Speaker 1: There Are No Girls on the Internet, as a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. I'm bridge Ton and this
Speaker 1: is there are No Girls.
Speaker 2: On the Internet.
Speaker 1: So Mike, as I know, you know and some of
Speaker 1: the listeners by now know if you listen to the
Speaker 1: last few episodes, I have had kind of a rough
Speaker 1: few months, and during that time I have basically stopped
Speaker 1: using social media. I just didn't really have a ton
Speaker 1: to update anybody on other than you know, another day
Speaker 1: in the hospital with my dad. And honestly, it was
Speaker 1: getting to the point where scrolling social media would make
Speaker 1: me feel bad because when I did check in with
Speaker 1: what folks were doing online, I was then confronted with
Speaker 1: all of the ways that everybody around me continued to
Speaker 1: live their lives while mine had essentially stopped. So during
Speaker 1: that time when I was off social media, when I
Speaker 1: took the occasional trip or did the occasional traveling, I
Speaker 1: was really out of the habit of posting online at all.
Speaker 1: So I didn't and I realized that with everything going on,
Speaker 1: not posting about my traveling and my trips actually made
Speaker 1: me feel weirdly more connected to those experiences. At one
Speaker 1: point when my dad was in the hospital. I found
Speaker 1: this campsite near his hospital. Fun fact, it's the only
Speaker 1: legal campsite in Richmond, Virginia, and so I was able
Speaker 1: to go to the hospital and do hospital things with
Speaker 1: my dad during the day and then for the evening
Speaker 1: retire to this campsite and sort of really get that
Speaker 1: sort of nature recharge in the evenings I was looking for,
Speaker 1: like by a campfire. It was probably one of the nicest, coolest,
Speaker 1: most unique camp sites I've ever been to. But because
Speaker 1: I wasn't on social media, I wasn't posting about it,
Speaker 1: and it weirdly felt kind of good to not be
Speaker 1: posting about it, right, I got to have this experience
Speaker 1: truly be focused around being something that you know, spiritually
Speaker 1: nourished me and filled my cup personally, as opposed to
Speaker 1: really focusing on how do I need to present this
Speaker 1: to the outside world. How can I validate that this
Speaker 1: experience is as cool as it feels to be me
Speaker 1: experiencing it to others via social media? Does that make sense?
Speaker 3: It does make sense. It makes a lot of sense
Speaker 3: to me. You know, a guy that has maybe a
Speaker 3: couple dozen followers across like all of my social media accounts. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it makes total sense to be really focused on your
Speaker 3: own perception of things and not focused on trying to
Speaker 3: present it to others. You know, maybe not the best
Speaker 3: strategy for explosive podcast growth, but in terms of personal satisfaction,
Speaker 3: it feels pretty good.
Speaker 1: I was going to say, they say the best relationships
Speaker 1: and I think this also goes for podcast hosts and
Speaker 1: podcast producer are one where one person is very online
Speaker 1: and then the other person is like, never online, It's
Speaker 1: no idea what's happening online. Maybe that's what we have
Speaker 1: going on here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that sounds a bit like our dynamic here. I'm
Speaker 3: happy to play my role of not knowing what the
Speaker 3: hell is going on and counting on you to tell
Speaker 3: me all about it.
Speaker 1: As you know, I'm still sort of reintegrating back into
Speaker 1: my life, back into the world, which I gotta say
Speaker 1: has been challenging, given how depressing a lot of the
Speaker 1: news is these days, and how depressing the world seems
Speaker 1: these days. I feel like I got a little bit
Speaker 1: of a late start to all that, Like I was
Speaker 1: in my own depressing world, and then when I re
Speaker 1: entered the rest of you all, I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: stuff is bleak. Oh, like, oh, everybody else is also
Speaker 1: really said okay, cool, cool, cool, getting caught up, getting
Speaker 1: caught up?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you thought your dad dying was bad? Did you
Speaker 3: know about politics?
Speaker 1: Truly? I in some ways I was like put lucky
Speaker 1: to be kind of spared from that, Like election night,
Speaker 1: I barely tuned into what was going on. I'm going
Speaker 1: to be sure if I should say this, As far
Speaker 1: as I know, my dad went to his heavenly home
Speaker 1: thinking that they were still tallying the votes and that
Speaker 1: we still didn't know the winner. So I really we've
Speaker 1: all taken a little bit of a intentional break from
Speaker 1: what's going on in the new cycle, and so I
Speaker 1: only want today's episode to sort of be a break
Speaker 1: from the new cycle, as I'm sort of getting caught
Speaker 1: up on everything and kind of like travel itself. It'll
Speaker 1: be a little bit of escape is but a chance
Speaker 1: to really explore who we are and how we show
Speaker 1: up in the world without the crushing pressure of dealing
Speaker 1: with all the disasters waiting for us back home, Which
Speaker 1: brings me to my central question that I want to
Speaker 1: talk about today. Similarly to how I didn't really share
Speaker 1: the details to my very cool, top secret camping spot
Speaker 1: does social media ruin and take the fun out of travel. So,
Speaker 1: right off the bat, y'all know that we have kind
Speaker 1: of a love hate thing going on with social media
Speaker 1: here at Tangoty. I am not out to demonize social
Speaker 1: media and say like, oh, it's those damn phones ruining everything,
Speaker 1: because I think that when we outright demonize technology, it
Speaker 1: really becomes way too black or white, and then we're
Speaker 1: not able to come up with reasonable frameworks for its
Speaker 1: use and for its place in society.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, And as we've
Speaker 3: said a lot of times on this show, there's a
Speaker 3: lot of positive things that we get from social media
Speaker 3: in the Internet. So yeah, trying to flatten things down
Speaker 3: into simple black and white doesn't really do anybody any good.
