despite

00:11:55.180 recently restored diplomatic relationships between the US and Cuba. It was chosen as a

00:11:59.820 destination of interest in this study as the inconspicuous consumption of novel tourism

00:12:04.460 destinations is likely to elicit greater social return or status than the consumption of a

00:12:10.280 mainstream tourism destination. That makes some sense. You know, like rarity is something that

00:12:17.420 people look for. If everybody's going to one place, it's not as cool to go there

00:12:22.780 as compared to like some place

00:12:24.920 where nobody else is going?

00:12:26.280 Yeah, I'm trying to remember why I went to Cuba.

00:12:30.360 I went alone.

00:12:31.580 I went kind of on a whim.

00:12:33.580 I think I, if I remember, it's been so long now.

00:12:35.860 If I remember correctly,

00:12:37.500 I was just looking at places

00:12:39.120 where you could get an easy flight

00:12:41.060 and it just happened to be someplace

00:12:42.360 where I was like, oh, this flight is like a deal.

00:12:44.420 It's not too far away.

00:12:45.480 I could do this.

00:12:46.180 I had one of my biggest travel blunders

00:12:49.980 of my entire life

00:12:51.660 going to Havana, Cuba. Have I told you this? You did. And it was because of that terrible

00:12:57.020 bank that you use. I'm always telling you that you should use a good bank like Chase.

00:13:03.600 That's right. Well, we do use Chase for our business, our shared business accounts. So

00:13:11.120 shout out to Chase. For my personal banking needs, I am not lucky enough to bank with Chase for my

00:13:16.860 personal needs. It's a whole long story. So Chase is not responsible for what happened to me in

00:13:21.300 cuba which is that i called my bank my non-chase personal bank and i said hey i'm traveling to

00:13:27.380 cuba what do i need to know when i get there and the banker said you'll be fine your bank card will

00:13:33.340 work like normal you could take out cash like normal it's basically like banking anywhere else 0.98

00:13:37.180 in the united states i said cool then my dumb ass gets on the plane i don't take out any cash 0.97

00:13:42.600 i land in cuba and i'm like first things first time to go to the atm uh the atm said uh i don't 0.99

00:13:48.380 think so. You can't use an American bank card in a Cuban ATM. It turns out there had been some

00:13:54.680 diplomatic change like that week. And so the information I was getting from my personal bank

00:14:00.100 that was not Chase was correct when they told it to me, but I guess became incorrect like days

00:14:06.380 later. So I had to spend the entirety of a week long trip in Havana, Cuba with like $20 cash to

00:14:14.380 my name and no other way to use money or spend money or really make money. But you know what?

00:14:20.600 Thanks to the good people of Cuba, it actually all worked out fine. It actually was not 0.99

00:14:23.760 that it actually ended up being fine. And I remember it fondly as one of my best trips solo.

00:14:30.200 That must have been pretty challenging to get around on $20.

00:14:34.640 You know what? I made it work.

00:14:36.580 Good thing you're so charming.

00:14:38.160 Yeah, that was really the saving grace. So back to this study. Basically,

00:14:42.160 they looked at people's intention to go to Cuba and they graded it along what they called the

00:14:46.940 social return scale, which is basically how much love and interest online traveling to Cuba might

00:14:52.200 get on social media. They found that the social return scale also had a positive and significant

00:14:57.280 relationship with the intention to visit Cuba. These results suggest that social return is a

00:15:02.580 salient symbolic factor in destination selection process. So basically, the research suggests that

00:15:08.780 we're picking where we travel based on this idea of social return. How much will people

00:15:13.760 ooh and ah over it on social media? The researchers write, in recognition that the

00:15:18.400 traveler is keenly aware of the social value of their travel and that not all travel experiences

00:15:23.420 are evaluated equally, there is the opportunity for varying travel experiences to generate

00:15:28.340 different levels of social return. In the age of widespread social media use, particularly in the

