Why I’ve had it with Instagrammers (and some travel bloggers)
It took a couple of days of the “post pandemic new normal” to be reminded of something that drives me crazy. Instagrammers. There they were, 2 girls, one in an all-blue outfit, another in an all-red outfit, both carrying handbags with flowers that matched their outfits. They stood by a wall of flowers, posing and pouting, the two alternatively taking photos of each other.
I’ve seen it so many times, these tag teams of girls (or sometimes a girl and her boyfriend). It bothers me. And not only because they’ll monopolize monuments or scenic viewpoints with their endless photo taking but also because they, in my opinion, represent everything that’s wrong with the “travel experience” today.
You might be thinking “but Frank, these are just a couple of people travelling and taking photos of themselves. Why do you have to crap on that?”. My answer to that is that it’s not just people “taking photos of themselves”. People have always taken photos of themselves on vacation. “Instagramming” is very different. The goal of Instagramming is not so much the destination and the experience but the selling of the personality/lifestyle/or a product. Whereas the person taking a photo of themselves on vacation does it to capture a moment, the instagrammer/influencer goes out with the intention of taking photos in a certain location. When you see a woman posing in a red dress and heels on a mountaintop, do you ever wonder how she hiked the mountain wearing that? Obviously she set out for that hike with a change of clothing packed away and a goal of spending a few hours posing for photos. We’ve seen first-hand people changing their outfits right in front of us for just that right Instagram photo.
Here are a bunch of reasons why I’m fed up with Instagrammers.
It reduces Travel to it’s “Instagrammability”
What’s travel about? Is it about experiences (good and bad) and learning about a destination? Or is it about getting a photo of yourself in front a famous place?
According to a survey, 40% of Millennials chose a holiday destination based on Instagrammability. It’s the biggest determining factor for Millennials in choosing a holiday destination.
Obviously, as full-time “slow” travellers, Instagrammability runs totally opposite to why we travel. Sure we want to see historic sights and incredible vistas. They attract us to places as well. But going there to get a perfect photo of ourselves in those places so that we can post it on social media doesn’t even register as a reason for going. We find it an extremely shallow reason to visit a place.
It’s Fake
Forget about the reason you’re going somewhere. How are you portraying it? I can show you a thousand photos that we’ve taken (sorry, without us in them. Selfies are not our thing) in beautiful and/or historic settings. But does that photo reflect the reality of travel to that destination? Because we’ve got some great photos from places we really didn’t enjoy. Morocco, for example, is one of the most beautiful places I’ve been and I could fool you, based on Instagram, into thinking I loved Morocco. In actual fact there were a lot of things about Morocco that I really hated.
I’ve written about it before – I have a big issue with the way Media (and I’ll get to Travel Bloggers a bit later) romanticise places. It’s hard to sell a place as a destination to go to if you’re being negative about it. And since Instagram is about selling ‘the dream’, all you see and read are influencers and bloggers gushing all over themselves about how great places are. There’s very little that’s ‘real’ anymore*.
*I haven’t even gotten into the digital manipulation of photos. From Instagrammers deleting crowds from their photos or inserting themselves into landscapes, it’s very hard to know what’s real anymore.
They promote the same places
It’s usually the same places: Santorini, the Maldives, London, New York, Bali, the Amalfi Coast. It’s a loop – if people want to go to the most Instagrammable places then all the places you’ll see promoted on Instagram are all the Instagrammable places. And since travel companies with big budgets throw money at Influencers to promote their destinations, you’ll usually end up with the same places constantly being promoted. National Geographic wrote about it here: How Instagram is Changing Travel.
People have always followed the crowds. But Instagram has just added to that herd mentality. The end result are over-rated and over-crowded destinations – and destinations that are overlooked just because they’re deemed not Instagram-worthy.
It’s all about vanity and status…with no substance
A few years ago we visited Bamberg. We were on a bridge looking out over the famous Altes Rathaus when a girl quickly came up from behind, walking backwards, to the edge of the bridge. The reason she was walking backwards was that she was taking photos of herself with the Rathaus in the background. For 5 minutes she posed and took photos. Finished, she walked away. Never once during those 5 minutes did she ever turn to look at the scenery, the entirety of the time was spent looking at herself on her camera screen.