Speaker 3: But isn't it fun to just focus on one negative
Speaker 3: thing and just like really hate on it for a
Speaker 3: little while.
Speaker 1: You know, it's my absolute favorite. But I mean, I
Speaker 1: will say I would never have been able to do
Speaker 1: the amount of meaningful solo travel as a black woman
Speaker 1: on my own in many places if not for social media.
Speaker 1: But it is for me often fund to just dig
Speaker 1: into the research and what people are saying about the
Speaker 1: negative impacts that social media and technology do have on travel,
Speaker 1: so pretty high level. There are places that the entire
Speaker 1: Internet swears up and down have been completely ruined by
Speaker 1: social media, specifically like influencer types. I think I did
Speaker 1: a little bit of very unscientific research, and by that
Speaker 1: I mean I searched on Reddit, and those apparently a
Speaker 1: bunch of popular touruss deessinations that travelers say are just done.
Speaker 1: Cross them out. They've been ruined, their cook it's over.
Speaker 1: Do you want to know some of those destinations?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I feel like I probably have a sense.
Speaker 3: But what did Reddit have to say?
Speaker 1: So Portugal, which You're welcome everybody, Mike, You and I
Speaker 1: spent about a month in Portugal, I guess ruining it
Speaker 1: for everybody.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess we caught the tail end because I
Speaker 3: thought it was awesome. But there were a lot of
Speaker 3: us there, us non Portuguese.
Speaker 1: Oh, if Portugal would have me permanently, I would gladly go.
Speaker 1: I'm sure me and like a million other Americans. I'm
Speaker 1: sure saying that right now. Bali, have you ever been there?
Speaker 3: No, I've never been to Bali. I've never been to
Speaker 3: that part of the world. I would love to go,
Speaker 3: but I guess maybe I shouldn't, but I still want to.
Speaker 1: According to Reddit, you maybe missed the boat on that one.
Speaker 1: I spent about a month in Australia and a lot
Speaker 1: of Australian's vacation to Bali, because it's not that intense
Speaker 1: of a flay, like it will be a very intense
Speaker 1: flight for me coming from the East coast of the
Speaker 1: United States, and so I sort of had a kind
Speaker 1: of a fascination with it kind of early on from
Speaker 1: that trip. But I've never gone. And if you ask Reddit,
Speaker 1: it's too late. Don't go to Loom, Mexico. Have you
Speaker 1: ever been there? No?
Speaker 3: I haven't. And that's definitely a place that I'm interested in.
Speaker 3: A lot of people I know have like gone and
Speaker 3: had really positive experiences. But I do have a lot
Speaker 3: of hesitation because it just seems so overrun with tourists,
Speaker 3: and not just tourists, but like a specific type of
Speaker 3: like all inclusive ayahuasca seeking, like new age tourists to
Speaker 3: like eat prey, drink margarita. I don't know, it's like
Speaker 3: it seems kind of fun but also a little like commercial.
Speaker 3: It seems quite commercial. In twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: So we've talked about this off mic, but I'm you
Speaker 1: know how I was talking about how I'm not doing
Speaker 1: Christmas this year. I'm just skipping Christmas, and so I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, if I don't do Christmas, maybe I'll
Speaker 1: go to like a yoga or like retreat or something.
Speaker 1: And so just doing the most preliminary of research. There
Speaker 1: are so many of them in Tuloom, and I could say, like,
Speaker 1: all of them look beautiful. It's like these really picturesque,
Speaker 1: instagrammable places, but I cannot not see that and wonder, like,
Speaker 1: what exactly is the impact that a bunch of non
Speaker 1: Mexican people coming to to Loom to do a mindfulness
Speaker 1: retreat or a yoga retreat or whatever. I cannot see
Speaker 1: these beautifully instagrammable pictures and not wonder what is the
Speaker 1: impact on the locals, Like what is the ecological impact?
Speaker 1: As beautiful as this stuff all looks, It's just very
Speaker 1: difficult for me to not see this as a kind
Speaker 1: of like consumption question.
Speaker 3: I think is a particularly difficult question because Tuloom is
Speaker 3: a great example of a place that I think is
Speaker 3: marketed as like an ecological paradise of pristine beaches and
Speaker 3: beautiful jungle and an easy place to just like hang
Speaker 3: out on the beach and relax and decompress. But meanwhile,
Speaker 3: going there and enjoying those things is putting a lot
Speaker 3: of environmental pressure on the very beaches and jungles that
Speaker 3: that people want to see, and all that relaxation and
Speaker 3: fun is maybe contributing to a lot of economic inequality
Speaker 3: and strife. So there's no free lunch.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: I feel the exact same way, and part of me
Speaker 1: thinks it's kind of funny because taking a step back,
Speaker 1: the threads I was looking at on Reddit with people
Speaker 1: complaining about these different popular tourist destinations presumably are written
Speaker 1: by Taurus themselves who are visiting there and then cast
Speaker 1: whatever blame they have outward towards other people, saying that
Speaker 1: they're the problem. Like I'm trying to visit this place
Speaker 1: for vacation and all these tourists keep proving it for me.
Speaker 3: I love going to a place and complaining about the
Speaker 3: tourists me too, And I have to.