00:15:33.660 context of travel, social return can be conceptualized as the amount of positive social

00:15:38.080 feedback that one's social media posts will generate. The general idea is that the more

00:15:42.180 well-received a social media post, the more social media return the post will generate through

00:15:46.360 increased likes, comments, and sharing. This in turn leads to an enhanced social status of the

00:15:51.340 poster among their social group. In essence, social media has provided a medium for peer groups

00:15:56.680 to manicure their social images to demonstrate the cultural capital needed to effectively climb

00:16:02.620 the social ladder so basically we're all just traveling to like look cool on instagram to

00:16:08.560 impress our friends not necessarily because that's where we want to go that makes sense you know i

00:16:14.020 think they're doing the thing that us social scientists love to do which is taking a pretty

00:16:20.240 common sense idea and putting a label on it social return but it is useful to think about it that way

00:16:27.200 And it prompts you to think about what other types of motivations somebody might have for traveling, you know, either to learn more about a place, learn more about history, learn about connections to where your family might be from.

00:16:41.560 You know, social return is a big part of it.

00:16:43.920 And it sounds like this research is suggesting that social return is increasingly a big part of it.

00:16:49.420 Well, on that list of reasons that one might travel, where do you put as a way to express

00:16:54.140 one's own vanity and narcissism?

00:16:56.400 Because that is another reason why people travel thanks to the rise of social media.

00:17:01.620 Basically, this research found that instead of being like a meaningful thing that you

00:17:05.520 might do for the sake of doing it, travel can be just another commodity to craft one's

00:17:10.900 digital identity.

00:17:12.060 They write, this is especially important as narcissism becomes more normalized and the

00:17:16.940 posting of travel experiences on social media becomes a more prominent primary motivation for

00:17:21.320 travel. These self-centered motivations being related to the current techno-meritocratic system

00:17:26.620 that we have entered where one's value is partly derived from the image they procure through

00:17:31.280 digital platforms. This focus on social return is similar to other measures of the symbolic value

00:17:36.640 of travel consumption, such as self-concept or self-congruity. However, with social return,

00:17:42.620 the attention is on the anticipated image enhancement through posting about travel

00:17:46.660 experiences on social media sites. So as like nefarious as that sounds, I have to say I'm 100%

00:17:54.460 guilty of it, by the way. You know, if you're going through a bad breakup and you want to

00:18:01.240 project that you are out here living your best and most glamorous life, what better way to do that

00:18:07.000 than go on a like luxurious, far-flung vacation

00:18:11.460 and post about how much fun you're having on Instagram, right?

00:18:16.000 So yes, I have seen the social return travel dynamic play out

00:18:20.000 and I have been guilty of it myself.

00:18:21.960 Where would you say is the top place that you went

00:18:24.280 because you were seeking that social return?

00:18:27.480 And did you get the social dividends you were looking for?

00:18:31.000 Ooh, this is a good question.

00:18:33.520 Also, not a place that I've actually gone for social return, but a trip I've sort of been planning in my mind for a very long time that is like partially based in social return is going to Washington State, where they filmed the show Twin Peaks or the movie Twin Peaks as well.

00:18:50.560 I think I would get a kick out of being there

00:18:52.400 because I like any kind of pretty outdoor

00:18:54.240 sort of like mountainous place.

00:18:55.920 But I'm a big David Lynch fan

00:18:58.560 and I am in all kinds of like online communities

00:19:01.740 talking about David Lynch.

00:19:03.180 And so the idea of being like,

00:19:04.780 oh, I crafted the perfect Twin Peaks itinerary

00:19:08.680 and I went to all the spots where they filmed.

00:19:10.400 I went to the diner, I went here.

00:19:11.980 That's like fully a social return

00:19:14.340 planned vacation in my mind.

00:19:17.040 I love that because, I mean, I also love Twin Peaks,

00:19:19.800 but I feel like Twin Peaks is the perfect piece of media example for this

00:19:24.820 because it's like quirky and weird and universally loved.