I know I mentioned above that Instagrammers go to all the same places. But the crazy thing is that those places are just a setting for their photos. It’s really all about them. And it’s about them showing off the places they go…but not really engaging with that place.
Somebody recently brought up something to me that stuck in my mind. Remember before digital cameras when we all had a roll of film in our cameras (25 years ago? I know I was a bit late to the digital game…). During that time, with about 24 or 36 photos to a roll of film, everyone was careful about the photos they took. Do you think, during that time, people took selfie after selfie? The answer is no. And if you did then I’m sure people thought you were the vainest, most self-absorbed person on the planet.
So how did we get from there to here?
And then there are Travel Bloggers….
Travel blogging for me was just a natural extension of my loves of travel, photography and writing. The blog has been a place where I could both document my travels and express my thoughts on travel related subjects.
It’s not a coincidence that, as Instagram has taken over social media, that travel blogging has become increasingly vapid. It’s become “Instagram-centric”: a world of posed photos, self-indulgent platitudes, and “woke” hashtags. It’s the same travel bloggers that talk about sustainable travel, yoga, and vegetarianism (yes, we’ve met a lot of those. Then you find out they eat meat and can’t name the type of yoga they practice). And it’s the same travel bloggers who post those Instagram photos telling you how much they love a place – and when you meet them in person they cry about their whole experience and tell you about how they haven’t left their apartment in 2 weeks because the people were “horrible” and the city “dirty”…
They’re also the same bloggers that, along with social media influencers, ask hotels and restaurants for free stays and free meals in return for a mention on their social media platforms. So much so that it’s created a backlash among people in the hospitality and restauration industry.
I’ve become so disillusioned with it all that, if ever asked, I never tell people that I’m a travel blogger anymore. I’m now a “Travel writer”.
Instagram?? As far as I’m concerned it’s a place to watch funny dog videos when on the toilet. Otherwise I’d basically fed up with it.
Related: “Not everyone can travel”. About Privilege and Virtue Signalling
Related: Reasons why I don’t visit your blog
Related: When People tell us that “we’re lucky” to Travel Full-time…
It’s all good man! Kind of agree with you. Sustainable travel is an oxymoron. Usually means a horde of the aforementioned influencers swarming a once pristine area 😢
Hey all,
I and my boyfriend are 24 and 29 respectively.
The last two years, since our work went remote, we have been traveling around the world and staying in places for one to two months at a time.
During COVID, most of these places were quite tame. But as we are all now out of that period, he and I are noticing an insane influx of these awful robot vanity people.
Just the other day I was at an amazing intimate music event in the white sand cliffs near Lisbon. Behind the musicians was an absolute HORDE of influencers, decked out to the nines, flashing hundreds of pictures.
I’m honestly not even sure how you can have the patience to take that many pictures.
And several of them had brought professional camera men with them. When filming, they danced about. The second the camera was done, off came the smile and gone was the dancing.
It made everything about the event feel so icky and artificial. Especially because they were just everywhere.
Consistently I’m feeling this the more places we visit. The presence of these inconsiderate a*%holes makes these beautiful spots feel artificial and dull.
That’s all to say – agree with everything here! Well written!
I won’t write a book here so I’ll just say you’ve only begun to scratch the surface of the countless ways this “look at me” generation is ruining travel and the places they travel to. I find myself thanking you in a comment again for being an honest voice in this swill puppy mill of an industry that is travel writing.
Thank you JD 🙂
Oh Frank ! Couldn’t agree with you more. I find it all very irritating and depressing.
Agree 100% with all of this. I’ve removed almost all travel blogs from my rss feed (yes, I still use that) as result. And I’ve been looking into some skinny jeans myself. Vasectomies are expensive.
Yep. 110%. I see you’ve been following our Bangladesh travels. We rarely take selfies, (except beer pics). Our photos are way more attractive without us in them. It’s hard to get a feel for a place when people are pouting and preening in front of the main attraction!
Hey Frank…always enjoy these posts from you and your analysis.
As I was reading this post I was recalling a girl I had seen on Easter Island. There were a handful of people just after sunrise in front of some Moai on the ocean’s edge. It was a peaceful somewhat spiritual moment. The girl had set up a tripod w her camera. And over and over she ran and danced up to Moai, looking somewhat foolish and really detracting from the moment.
Oh yes… I would not write about it on my blog as I prefer to focus on positivity; but I am also fed up with all this travel blogging/social industry.