Speaker 1: Say, I mean, it wouldn't be an episode of There
Speaker 1: No Girls on the Internet if we didn't ask what
Speaker 1: is the role of misogyny here? Because all of these
Speaker 1: threads on redditor people complaining specifically about influencers, and part
Speaker 1: of you wonders, are these actual influencers, like people who
Speaker 1: are creating content or is this just sort of a
Speaker 1: veiled way of hating on women because women are associated
Speaker 1: with things like travel, blogging and influencing and contact creating,
Speaker 1: and so it's just a way of hating on things
Speaker 1: that people associate with women. I always want to ask that,
Speaker 1: because I do think there has to be some thread
Speaker 1: of massogity and woman hating going on here with the
Speaker 1: vitriol that people talk about influencers or perceived influencers going
Speaker 1: to some of these places. I'm not saying that influencers
Speaker 1: that their behavior is above reproach, like if you are
Speaker 1: pushing people over to get your perfect sealthier like holding
Speaker 1: up traffic, obviously, but part of me wonders, are these
Speaker 1: actual influencers or are they just like young women traveling
Speaker 1: that people think are annoying, so they're just hating on
Speaker 1: them and saying, oh, it's because I hate influencers, they're
Speaker 1: ruining travel.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a great question. Is there any signs about this, bridget.
Speaker 1: Well, there is actually a ton of research out there
Speaker 1: about how social media impacts travel behavior. Now, some of
Speaker 1: it is pretty benign and some of it is really
Speaker 1: not so benign. So according to the research, social media
Speaker 1: absolutely does impact where we travel. In a paper called
Speaker 1: Social Return and Intent to Travel published in Tourism Management,
Speaker 1: they looked at the concept of what they call social return,
Speaker 1: and that is the amount of positive social feedback that
Speaker 1: someone's social media posts about travel will generate. They looked
Speaker 1: at folks' intentions to visit Cuba, a place that I've
Speaker 1: traveled and absolutely loved. They picked Cuba because I guess
Speaker 1: it seemed like kind of an unusual tourism destination, they write.
Speaker 1: Cuba is considered a novel tourism destination for US travelers,
Speaker 1: as visitation is still restricted for most US citizens, despite
Speaker 1: recently restored diplomatic relationships between the US and Cuba. It
Speaker 1: was chosen as a destination of interest in the study
Speaker 1: as the inconspicuous consumption of novel tourism destinations is likely
Speaker 1: to elicit greater social return or status than the consumption
Speaker 1: of a mainstream tourism destination.
Speaker 3: That makes some sense, you know, like rarity is something
Speaker 3: that people look for if if everybody's going to one place.
Speaker 3: It's not as cool to go there as compared to
Speaker 3: like someplace where nobody else is going.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm trying to remember why I went to Cuba.
Speaker 1: I went alone. I went kind of on a whim.
Speaker 1: I think if I don't know, it's been so long
Speaker 1: now if I remember correctly, I was just looking at
Speaker 1: places where you could get an easy flight, and it
Speaker 1: just happened to be someplace that I was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: this flight is like a deal and it's not too
Speaker 1: far away. I could do this. I had one of
Speaker 1: my biggest travel blunders of my entire life going to Havana, Cuba.
Speaker 1: Have I told you this?
Speaker 3: You did? And it was because of that terrible bank
Speaker 3: that you use. You should I'm always telling you that
Speaker 3: you should use a good bank like Chase.
Speaker 1: That's right, Well, we do use Chase for our business,
Speaker 1: our shared like business accounts. So shout out to Chase
Speaker 1: for my personal banking needs. I am not lucky enough
Speaker 1: to bank with Chase for my personal needs. It's a
Speaker 1: whole long story. So Chase is not responsible for what
Speaker 1: happened to me in Cuba, which is that I called
Speaker 1: my bank my non Chase personal bank, and I said, Hey,
Speaker 1: I'm traveling to Cuba. What do I need to know
Speaker 1: when I get there? And the banker said, you'll be fine.
Speaker 1: Your bank card will work like normal. You could pick
Speaker 1: out cash like normal. It's basically like banking anywhere else
Speaker 1: in the United States. I said, cool, that my dumb
Speaker 1: ass gets on the plane, I don't take out any cash.
Speaker 1: I land in Cuba, I'm the first things, first time
Speaker 1: to go to the ATM. The ATM said, I don't
Speaker 1: think so. You can't use an American bankcard in a
Speaker 1: Cuban ATM. It turns out there had been some diplomatic
Speaker 1: change like that week, and so the information I was
Speaker 1: getting from my personal bank that was not Chase was
Speaker 1: correct when they told it to me, but I guess
Speaker 1: became incorrect like days later. So I had to spend
Speaker 1: the entirety of a week long trip in Havana, Cuba,
Speaker 1: with like twenty dollars cash to my name and no
Speaker 1: other way to use money or spend money or really
Speaker 1: make money. But you know what, thanks to the good
Speaker 1: people of Cuba, it actually all worked out fine. It
Speaker 1: actually was not that it actually ended up being fine,
Speaker 1: and I remember it fondly as one of my best
Speaker 1: trips solo.
Speaker 3: That must have been pretty challenging to get around on
Speaker 3: twenty dollars.
Speaker 1: You know what, I made it work.
Speaker 3: Good thing. You're so charming.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was really the saving grace. So back to
Speaker 1: this study. Basically, they looked at people's intention to go
Speaker 1: to Cuba and they graded it along what they called
Speaker 1: the social return scale, which is basically how much love
Speaker 1: and interest online traveling to Cuba might get on social media.
Speaker 1: They found that the social return scale also had a
Speaker 1: positive and significant relationship with the intention to visit Cuba.
Speaker 1: These results suggest that social return is a salient symbolic
Speaker 1: factor in destination selection process. So basically, the research suggests
Speaker 1: that we're picking where we travel based on this idea
Speaker 1: of social return how much will people ooh and out
Speaker 1: over it on social media. The researcher is right in
Speaker 1: recognition that the traveler is keenly aware of the social
Speaker 1: value of their travel, and that not all travel experiences
Speaker 1: are evaluated equally. There is the opportunity for varying travel
Speaker 1: experiences to generate different levels of social return. In the
Speaker 1: age of widespread social media use, particularly in the context
Speaker 1: of travel, social return can be conceptualized as the amount
Speaker 1: of positive social feedback that one's social media posts will generate.