00:19:30.240 It's like, oh, y'all, I'm so quirky and like avant-garde.

00:19:36.300 This piece of media that literally is critically acclaimed by everyone

00:19:40.480 is important to me.

00:19:42.240 Did you guys know this?

00:19:42.860 It's an expression of my personal identity.

00:19:45.080 yeah i'm one of the the few people who can appreciate this hit television series that

00:19:51.920 was like a runaway success on network tv this is such a non-sequitur and i'm so sorry listeners

00:19:57.300 i was watching uh love island and there was a couple on there who the guy was like oh i'm so

00:20:04.300 nerdy i'm so into these like nerdy things like marvel movies and then the woman is like oh my

00:20:09.480 god marvel movies that's so weird i love them too i'm screaming at my tv like they are literally

00:20:14.820 the most popular films on planet earth they are like no their box office smashes they're like the

00:20:21.580 only movie they make y'all aren't like quirky and special that you have this this like incredibly

00:20:26.800 popular thing in common yeah i feel that's like a really good analogy for what we're talking about

00:20:32.420 here you don't want to go on a trip to a place that's like too basic or too common you know it's

00:20:39.360 like what's the point nobody's even going to be impressed well so this is this is anecdotal so i

00:20:44.420 don't have any research about this but i have actually almost noticed this like negative social

00:20:48.980 return thing happening i don't know if that's what you're referring to where a travel destination is

00:20:53.800 deemed to be too basic and then i'll see people in like online travel communities turning up their

00:20:59.240 nose at it a little bit saying like oh you went to turks and caicos everybody goes there that's

00:21:03.820 not exciting that's not cool like call me when you go someplace really far flung have you have

00:21:08.040 you seen this oh definitely i feel that happens all the time i feel like tulum is kind of a good

00:21:13.500 example of that because i feel it's often a little unfair to the place it's like yeah you've

00:21:20.200 created a really cool scene or place or experience that a lot of people want to come to

00:21:27.140 and now we're going to hate on it because you've been too successful yeah i mean even i feel like

00:21:31.800 taking a step back any conversation about travel kind of has that undercurrent because we're

00:21:36.560 talking about these places that don't exist for us to explore as tourists right they're the they're

00:21:43.020 these incredibly dynamic, culturally rich places with like a rich history and a rich

00:21:48.120 people, like the idea of experiencing them only through this very narrow focus of, is

00:21:53.960 it a good place for me to come and hang out for a week is so narrow.

00:21:58.240 So the whole conversation feels a little bit icky of defining some of these incredibly

00:22:03.320 dynamic places through this very narrow lens of, are they good tourist destinations or

00:22:08.660 not?

00:22:10.860 Let's take a quick break.

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00:22:31.780 at our back. Okay, so I have to shout out a researcher whose work I stumbled upon while I

00:22:43.000 was putting together my thoughts for this episode, Dr. Lauren A. Siegel, PhD. Lauren got her PhD from

00:22:48.840 University of Surrey in the UK with a focus on behavioral performance and visitor impacts to

00:22:53.800 destinations considered Instagrammable. Dr. Siegel published a paper with colleagues Ice

00:22:58.640 Tasiata and Caroline Scarls called cyber physical traveler performances and Instagram travel

00:23:03.980 photography as ideal impression management. That basically says that thanks to the rise of

00:23:08.880 platforms like Instagram, when we travel, we are all about getting that perfect picture for social

00:23:14.280 media and less about sort of where we're at or why we're going there. And that this can really be

00:23:20.480 connected back to the rise of Instagram. They write, a refreshed code of choreographed movements

00:23:25.900 as photographic practices has emerged

00:23:28.080 that did not exist before the popularization of Instagram.

00:23:31.040 Less than 2% of the photos analyzed

00:23:33.460 solely feature the landscape,

00:23:35.400 reinforcing the shift to self-presentation strategies

00:23:38.060 as the foremost importance.