I started my very first blog in 2007, to share my trip to Morocco with my family and friends. Then, I created a YouTube channel as I had so many amazing experiences during local ceremonies.
When I quit my secured and well paid job in 2017, it was not in order to travel the world – for free. But after 19 years, I could not stand anymore the way the company I was a manager in, was treating customers and employees… I have lived in the Basque country – and now at a few minutes from it – since 2000. I collected, for my own needs and pleasure, 100 of the most traditional festivals of the Basque Country; then I shared it on my blog… And this is how my work in my area was noticed by some local guides who proposed me to become a tour guide and trained me – at that time, I was “only” famous in India for my work in Tribal areas in Central India. I am even considered by a lot of Indians as an expert in Tribal culture.
Nowadays, I run both a homestay – I rent a holiday flat in my house – my own travel services in my area and my blogs (my westie dog also has hos blog). I promote the homestay and guiding services of 3 of my very good friends in India and Indonesia; and when I travel in my area, I pay for my trip and tell only at the end of my stay “who I am”… Staying independent, honest and transparent with my readers and clients is much more important than anything else. I will certainly never become rich, I will certainly never have millions of readers, I will never travel for free; but I am totally aligned with my values and my clients feel it. Last month, I had my first clients for homestay + guiding from USA – they told me about your article a few days ago! – and more and more people first come only for a few nights here, then come back for my homestay + guiding services.
I am not the friend of most French travel offices although I recommend them on my blog – nonsense… – because most of the time they see me as a competitor when I say I am a travel blogger, and a competitor too when I say I am a tour guide and homestay provider (yes, French tourism offices now seem to mostly care about money and offer paid tours, accomodations, etc. If you visit them in person, they will only give you general brochures…). But they have no problem working with big local websites only writing sponsored articles to promote businesses, withpout mentioning it – I still don’t understand how readers are blindly trusting them and why Google does not sanction them for not displaying the legal mentions… They only do ads and it is mentioned nowhere…
So, I don’t care. Time to time, I plan a trip around to improve my knowledge, directly go to the local farmer selling goat cheese, the local restaurant offering lamb barbecue in a cave, the local homestay with an history, etc. If I like, I work with them; if I don’t like, I don’t talk…
I agree, don’t like fake polished photos on instagram. I prefer to follow real people with real photos:)
Ha, great article. Hits the nail on the head and I totally agree – I write and post photos reflecting my own interests, particularly in landscape and nature related themes, (probably very nerdy and sometimes several thousand words at a time. which Is no doubt way too long for today’s average attention spans). I don’t make money from it and you won’t find hashtags or hyperlinks cluttering up the text; my view is that hopefully one or 2 people (other nerds perhaps) might come across my posts and find them interesting – that’s just fine by me. As mentioned, the dreaded V-loggers are quite the worst; usually some totally over-the-top, nauseating and uniformed couple sprouting out a non stop stream of complete gibberish… don’t get me started ! By the way I think it was one of your blog posts about Bacharach on the Rhine that persuaded me to take a group of friend there for a reunion; nice place ! (we were there in late October and about the only people in the whole place).
Hi Ian,
Thanks for the comment. Great to hear you enjoyed Bacharach!
Hi Frank, I enjoyed reading your post! And I also totally agree. Isa and I, we both read very few travel blogs. And I HATE these listicle with “things you have to see” that usually include the obvious sights from trip adviser. I guess we are in the lucky position to make money from the guidebooks, travel articles and the tourguiding (not now though….) and we have the freedom to write whatever we want on the blog. I am very shy to advertise the blog, although I should do it more maybe. But actually I like Instagram – I like seeing amazing pictures of places from other people as well as posting our own pictures. We have been blogging for 15 years now – with a lot of ups and downs, I guess we can go for another 10 (at least…).
I also identify myself as a travel writer, it’s almost as if “blogger” now has a bad rap thanks to all the reasons you mentioned in your post. I was truly hoping the pandemic would clean house, so-to-speak, and cause the phonies who write from their mother’s basement to fade away. Every aspect of travel, has changed in the past 18 months. I kind of think (hope) the days of “influencers” have peeked, but time will tell. I know several authentic travel bloggers that have stopped publishing. In part because of the pandemic, but also because of what has happened to the industry thanks to influencers who promised the moon and stars and gave nothing in return. It tainted the travel writing industry and made it that much harder for honest writers/bloggers to gain ground.