Speaker 1: The general ideas that the more well received a social
Speaker 1: media post, the more social media return the post will
Speaker 1: generate through increased likes, comments, and sharing. This in turn
Speaker 1: leads to an enhanced social status of the poster among
Speaker 1: their social group. In essence, social media has provided a
Speaker 1: medium for pure groups to manacure their social images to
Speaker 1: demonstrate the cultural capital needed to effectively climb the social ladder.
Speaker 1: So basically, we're all just traveling to like look cool
Speaker 1: on Instagram to impress our friends, not necessarily because that's
Speaker 1: where we want to go.
Speaker 3: That makes sense, you know. I think they're doing the
Speaker 3: thing that social scientists love to do, which is taking
Speaker 3: a pretty common sense idea and putting a label on
Speaker 3: it social return. But it is useful to think about
Speaker 3: it that way, and it prompts you to think about
Speaker 3: what other types of motivation somebody might have for traveling.
Speaker 3: You know, either to learn more about a place, learn
Speaker 3: more about history, learn about connections to where your family
Speaker 3: might be from. You know, social return is a big
Speaker 3: part of it. And it sounds like this research is
Speaker 3: suggesting that social return is increasingly a big part of it.
Speaker 1: Well, on that list of reasons that one might travel,
Speaker 1: where do you put as a way to express one's
Speaker 1: own vanity and narcissism, because that is another reason why
Speaker 1: people travel thanks to the rise of social media. Basically,
Speaker 1: this research found that instead of being like a meaningful
Speaker 1: thing that you might do for the sake of doing it,
Speaker 1: travel can be just another commodity to craft one's digital
Speaker 1: identity right. This is especially important as narcissism becomes more
Speaker 1: normalized and the posting of travel experiences on social media
Speaker 1: becomes more prominent primary motivation for travel. These self centered
Speaker 1: motivations being related to the current techno meritocratic system that
Speaker 1: we have entered, where once value is partly derived from
Speaker 1: the image they procure through digital platforms. This focus on
Speaker 1: social return is similar to other measures of the symbolic
Speaker 1: value of travel consumption, such as self concept or self congruity. However,
Speaker 1: with social return, the attention is on the anticipative image
Speaker 1: enhancement through posting about travel experiences on social media sites.
Speaker 1: So as like nefarious as that sounds, I have to say,
Speaker 1: I'm one hundred percent guilty of it. By the way,
Speaker 1: you know, if you're going through a bad breakup and
Speaker 1: you want to project that you are out here living
Speaker 1: your best and most glamorous life. What better way to
Speaker 1: do that than go on a like luxurious, far flung
Speaker 1: vacation and post about how much fun you're having on Instagram.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So, yes, I have seen the social return travel dynamic
Speaker 1: play out, and I have been guilty of it myself.
Speaker 3: Where would you say is the top place that you
Speaker 3: went because you were seeking that social return and did
Speaker 3: you get the social dividends you were looking for?
Speaker 1: Ooh, this is a good question. Also, not a place
Speaker 1: that I've actually gone for social return, but a trip
Speaker 1: I've sort of been planning in my mind for a
Speaker 1: very long time that is like partially based in social return.
Speaker 1: It's going to Washington State, where they filmed the show
Speaker 1: Twin Peaks or the movie Twin Peaks as well. I
Speaker 1: think I would get a kick out of being there
Speaker 1: because I like any kind of pretty outdoor, sort of
Speaker 1: like mountainous place. But I'm a big David Lynch fan,
Speaker 1: and I am in all kinds of like online communities
Speaker 1: talking about David Lynch, and so the idea of being like, oh,
Speaker 1: I craft did the perfect Twin Peaks, I Tinerary, and
Speaker 1: I went to all the spots where they filmed. I
Speaker 1: went to the diner, I went here. That's like fully
Speaker 1: a social return, planned vacation in my mind.
Speaker 3: I love that because I mean, I also love Twin Peaks,
Speaker 3: but I feel like Twin Peaks is the perfect piece
Speaker 3: of media example for this because it's like quirky and
Speaker 3: weird and universally loved.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, y'all, I'm so quirky and like avant garde,
Speaker 1: this piece of media that literally is critically acclaimed by everyone.
Speaker 1: It's it's important to me. Did you guys know this
Speaker 1: is an expression of my personal identity.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm one of the few people who can appreciate
Speaker 3: this hit television series that was like a runaway success
Speaker 3: on network TV.
Speaker 1: This is such a non sequorter, and I'm so sorry listeners.
Speaker 1: I was watching Love Island and there was a couple
Speaker 1: on there who the guy was like, Oh, I'm so nerdy.
Speaker 1: I'm so into these like nerdy things like Marvel movies.
Speaker 1: And then the woman is like, oh my god, Marvel movies.
Speaker 1: That's so weird. I love them too. I'm screaming at
Speaker 1: my TV like They are literally the most popular films
Speaker 1: on planet Earth. They are like no our box office smashes.
Speaker 1: They're like the only movie they make. Y'all, aren't like
Speaker 1: quirky and special that you have this this incredibly popular
Speaker 1: thing in common.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel that it's like a really good analogy
Speaker 3: for what we're talking about here. You don't want to
Speaker 3: go on a trip to a place that's like too
Speaker 3: basic or too common. You know, it's like, what's the
Speaker 3: point nobody's even gonna be impressed.