00:23:40.800 That's so interesting.

00:23:42.200 I went and read that study and, you know,

00:23:44.740 the photos that they analyzed were the top ones

00:23:47.200 for each location recommended by the algorithm.

00:23:50.680 So I have to wonder, like, how much of that is driven

00:23:52.780 by people wanting social return for themselves,

00:23:57.140 making themselves the subject of the photo

00:23:59.340 and how much was driven by the algorithms

00:24:01.800 rewarding photos that just center people.

00:24:04.740 And so I thought about that a little bit

00:24:05.620 and I was like, well, wait,

00:24:06.200 maybe those are one in the same thing.

00:24:08.120 Like which came first, the narcissism or the algorithm?

00:24:12.220 Oh my God, I love that question.

00:24:13.480 And truly like, I mean, this could be,

00:24:15.880 I wanna do a whole series on this,

00:24:17.240 but how much of what we like and what we do is algorithms

00:24:21.720 and how much of it is actually us.

00:24:23.980 I feel like in 2024, the things are all collapsed.

00:24:26.520 And what I like is just what my algorithm surfaces up to me

00:24:29.960 and vice versa.

00:24:30.680 They're one in the same.

00:24:31.660 And like trying to parse them at this point is impossible.

00:24:35.200 I totally agree.

00:24:36.160 I think, yeah, any attempt to say that one is purely causally driving the other

00:24:40.760 is just missing the point.

00:24:42.900 So Dr. Siegel's work basically says that we're not really trying to capture

00:24:47.200 memories when we travel anymore.

00:24:49.360 All we're doing is what she calls self-presentation.

00:24:51.720 She writes, there's been a shift in personal photography such that photos are used to construct one's idealized identity, which is contrary to past photographic practices as a form of memory documentation.

00:25:03.020 As such, users will look to ideals perpetuated by sociocultural norms to internally assess the level of manipulation that their travel images require.

00:25:12.760 And this is apparently especially true on Instagram.

00:25:15.220 As Instagram is the most visual social networking site, it lends itself to self-presentation

00:25:19.700 practices more so than other platforms.

00:25:22.860 Photographs are much more effective than tax for impression management, as the myth of

00:25:27.180 photographic truth lends credibility that is often missing in text.

00:25:30.500 Instagram consists primarily of photographs and therefore intensifies the importance of

00:25:35.040 visual self-presentation.

00:25:36.500 However, despite the potential for instant image publication, most Instagram images are

00:25:41.660 not mere point and shoot style photos and require the equivalent of a photo shoot carried out in

00:25:46.820 tourist settings. So I could not read that bit and not think of those fake tourist pictures. Do

00:25:54.260 you know what I'm talking about? Those pictures where everybody goes to Turkey and they have that

00:25:57.600 same picture of like hot air balloons behind them, right? Like I cannot not think of these

00:26:03.100 basically fake tourist photos that have become almost like a whole little industry. And I'm not

00:26:09.380 hating on the people who run these industries because oftentimes they're locals and people's

00:26:16.260 fascination with getting this perfect shot means money for them and money in their pocket, as it

00:26:20.680 should. But it's so interesting. A great example is the Gates of Heaven Temple in Bali, which is

00:26:27.620 this beautiful temple that gets thousands of visitors each year. And you can take this iconic

00:26:32.580 picture that looks like you're standing under the temple on a body of water. And there's this

00:26:38.440 mirror image reflected so it looks like wow you're standing under the temple right on this lake and

00:26:44.260 it's like a mirror image that doubles what what's being seen in this picture however apparently

00:26:50.140 there is not any water whatsoever at this temple and what it is is like a guy holding a mirror

00:26:57.620 beneath you and so the image that you that i think of when i like like if you've ever seen an image

00:27:02.200 of a temple from bali this is probably like what you're thinking of that image is partially fixed

00:27:07.040 because there is no water there.