I’ve come so close to bailing on all social media, but we do have authentic followers through the platforms so I keep going, (except Twitter. Loathe Twitter) but not anywhere near what I did pre-pandemic. And, I completely agree with your assessment of Pinterest. The algorithms are all over the place and I’ve given up on trying to figure it out. Every time I see a Pin on Pinterest titled “25 best ….” I pass right by. It’s just regurgitating what they’ve pulled from the internet. Funny though, Pinterest continues to be my biggest referrer. Go figure.
Truthfully, I’ve given thought (more than once) to throwing in the towel like some of my colleagues have done, but so far I keep talking myself out of it. I like what I do and I figure it’s worth hanging in until I see how/if/when the industry comes back to life.
Agree with everything you say Patti. I remember starting in 2013 (about the same time as you if I remember well) and it was totally different. There was a sense of community around bloggers, there wasn’t so much competition (lots of readers to go around right?), and it wasn’t all about making money. You know what’s really bugged me? Bloggers you and I know who, during the pandemic, have continued on as if the pandemic never happened. They haven’t even tried to be current and relevant.
I think we’ve had this conversation before. But I think we have to do it because we enjoy it. The day I don’t anymore I’ll quit. In the meantime I’ll continue writing and maybe incorporate a few different things to evolve with the time. But in the end it has to be fun.
Really enjoyed your article, i remember being on Pink Street in Lisbon, sitting outside the canned restaurant, eating my lovely meal & the whole 3 course lunch, watch a couple of young ladies take 100’s of pictures instead of enjoying the vibe/buzz of being in a foreign city.
Exactly. Thanks Sadie.
Hey Frank, couldn’t agree more! The problem hasn’t gone away, and in fact seems to be growing at an alarming rate of knots. In fact, the insta-wannabes have infiltrated so much of society that I’m almost embarrassed to get my camera out at a beauty spot. Just in case I’m mistaken for one.
Like you, as a blogger I’ve always tried to be honest, and balance the good with the bad, because truth is all that matters. Yet in recent years I’ve struggled to come up with the gripes, so I worry that I come across as being overly gushy sometimes. Maybe I’m just so damn good at organising our trips thanks to countless hours of anally researching our destinations, that it’s having a detrimental effect on the balanced writing! Having said that, I wrote an honest review of a complimentary stay (pre-pandemic) where several things weren’t right, proceeded to receive a sh*t ton of grief from the manager, who then told me he’d fired the poor guy who’d originally set up the trip with me, because of what I wrote. I’d been very fair, and given them ample opportunity to comment before publishing, but nada. I stuck to my guns, and after perusing their Trip Advisor page (always good for a laugh at the shocking management responses), I can see they’ve changed nothing. At least I didn’t fall off a cliff whilst pouting and posing for the ‘gram though.
Still sad you don’t love Morocco as much as us, but to be fair, it terrified us on our first trip (I know you’ve been before too). It was only after multiple visits that we ‘got’ it. So there’s still hope, ha ha.
Of course the real reason I’m not a fedora-wearing floaty dress swishing instagrammer is because I look mighty daft in hats 😉
“I’m almost embarrassed to get my camera out at a beauty spot” – yes, I’ve been feeling like that too.
You guys mostly stay in pretty chic places whereas travelling full-time we spend time in Airbnbs. Makes for totally different experiences. I think when we travel again our travels will be more like yours, a week of two somewhere, because we can’t be leaving our new apartment for months at a time. How you travel makes all the difference especially in places like Morocco where I combined basic Riads and cross-country public buses with private drivers and upscale Riads. If I ever came back to Morocco I would do it on the upper end, I think you can really only appreciate Morocco that way. It’s a country where you need a buffer.
Where was your negative experience Heather?
Never noticed you to look daft in hats. You should see me in a tuque.
Staying in upmarket places certainly does put a certain spin on things, and yes, if I’d been subjected to dubious guest houses and public transport in Morocco I’m sure my view would be completely different. Not sure I’m ever going to put that to the test though 😉
It was Sri Lanka!