Speaker 1: Well, so this is this is anecdotal, so I don't
Speaker 1: have any research about this, but I've actually almost noticed
Speaker 1: this like negative social return thing happening. I don't know
Speaker 1: if that's what you're referring to, where a travel destination
Speaker 1: is deemed to be too basic, and then I'll see
Speaker 1: people in like online travel communities turning up their nose
Speaker 1: at it a little bit, saying I'm like, oh, you
Speaker 1: went to Turks and Caicos. Everybody goes there. That's not exciting,
Speaker 1: that's not cool. Like call me when you go someplace
Speaker 1: really far along you have you seen this?
Speaker 3: Oh? Definitely, I feel that happens all the time. I
Speaker 3: feel like Tuloom is kind of a good example of that,
Speaker 3: because I feel it's often a little unfair to the place.
Speaker 3: It's like, Yeah, you've created a really cool scene or
Speaker 3: place or experience that a lot of people want to
Speaker 3: come to, and now we're gonna hate on it because
Speaker 3: you've been too successful.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, and even I feel like taking a
Speaker 1: step back. Any conversation about travel kind of has that undercurrent,
Speaker 1: because we're talking about these places that don't exist for
Speaker 1: us to explore us tourists, right. They're they're the They're
Speaker 1: these incredibly dynamic, culturally rich places with with like a
Speaker 1: rich history and a rich people like. The idea of
Speaker 1: experiencing them only through this very narrow focus of is
Speaker 1: it a good is it a good place for me
Speaker 1: to come and hang out for a week is so narrow.
Speaker 1: So the whole conversation feels a little bit icky of
Speaker 1: defining some of these incredibly dynamic places through this very
Speaker 1: narrow lens of are they good tourist destinations or not.
Speaker 2: Let's take a quick break. Enterer back, Okay, so I.
Speaker 1: Have to shout out a researcher whose work I stumbled
Speaker 1: upon while I was put in together my thoughts for
Speaker 1: this episode. Doctor Lauren A. Siegel, PhD. Lauren got her
Speaker 1: PhD from University of Surrey and the UK with a
Speaker 1: focus on behavioral performance and visitor impacts to destinations considered instagrammable.
Speaker 1: Doctor Siegel published a paper with colleagues Ice Tessiata and
Speaker 1: Caroline Scarles called cyber Physical Traveler Performances and Instagram Travel
Speaker 1: Photography as Ideal Impression Management that basically says that thanks
Speaker 1: to the rise of platforms like Instagram, when we travel,
Speaker 1: we are all about getting that perfect picture for social
Speaker 1: media and less about sort of where we're at or
Speaker 1: why we're going there, and that this can really be
Speaker 1: connected back to the rise of Instagram. Stay right, a
Speaker 1: refreshed code of choreographed movements as photographic practices has emerged
Speaker 1: that did not exist before the popularization of Instagram. Less
Speaker 1: than two percent of the photos analyzed solely feature the
Speaker 1: la escape, reinforcing the shift to self presentation strategies as
Speaker 1: the foremost importance.
Speaker 3: That's so interesting. I went and read that study, and
Speaker 3: you know, the photos that they analyzed were the top
Speaker 3: ones for each location recommended by the algorithm. So I
Speaker 3: have to wonder, like how much of that is driven
Speaker 3: by people wanting social return for themselves, making themselves the
Speaker 3: subject of the photo, and how much was driven by
Speaker 3: the algorithms rewarding photos that just center people. And so
Speaker 3: I thought about that a little bit, and I was like, well, wait,
Speaker 3: maybe those are one and the same thing, Like which
Speaker 3: came first, the narcissism or the algorithm?
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I love that question, and truly like,
Speaker 1: I mean this could be. I want to do a
Speaker 1: whole series on this. But how much of what we
Speaker 1: like and what we do is algorithms and how much
Speaker 1: of it is actually us? I feel like in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four, the things are all collapsed and what I
Speaker 1: like is just what my algorithm surfaces up to me
Speaker 1: and vice versa. They're one and the same, and like,
Speaker 1: trying to parse them at this point is impossis.
Speaker 3: I totally agree. I think, yeah, any attempt to say
Speaker 3: that one is purely causally driving the other is just
Speaker 3: missing the point.
Speaker 1: So doctor Siegel's work basically says that we're not really
Speaker 1: trying to capture memories and we travel anymore. All we're
Speaker 1: doing is what she calls self presentation. She writes there's
Speaker 1: been a shift in personal photography such that photos are
Speaker 1: used to construct one's idealized identity, which is contrary to
Speaker 1: pass photographic practices as a form of memory documentation. As such,
Speaker 1: users will look to ideals perpetuated by socio cultural norms
Speaker 1: to internally assess the level of manipulation that their travel
Speaker 1: images require. And this is apparently especially true on Instagram.
Speaker 1: As Instagram is the most visual social networking site, it
Speaker 1: lends itself to self presentation practices more so than other platforms.
Speaker 1: Photographs are much more effective than tax for impression management,
Speaker 1: as the myth of photographic truth lends credibility that is
Speaker 1: often missing in texts. Instagram consists primarily of photographs and
Speaker 1: therefore intensifies the importance of visual self presentation. However, despite
Speaker 1: the potential for instant image publication, most Instagram images are
Speaker 1: not mere point and shoot style photos and require the
Speaker 1: equivalent of a photo shoot carried out in tourist settings.