00:27:09.080 This leads to some pretty unhappy reviews

00:27:12.080 from people who saw this picture,

00:27:14.440 traveled there, waited in line,

00:27:16.340 and then did not see the like expected lake

00:27:19.660 or body of water.

00:27:20.960 Here's one review from TripAdvisor.

00:27:23.100 The title is Gate to Heaven, A Really Long Cue.

00:27:27.180 Do you like waiting in queues?

00:27:28.900 Do you enjoy waking up at 3 a.m.?

00:27:31.080 Or love the idea of trying to be creative

00:27:33.060 with poses for a photo,

00:27:34.340 but it's not technically real per se?

00:27:37.040 I got the perfect place for you. This temple is located quite a distance from most people's hotels. So for me, I left the hotel at 3.15am to get there by 5.15am. After a shuttle ride and getting a number, paying the fee to take a photo, and then walking up a steep hill, I was finally at the gate of heaven. But in actuality, it's the gate to a very long queue. I got out there by 7am, despite being one of the first ones there at 5.15am.

00:28:03.120 The employees here use a trick of the camera

00:28:05.200 to create the image that has a reflection.

00:28:07.160 You were given three or four poses

00:28:08.480 to take the photo of you at the gate.

00:28:10.420 I felt it was kind of corny and touristy.

00:28:12.900 I guess if it's one's first time in Bali, why not? 0.52

00:28:15.620 But anyone who does it more than once is crazy.

00:28:19.440 Wow.

00:28:20.040 I remember when that story broke.

00:28:23.960 You know, it was like the story of how those images were,

00:28:29.400 this temple was not what it seemed,

00:28:31.360 that mirrors were involved in creating the sense of this great lake inside the temple

00:28:38.180 when, in fact, it was just like guys holding mirrors.

00:28:42.020 So you know how you were saying that it's like classic social scientist behavior

00:28:45.760 to identify a thing that everybody could already see and sort of give it a name?

00:28:50.760 Which, by the way, you can say that because you are a social scientist, right?

00:28:53.840 Yeah, I say that with love.

00:28:55.380 I mean, people are like, oh, it's just common sense.

00:28:57.160 But it's important to give things names because then we can, you know, have a definition

00:29:00.440 and we can all talk about it.

00:29:02.760 We can get sighted.

00:29:03.920 It's important.

00:29:04.360 So Dr. Siegel calls that, the whole temple thing,

00:29:09.020 a micro-destination,

00:29:10.580 which is a specific place in a tourist destination

00:29:13.000 that really pops up on social media content,

00:29:15.560 like those blue domes in Santorini, Greece,

00:29:19.300 like these places that you would probably need

00:29:21.080 like specific coordinates to recreate that specific photo

00:29:24.780 that has now kind of become iconic on social media.

00:29:27.720 Yeah, I remember experiencing that same thing at Arches National Park. We hiked up a mountain in the sun for like three hours. It was not the hardest hike, but definitely not an easy hike. It was really windy at the top, really sunny and hot.

00:29:43.980 And so after all that, we're up at the top of this very windy, barren, arid mountain and unforgiving landscape.

00:29:51.500 And what do me and my friends find up there?

00:29:54.060 A long queue of people waiting to take photos in front of the historic arch.

00:29:59.040 And I definitely got in line, waited like 30 minutes to get my photo.

00:30:02.840 It was actually kind of a fun experience, like laughing with the other people up there.

00:30:06.780 But it was definitely a micro destination.

00:30:10.540 like that one spot in this vast park in an even vaster desert i was on that trip with you many a

00:30:18.880 hat blew off the conditions up there were a lot i remember it very clearly but we did take that

00:30:25.260 photo so i'm not even saying this like i'm a like we're above it like what i think it's interesting

00:30:30.680 about dr siegel's work is that it it pulls out these things that we all do and so i don't think

00:30:36.400 any i'm certainly not above this i don't think anybody is above this we took that the arch photo

00:30:40.280 We came all that way, like we're not going to take the photo. And so in some ways, part of this is like, well, do you blame anybody who like this is your vacation? You spent all this money. You want to get the iconic photo, whether it's really a lake or a guy holding a mirror or not.