That’s coz I never wear them, ha ha. Had to google tuque. I’m sure you could pull one off if you had to 😉
I appreciate the rant, Frank! Yours is the only travel blog that I actually still subscribe to. I discovered it a few years ago when trying to decide on whether to go the Prague or Budapest with the couple of extra days we had on our trip. You had written a very detailed post on exactly that! (We went to Budapest and loved it! And we used your list of ruin bars!) Many travel bloggers gloss over the destination without being very specific and everything comes out rosy. Instagrammers just provide a pretty picture without substance. Us fans in Canada are thankful for your approach! Keep doing what you do!
Very kind Tonja, thank you so much!
And please make sure to also visit Prague. Both great cities but Prague will always be our favorite 🙂
there are posts out there from some that ive read where they talk about the best places to ‘instagram’. I know what you mean. And people get annoyed at you for not instagramming (for want of a better word) for a month. Well, i hadnt been anywhere! the fact is you can take pics of yourself wherever you are. the idea of travel to a spot on the earth so you can pose there is pretty fucking sad, please excuse my french, if you ask me.
Yes, I’ve seen a million of those posts Andy. Like the “100 best Instagram spots in London”. I’ve been to a few cities where there’s a sign indicating where to take a photo. Imagine, they’re telling you where to take a photo so that you can have the same f*ing photo as everyone else. Blows the mind.
We’re totally on the same page.
Frank, I agree with all of the above and tbh I am very disillusioned with social media in general and don’t actually read many blogs anymore. Many of the blogs I used to enjoy have now become just about making money and clickbait. They are now just full of adverts and boring (not yours btw) and you can’t even trust their recommendations. Some people blog about places that they have not even visited. I don’t think things will get any better as far as social media is concerned. Not sure what the answer is either.
Oh, writing about places they’ve never been to before. Can’t agree more! That really pisses me off. Particularly when they write about somewhere you live! Or write about the ‘best Australian road trip’, without having even visited Australia.
I have no problems with people making money – if it’s good quality. For the record, I do support a few bicycle tourers via Patreon. But only because their video content is good, and they’ve put a ton of time into it. One of them, though, has decided to pause billing because they’re not doing much at the moment.
I’ve seen more and more bloggers (like Nomadic Matt and Adventurous Kate) turning to Patreon to make money since all their other revenue streams dried up. But I’ve always wondered who would pay for that. I understand in your case since you’re an avid cyclist and want access to info that maybe you can’t get anywhere else. But otherwise, do people care what Adventurous Kate is wearing and what books she read last month? Because if so I can find a lot of shit to write about 🙂
I once read Nomadic Matt, years ago. Seemed a little self-entitled, in my opinion. At some point, i will write blog posts, and/or do a YT video, about equipment I use. But that’s practical and useful information. if people want to see what I read last month, I guess I could always add a social link to my Goodreads account. 🙂 I promise I won’t make a blog post or video about which toothpaste I use or the colour of my socks. 😀
He’s a typical young white American. And he writes young, but at least he’s honest. That’s rare these days.
Yes, I can see what you mention being of interest. It’s niche. People want to have practical and useful info. I’ve actually been doing some reading on bike circuits here in Spain and it’s not always obvious figuring out if bike routes are dedicated bike paths, lanes reserved on the side of the road, or just recommended circuits. So first hand info is valuable…
“Some people blog about places that they have not even visited” – exactly Gilda! That’s the new thing. And you’re right about clickbait as well.
I’ve stuck with many of the usual blogs but have become disillusioned by them. Reading them you won’t know that we’ve had a pandemic for the last 14 months or so, they’re still writing about the top places to visit in Atlanta or the best shoes to wear on a hike. I like to hear stories and it’s amazing to me reading blogs of “full-time travellers” and having no idea how they’ve coped or what they’ve done for the last year and a half. If you really want to be cynical, you can say they just don’t care about their readers…
Couldn’t agree more! My least favorite type of shot is a girl standing in front of a monument, back to the camera, wearing a straw hat and floaty dress. Those could be the same girl photoshopped onto several pictures. I have an Instagram account because my husband and I like photography and I have a small number of friends who are on Instagram. But like you, we don’t take a lot of pictures of ourselves and my account only has very few that I felt like posting. Some of our good photos have become our wall art.
Travel blogs have just either become reservoirs for “Top 10…” that regurgitate content already out there or another way to post pictures with absolutely no commentary or personal experiences. Those bloggers make so much money from being influencers that they probably hire people from content mills to write stuff for them. It’s only good blogs like yours that I’ll come back to for the storytelling and as a resource before I plan our travel (if we ever get out of here!)