Speaker 1: So I could not read that bit and not think
Speaker 1: of those fake tourist pictures, do you know what I'm
Speaker 1: talking about? Those pictures where everybody goes to Turkey and
Speaker 1: they have that same picture of like hot air balloons
Speaker 1: behind them, right, Like, I cannot not think of these
Speaker 1: basically faked tourist photos that have become almost like a
Speaker 1: whole little industry. And I'm not hating on the people
Speaker 1: who run these industries because oftentimes their locals and like
Speaker 1: people's fascination with getting this perfect shot means money for
Speaker 1: them and money in their pocket, as it should, but
Speaker 1: it's so interesting. A great example is the Gates of
Speaker 1: Heaven Temple in Pali, which is this beautiful temple that
Speaker 1: gets thousands of visitors each year, and you can take
Speaker 1: this iconic picture that looks like you're staying under the
Speaker 1: temple on a body of water, and there's this mirror
Speaker 1: image reflected, so it looks like, Wow, you're standing under
Speaker 1: the temple right on this lake, and it's like a
Speaker 1: mirror image that doubles what's being seen in this picture. However,
Speaker 1: apparently there is not any water whatsoever at this temple,
Speaker 1: and what it is is like a guy holding a
Speaker 1: mirror beneath you. And so the image that I think
Speaker 1: of night like like, if you've ever seen an image
Speaker 1: of a temple from Bali, this is this is probably
Speaker 1: like what you're thinking of. That image is partially thaked
Speaker 1: because there is no water there This leads to some
Speaker 1: pretty unhappy reviews from people who saw this picture, traveled there,
Speaker 1: waited in line, and then did not see the like
Speaker 1: expected lake or body of water. Here's one review from
Speaker 1: trip Advisor. The title is Gate to Heaven A really
Speaker 1: long queue. Do you like waiting in queues? Do you
Speaker 1: enjoy waking up at three am? Or I love the
Speaker 1: idea of trying to be creative with poses for a photo.
Speaker 1: It's not technically real, per se. I got the perfect
Speaker 1: place for you. This temple is located quite a distance
Speaker 1: from most people's hotels, so for me, I left the
Speaker 1: hotel at three fifteen am to get there by five
Speaker 1: fifteen am. After a shuttle ride and getting a number,
Speaker 1: paying the feet of take a photo, and then walking
Speaker 1: up a steep hill, I was finally at the Gate
Speaker 1: of Heaven, but in actuality, it's the gate to a
Speaker 1: very long queue. I got out there by seven am,
Speaker 1: despite being one of the first ones there at five
Speaker 1: fifteen am. The employees here use a trick of the
Speaker 1: camera to create the image that has a reflection. You
Speaker 1: were given three or four poses to take the photo
Speaker 1: of you at the gate. I felt it was kind
Speaker 1: of corny and touristy. I guess if it's one's first
Speaker 1: time in Bali, why not. But anyone who does it
Speaker 1: more than once is crazy.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: I remember when like that story broke, you know, it
Speaker 3: was like the story of how those images were this
Speaker 3: temple was not what it seemed that mirrors were involved
Speaker 3: in creating the sense of this great lake inside the temple,
Speaker 3: when in fact it was just like guys holding mirrors.
Speaker 1: So you know how you were saying that it's like
Speaker 1: classic social scientist behavior to identify a thing that everybody
Speaker 1: can already see and sort of given a name, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, you can say that because you are
Speaker 1: a social scientist.
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, I say that with love. I mean people
Speaker 3: are like, oh, it's just common sense. But it's important
Speaker 3: to give things names because then we can, you know,
Speaker 3: have a definition and we can all talk about it,
Speaker 3: we can get sighted. It's important.
Speaker 1: So doctor Siegel calls that the whole temple thing a
Speaker 1: micro destination, which is a specific place in a tourist
Speaker 1: destination that really pops off on social media content, like
Speaker 1: those blue domes in Santorini, Greece, like these places that
Speaker 1: you would probably need like specific coordinates to recreate that
Speaker 1: specific photo that has now kind of become iconic on
Speaker 1: social media.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I remember experiencing that same thing at Arches National Park.
Speaker 3: We hiked up a mountain in the sun for like
Speaker 3: three hours. It was not the hardest hike, but definitely
Speaker 3: not an easy hike. It was really windy at the top,
Speaker 3: really sunny and hot. And so after all that, we're
Speaker 3: up at the top of this very windy, barren, arid
Speaker 3: mountain and unforgiving landscape, and what me and my friends
Speaker 3: find up there a long queue of people waiting to
Speaker 3: take photos in front of the historic arch. And I
Speaker 3: definitely got in line, waited like thirty minutes to get
Speaker 3: my photo. It was actually kind of a fun experience,
Speaker 3: like laughing with the other people up there. But it
Speaker 3: was definitely a micro destination like that one spot in
Speaker 3: this vast park in an even vaster desert.
Speaker 1: I was on that ship with you many a hat
Speaker 1: blew off. The conditions up there were a lot, I
Speaker 1: remember it very clearly. But we did take that photo.
Speaker 1: So I'm not even saying this like I'm a like
Speaker 1: we're above it. Like what I think it's interesting about
Speaker 1: doctor Segel's work is that it pulls out these things
Speaker 1: that we all do, and so I don't think any
Speaker 1: I'm certainly not above this. I don't think anybody is
Speaker 1: above this. We took that the arch photo. We came
Speaker 1: all that way, like we're not trying to take the photo.
Speaker 1: And so in some ways, part of this is like, well,
Speaker 1: do you blame anybody who like, this is your vacation.
Speaker 1: You spent all this money, you want to get the
Speaker 1: iconic photo, whether it's really a lake or a guy
Speaker 1: holding a mirror or not.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, I got it. I'm proud of it. And
Speaker 3: it was actually nice communal experience being up there with
Speaker 3: all these other people who had hiked up there to
Speaker 3: get it. And you know, standing in Q was not
Speaker 3: terribly unpleasant because it was an incredibly beautiful spot. So
Speaker 3: it's like, Okay, I just got to stand here and
Speaker 3: look around at all these beautiful mountains and rock formations
Speaker 3: for a while and laugh it up with like this
Speaker 3: family that's standing here in front of me and these
Speaker 3: like weird guys who were standing behind me.