00:30:54.140 Yeah, absolutely. I got it. I'm proud of it. And it was actually nice communal experience being up there with all these other people who had hiked up there to get it. And, you know, standing in queue was not terribly unpleasant because it was an incredibly beautiful spot.

00:31:13.340 So it's like, OK, I just got to stand here and look around at all these beautiful mountains and rock formations for a while and laugh it up with like this family that's standing here in front of me and these like weird guys who are standing behind me.

00:31:26.000 Well, speaking of photos, Dr. Siegel's research even gets into the nitty gritty of the way the particular ways that people pose for social media travel photos.

00:31:35.440 so you know the shot and you you close your eyes and picture it you know exactly what i'm talking

00:31:39.700 about the shot of a woman walking in motion with like a flowy dress behind her in front of a

00:31:45.760 beautiful backdrop or like the photo of somebody sort of candidly not looking at the camera with

00:31:51.340 a pretty backdrop behind them hold on while i pull up like 500 examples of this on my phone right now

00:31:56.520 y'all it turns out we are all just staging this those those pictures we are all just staging all

00:32:05.140 of those poses all of the time. This is from Dr. Siegel's research. It's hilarious, but I feel very

00:32:10.340 called out personally. Most notable in these poses are the off-camera gaze and gesticulations of

00:32:16.060 being in motion. Another prominent theme to emerge from a content analysis was a facial expression

00:32:21.480 wherein the subject's visual gaze was focused somewhere out of the camera's view. Only 35.3%

00:32:28.080 of the photos in the content analysis featured subjects looking directly at or into the camera

00:32:33.360 lens. The researchers also did on-site ethnographic observations in Bali, which were consistent with

00:32:39.140 the findings of the content analysis. Many of those observed tourists fix their gaze off camera

00:32:44.440 while posing for photographs. Such behavior indicates a clear motivation for the subject

00:32:48.980 to appear as if they were caught off guard or in the midst of having an enjoyable experience

00:32:53.440 rather than staging a curated photo. Photos in which the subject apparently lacks an awareness

00:32:58.380 that they're being photographed are known in popular media as plandids, i.e. plan-candids.

00:33:04.980 Plandids can also be considered a reinvention of Uri's concept of the romantic gaze with the

00:33:10.700 purpose of conveying an idealized lifestyle and the nonchalance of an intended and performed

00:33:15.780 ignorance to the presence of a camera and or documentation of the experience. Oh, who, me?

00:33:22.080 I wasn't even aware a photo was being taken because I'm too busy living in the moment.

00:33:29.220 You feel a little called out?

00:33:31.040 Oh, that is my like classic, like, oh, my, I'm not even look.

00:33:35.100 Oh, a picture is being taken.

00:33:36.720 I wasn't aware.

00:33:39.540 I was just engrossed in this book I'm reading in this beautiful park.

00:33:46.800 Yeah.

00:33:47.600 You know, it's so funny because so this is a little bit of a non sequitur, but it does connect.

00:33:53.620 I've been spending time on Blue Sky recently, which I've really been enjoying.

00:33:57.700 and uh my feed includes a lot of natural landscapes uh nature photography and space

00:34:07.520 photography but also there's just a lot of ai generated stuff that people are like engagement

00:34:14.380 farming there and so there's this ai generated images purporting to be photographs and being

00:34:20.320 like hey this is fake this isn't real like you should at least label it as ai generated but

00:34:26.060 But talking about this now, it really makes me think, like, well, what is real, right? Like, is a planded real? Like, yeah, it's a photograph, but, you know, maybe so what if people are posing? Like, they really are there, just gazing off into the distance, thinking about, you know, the butler or whatever.

00:34:46.520 yeah it reminds me of this thing i saw and i think i think on possibly on blue sky where it's

00:34:54.100 a picture of a man with his son and it's just like beautiful uh sky background and somebody asks how

00:35:00.840 did you get that sky effect in the photo and he said it was just a regular sky like what do you

00:35:05.920 mean it's not just what's the way the sky looked for me right outside i feel like every single

00:35:11.360 time i talk about this on the show it sounds like i've just taken a massive bong rip but i swear i

00:35:16.060 have not when you start breaking into like what is real i mean you know that that line once you

00:35:21.820 start writing it all becomes fiction like once it's on social media it all becomes fake and so

00:35:25.720 like the question of what is real it's almost like not the right question to be asking because

00:35:30.640 it's like baudrillard's concept of hyper reality like it's even what you see on instagram in some

00:35:36.140 ways becomes even more real than what would be real otherwise like that like you couldn't tell

00:35:41.420 me that temple doesn't have a lake at it even though that lake is fake because i've seen that

00:35:45.300 lake on instagram so many times yeah that's a good point and i i guess you know now that i think

00:35:53.140 about it at no point in any of dr siegel's research does she use the word real uh that i noticed right

00:36:01.760 she's just talking about the different behaviors that people do and she's also talking about

00:36:06.980 their motivations for doing it real isn't really even part of the analysis yeah i don't think that's

00:36:15.180 even what she's interested in grappling with.

00:36:20.020 And it almost kind of seems like an afterthought of like,

00:36:22.620 well, what is real?

00:36:23.760 Like, what does real mean in this context?

00:36:25.940 And I know a lot of this stuff can be funny,

00:36:28.640 but it's also pretty serious.

00:36:30.660 You know, the way that social media intersects with travel

00:36:32.920 can lead to things like overtourism,

00:36:35.840 which can be a problem if a place just doesn't have

00:36:37.900 the infrastructure to handle a certain level of tourism.

00:36:39.880 National Geographic notes that 80% of travelers

00:36:42.640 visited just 10% of the world's destinations.

00:36:45.800 So like that can have a really big impact.

00:36:47.980 And as Dr. Siegel puts it,

00:36:49.480 it can create a cycle that contributes

00:36:51.020 to more self-indulgent travel.

00:36:53.160 It could also wreak ecological damage 0.77

00:36:55.180 and exacerbate income disparities.

00:36:57.460 And so it's kind of like navel-gazy

00:36:59.540 and interesting to think about this intersection

00:37:01.140 of social media and travel behavior,

00:37:03.540 but it also really has,

00:37:05.640 you know, talk about what's real, what's not.

00:37:06.920 It has very real IRL offline impacts

00:37:10.980 for these destinations as well.

00:37:13.120 And some big tourist destinations

00:37:15.180 are actually working to combat it.

00:37:17.120 So Bali, which I know we've talked about quite a bit

00:37:19.240 during this episode,

00:37:20.680 released new guidelines for visitors in June, 2023

00:37:23.760 that includes rules about proper behavior

00:37:26.200 in sacred temples,

00:37:27.600 rules about how you should behave on the island

00:37:29.420 and behave with locals

00:37:30.860 and rules around respecting the natural environment.

00:37:33.700 Tourists now need a license to rent motorbikes

00:37:36.020 and may not set foot on any mountain or volcano in Bali

00:37:39.480 due to their sacred nature.

00:37:40.980 Travelers also have to stay in registered hotels and villas, which obviously will impact things

00:37:45.740 like Airbnbs. And Bali has introduced a tourist task force to enforce these restrictions through

00:37:51.880 raids and investigations if necessary. This is all from a piece for CNN.com that Dr. Siegel wrote.

00:37:57.940 Dr. Siegel also points out that other destinations have also taken similar steps.