Speaker 1: Well, speaking of photos, doctor Siegel's research even gets into
Speaker 1: the nitty gritty of the way the particular ways that
Speaker 1: people pose for social media travel photos. So you know
Speaker 1: the shot and you close your eyes and picture you know,
Speaker 1: is that what I'm talking about? The shot of a
Speaker 1: woman walking in motion with like a flowy dress behind
Speaker 1: her in front of a beautiful backdrop, or like the
Speaker 1: photo of somebody sort of candidly not looking at the
Speaker 1: camera with a pretty backdrop behind them.
Speaker 3: Hold on while I pull up like five hundred examples
Speaker 3: of this on my phone right now.
Speaker 1: No, it turns out we are all just staging this
Speaker 1: those pictures. We are all just staging all of those
Speaker 1: poses all of the time. This is from doctor Siegel's research.
Speaker 1: It's hilarious, but I feel very called out personally. Most
Speaker 1: notable of these poses are the off camera gaze and
Speaker 1: gesticulations of being in motion. Another prominent theme to emerge
Speaker 1: from a content analysis was a facial expression, where in
Speaker 1: the subject's visual gaze was focused somewhere out of the
Speaker 1: camera's view. Only thirty five point three percent of the
Speaker 1: photos and the content analysis featured subjects looking directly at
Speaker 1: or into the camera lens. The research also did on
Speaker 1: site ethnographic observations in Bali, which were consistent with the
Speaker 1: findings of the content analysis. Many of those observed taurus
Speaker 1: fix their gaze off camera while posing for photographs. Such
Speaker 1: behavior indicates a clear motivation for the subject to appear
Speaker 1: as if they were caught off guard or in the
Speaker 1: midst of having an enjoyable experience, rather than staging a
Speaker 1: curated photo. Photos in which the subject apparently lacks an
Speaker 1: awareness that they're being photographed are known in popular media
Speaker 1: as plannedids i e. Plan candids. Plandets can also be
Speaker 1: considered a reinvention of URI's concept of the romantic gaze,
Speaker 1: with the purpose of conveying an idealize lifestyle and the
Speaker 1: nonchalance of an intended and performed ignorance to the presence
Speaker 1: of a camera and or documentation of the experience. Oh
Speaker 1: oh me, I wasn't even aware a photo was being
Speaker 1: taken because I'm too busy living in the moment.
Speaker 3: You feel a little called out.
Speaker 1: Oh that is my classic, Like, oh my, I'm not
Speaker 1: even look, oh, a picture is being taken. I wasn't aware.
Speaker 1: I was just engrossed in this book I'm reading in
Speaker 1: this beautiful park.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, it's so funny because so this is
Speaker 3: a little bit of a non sequitur, but it does connect.
Speaker 3: I've been spending time on Blue Sky recently, which I've
Speaker 3: really been enjoying. And my feed includes a lot of
Speaker 3: natural landscapes, nature photography and space photography, but also there's
Speaker 3: just a lot of AI generated stuff that people are
Speaker 3: like engagement farming there, and so there's this AI generated
Speaker 3: images purporting to be photographs and being like, hey, this
Speaker 3: is fake, this isn't real, Like you should at least
Speaker 3: label it as AI generated. But talking about this now,
Speaker 3: it really makes me think like, well, what is real? Right? Like,
Speaker 3: is is a plan died real? Like, yeah, it's a photograph,
Speaker 3: but you know, maybe so what if people are posing
Speaker 3: like there they really are there just gazing off into
Speaker 3: the distance, thinking about you know, the butler or whatever.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it reminds me of this thing I saw on
Speaker 1: I think, I think on possibly on Blue Sky where
Speaker 1: it's a picture of a man with his son and
Speaker 1: it's just like beautiful sky and background and somebody asks
Speaker 1: how did you get that sky effect in the photo?
Speaker 1: And he said it was just a regular sky, Like
Speaker 1: what do you mean? It's not the fact, just what's
Speaker 1: the way the sky looked at me? We're outside. I
Speaker 1: feel like every single time I talk about this on
Speaker 1: the show, it sounds like I've just taken a massive
Speaker 1: bong rip, but I swear I have not. When you
Speaker 1: start breaking into like what is real, I mean you
Speaker 1: know that line. Once you start writing, it all becomes fiction,
Speaker 1: Like once it's on social media, it all becomes fake.
Speaker 1: And so like the question of what is real, it's
Speaker 1: almost like not the right question to be asking, because
Speaker 1: it's like Baudriard's concept of hyperreality, Like it's even what
Speaker 1: you see on Instagram in some ways becomes even more
Speaker 1: real than what would be real otherwise that like you
Speaker 1: couldn't tell me that temple doesn't have a lake at it,
Speaker 1: even though that lake is fake, because I've seen that
Speaker 1: lake on Instagram so many times.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's a good point, and I guess you know
Speaker 3: now that I think about it. At no point in
Speaker 3: any of doctor Siegel's research does she use the word
Speaker 3: reeal that I noticed. Right, she's just talking about the
Speaker 3: different behaviors that people do, and she's also talking about
Speaker 3: their motivations for doing it. Real isn't really even part
Speaker 3: of the analysis.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think that's even what she's interested in
Speaker 1: in in like grappling with and it almost kind of
Speaker 1: seems like an afterthought of like, well, what is real?
Speaker 1: Like what what does reel mean in this context? And
Speaker 1: I know a lot of this stuff can be funny,
Speaker 1: but it's also pretty serious. You know. The way that
Speaker 1: social media intersects with travel can lead to things over tourism,
Speaker 1: which can be a problem if a place that doesn't
Speaker 1: have the infrastructure to handle a certain level of tourism.
Speaker 1: National Geographic notes that eighty percent of travelers visited just
Speaker 1: ten percent of the world's destination. So like that can
Speaker 1: have a really big impact, and as doctor Siegel puts it,
Speaker 1: it can create a cycle that contributes to more self
Speaker 1: indulgent travel. It could also wreak ecological damage and exacerbate
Speaker 1: income disparities. And so it's kind of like navel gayzy
Speaker 1: and interesting to think about this intersection of social media
Speaker 1: and travel behavior. But it also really has, you know,
Speaker 1: talk about what's real what's not. It has very real
Speaker 1: irl offline impacts for these destinations as well, and some
Speaker 1: big tourist destinations are actually working to combat it. So BALI,
Speaker 1: which I know we've talked about quite a bit during
Speaker 1: this episode, released new guidelines for visitors in June twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three that includes rules about proper behavior and sacred temples,
Speaker 1: rules about how you should behave on the island and
Speaker 1: behave with locals, and rules around respecting the natural environment.
Speaker 1: Tourists now need a license to rent motorbikes and may
Speaker 1: not set foot on any mountain or volcano in Bali
Speaker 1: due to their sacred nature. Travelers also have to stay
Speaker 1: and registered hotels and villas, which obviously will impact things
Speaker 1: like Arabian bees, and Bali has introduced a Tourist Task
Speaker 1: Force to enforce these restrictions through raids and investigations if necessary.
Speaker 1: This is all from a piece for CNN dot Com
Speaker 1: that doctor Siegal wrote. Doctor Siegel also points out that
Speaker 1: other destinations have also taken similar steps. Places like Hawaii, Iceland,
Speaker 1: New Zealand, Costa Rica and others have all adopted pledgets
Speaker 1: for visitors to abide by local laws and customs. And
Speaker 1: there's also these big campaigns like Switzerland's No Drama campaign,
Speaker 1: Finland's be More Like a Finn campaign, the Netherlands How
Speaker 1: to Amsterdam campaign, which I think was all about like
Speaker 1: British Party lads coming and probably like indulging too much
Speaker 1: in the t shops etc. And like creating a problem.
Speaker 1: In Austria, they have the sea Vienna not hashtag Vienna campaign,
Speaker 1: which really asks for folks to really have a more
Speaker 1: mindful approach to their tourism when they're in Vienna. And
Speaker 1: in a study called does social Media help or hurt
Speaker 1: Tourist Destinations? A qualitative case study, doctor Siegel actually looked
Speaker 1: at the tourist board of Vienna with their kind of
Speaker 1: anti hashtag marketing campaign urged that encouraging visitors to go
Speaker 1: offline mult traveling in the city, and she found that
Speaker 1: apparently it's been like pretty well received. To make you
Speaker 1: went to Vienna, was it pre hashtag or post hashtag?
Speaker 3: Oh man, I was in Vienna pre iPhone, so it
Speaker 3: was definitely pre hashtag. But I loved it. It was
Speaker 3: just the coolest, most charming place. I won't get into
Speaker 3: the whole thing of it, but what really struck me
Speaker 3: about Vienna was that it was both like old and
Speaker 3: classical and beautiful, but also like a vibrant, exciting city
Speaker 3: where like people lived and worked and loved and played
Speaker 3: and all the things. I just had the best time there.
Speaker 3: I was so impressed, And so I don't know what
Speaker 3: hashtag Vienna is but the actual city that I got
Speaker 3: to experience back in those pre iPhone days no further
Speaker 3: date specification provided was incredible. And so people if people
Speaker 3: were going there pursuing hashtag Vienna, whatever that might have been,
Speaker 3: I do have to wonder if they were missing out
Speaker 3: on some of the more subtle beauty that was there
Speaker 3: to be had well.
Speaker 1: So that's exactly what doctor siegeal found that the staff
Speaker 1: of the tourist board in Vienna, who created this kind
Speaker 1: of anti hashtag campaign, explained that all these tourists would
Speaker 1: come to Vienna and that their image of Vienna was
Speaker 1: this mis quote metropolis without stress, and yet the tourism
Speaker 1: board felt that visitors to their city were increasingly just
Speaker 1: missing out on these very experiences because they were too
Speaker 1: busy on their dang phones, as my mom would say.
Speaker 1: So this seems like a pretty important observation relevant to
Speaker 1: all these other Instagram driven behaviors that we've already talked
Speaker 1: about that focus on getting this perfect picture for other
Speaker 1: people and having that stand in the way of actually
Speaker 1: being present and enjoying oneself. And that's exactly what I
Speaker 1: think that the Vienna Tourism board, it sounds like was
Speaker 1: trying to combat and y'all. If there is one thing
Speaker 1: I have learned over the last couple of months, it
Speaker 1: is that life is too dang short to live it
Speaker 1: for validation or people on your phone or other outside people.
Speaker 1: You shouldn't be living it for you. So if you're
Speaker 1: doing any travel over the holiday season, how to keep
Speaker 1: that online?
Speaker 3: What a nice sentiment, Bridget.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much, Mike, and thanks for listening. I will
Speaker 1: see all on the internet. Got a story about an
Speaker 1: interesting thing in tech. I just want to say hi.
Speaker 1: You can reach us at Hello at tengodi dot com.
Speaker 1: You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tengodi
Speaker 1: dot com. There Are No Girls on the Internet was
Speaker 1: created by me Bridget Tod. It's a production of iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: and Unbossed creative Jonathan Strickland as our executive producer. Tarry
Speaker 1: Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Almado is
Speaker 1: our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd. If you
Speaker 1: want to help us grow, rate and review.
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