00:38:01.960 Places like Hawaii, Iceland, New Zealand, Costa Rica, and others have all adopted pledges for

00:38:07.520 visitors to abide by local laws and customs and there's also these big campaigns like

00:38:12.300 switzerland's no drama campaign uh finland's be more like a fin campaign the netherlands

00:38:18.680 how to amsterdam campaign which i think was all about like british party lads coming and probably

00:38:24.660 like indulging too much in the tea shops etc and like creating a problem uh in austria they have

00:38:31.620 the See Vienna, Not Hashtag Vienna campaign, which really asks for folks to really have a more

00:38:38.840 mindful approach to their tourism when they're in Vienna. And in a study called Does Social Media

00:38:46.180 Help or Hurt Tourist Destinations, a qualitative case study, Dr. Siegel actually looked at the

00:38:51.540 tourist board of Vienna with their kind of anti-hashtag marketing campaign, urged that

00:38:56.420 encouraging visitors to go offline while traveling in the city. And she found that apparently it's

00:39:00.520 been like pretty well received so like you went to Vienna was it pre-hashtag or post-hashtag

00:39:06.280 oh man I was in Vienna pre-iPhone so it was definitely pre-hashtag but I loved it it was

00:39:17.180 just the coolest most charming place uh I I won't get into the the whole thing of it but

00:39:24.200 What really struck me about Vienna was that it was both, like, old and classical and beautiful, but also, like, a vibrant, exciting city where, like, people lived and worked and loved and played and all the things.

00:39:44.620 I just had the best time there.

00:39:45.740 I was so impressed.

00:39:46.740 And so I don't know what hashtag Vienna is, but the actual city that I got to experience back in those pre-iPhone days, no further date specification provided, was incredible.

00:39:59.240 And so if people were going there pursuing hashtag Vienna, whatever that might have been, I do have to wonder if they were missing out on some of the more subtle beauty that was there to be had.

00:40:12.480 Well, so that's exactly what Dr. Siegel found, that the staff of the tourist board in Vienna, who created this kind of anti-hashtag campaign, explained that all these tourists would come to Vienna and that their image of Vienna was this, I quote, metropolis without stress.

00:40:28.040 And yet the tourism board felt that visitors to their city were increasingly just missing out on these very enjoyable experiences because they were too busy on their dang phones, as my mom would say.

00:40:38.580 So this seems like a pretty important observation

00:40:41.060 relevant to all these other Instagram-driven behaviors

00:40:44.080 that we've already talked about

00:40:45.060 that focus on getting this perfect picture for other people

00:40:49.120 and having that stand in the way

00:40:50.900 of actually being present and enjoying oneself.

00:40:53.640 And that's exactly what I think

00:40:54.780 that the Vienna Tourism Board,

00:40:56.500 it sounds like, was trying to combat.

00:40:58.120 And y'all, if there is one thing I have learned

00:41:00.500 over the last couple of months,

00:41:01.860 it is that life is too dang short

00:41:04.200 to live it for validation

00:41:05.720 or people on your phone or other outside people.

00:41:09.200 You should just be living it for you.

00:41:11.060 So if you're doing any travel over the holiday season,

00:41:13.800 try to keep that in mind.

00:41:15.180 What a nice sentiment, Bridget.

00:41:17.180 Thanks so much, Mike.

00:41:18.300 And thanks for listening.

00:41:19.340 I'll see y'all on the internet.

00:41:25.920 Got a story about an interesting thing in tech

00:41:27.960 or just want to say hi?

00:41:29.400 You can reach us at hello at tangody.com.

00:41:31.660 You can also find transcripts for today's episode

00:41:33.520 at tangody.com.

00:41:35.120 There Are No Girls on the Internet was created by me, Bridget Todd.

00:41:37.880 It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative.

00:41:40.580 Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer.

00:41:42.640 Tari Harrison is our producer and sound engineer.

00:41:45.260 Michael Amato is our contributing producer.

00:41:47.260 I'm your host, Bridget Todd.

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There Are No Girls on the Internet - December 04, 2024

We Ruined Travel for Instagram Likes

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