Appreciate that last sentence Claudine. Thank you!!
How about the girl, wearing that same straw hat (of course!), but from behind with her hand extending out leading you somewhere. Haven’t you seen that a million times?
I don’t know how many people actually make money from being influencers Claudine. I think there’s a select few. But there’s a lot of posing and faking going on…
Hah! Yes, I forgot about the girl pointing to somewhere!
Since I have to hire writers for some of what I do, I see many writers listing travel writing as one of their specialties. I’ve also seen job postings for travel writers and most of them are not for big magazine publications. I think the money is there if you focus on SEO. They’re not influencers really because they aren’t very visible blog owners like Nomadic Matt, but they are very strategic with what they write about. Once they get big enough they just need a few long-term sponsors to add to their already good display ad and affiliate revenue streams. These are the people who haven’t even been to the places they write about!
YouTube is a whole different beast and there are Vloggers who make hundreds of thousands of dollars once they get the snowball moving. Many of them hire video editors eventually.
Thanks Claudine. Are you maybe talking about websites like Planetware, the Crazy Tourist, and the Culture Trip? Generic type websites that typically generate Top 10 lists for different cities/countries?
The ones you mention are larger than what I’m thinking of and they don’t have faces to the blogs I think so I don’t really count them as travel blogs. The ones I’m thinking of are run by 1 person or a couple. Savoredjourneys comes to mind. Some of their photos are not theirs and there are lots of “best of” type articles. Another is Travelaway.me.
Interesting, never heard of them.
Forgot to say that I’ve now followed you on Instagram. I’m surprised you haven’t posted this article’s featured image there. It’s hilarious :-))
I do very little on IG (or other social media) Claudine. Sometimes I wonder if I should outsource that. But I’m horrible at it and I just don’t enjoy it…
Maybe I should post it there but I might get blacklisted 🙂
Yeah, social media marketing is pretty boring and from what I know about it, you can’t get traction without doing lots of it regularly. I do know that Pinterest is the best one for travel blogs and anything visual because each pin is a direct link to an article, unlike Instagram. There’s a software called Tailwind where you can schedule posts for Pinterest and Instagram so that they appear at a time when most people are on there. It has other features like a hashtag finder, etc.
Ha! I’ve used Pinterest for years and used to have good traffic. In 2019 put in a lot of time, coded all my pins, put pins in posts, got Tailwind…it did absolutely nothing. Last year stopped altogether and dropped Tailwind. I still get the same traffic I did during that time.
They’ve played with the algorithm and it’s totally screwed up. Not worth the time. Just like Facebook…8 years ago it was all about getting FB followers and then FB decided that your own followers shouldn’t see your posts.
Social Media is bullshit and these companies try to get you hooked and then do a switch and bait so that you spend to promote.
I think it works for people who know the game and that they’re usually people who do it for a living full-time. But I think the ordinary blogger isn’t getting anywhere these days on social media unless they pay for it…
You’re preaching to the choir. I don’t even think I have an Instagram account. If I do it’s because my Millenial daughter set it up. I had a blog a decade ago to muse about politics, travels, family anecdotes etc. it was my diary out loud. But I’m too lazy to do that. I used to subscribe to other blogs, but only read yours, because you travel, as opposed to vacation. Influencers are narcissists and usually couldn’t find their way out of a paper bag. Thanks for sharing the good with the bad. I fell in love with Prachuap Kiri Khan. Went for a few days, extended to two weeks. The monkeys were truly as obnoxious as you asserted. And in heat when I visited February 2019, my last time out of the US.
I look forward to time in Spain in 2022.
Keep up the honesty. You’re much appreciated.
Very sweet comment, thank you Marti. And makes me really happy that you enjoyed PKK as we did. Was it just for a holiday? Do you have any intentions of ever going back? Funny we kind of hated Hua Hin, but PKK was our kind of paradise.
I joined Instagram because if you’re a blogger you’re always trying to reach new people. But IG a lost cause for me. Unless I can get Lissette to pose in bikinis or we get a funny looking dog and teach him weird tricks.
Frank, can I add another type of fake social media traveler? Here it is: the Youtubers/vloggers who travel for 2,3,4 years staying in hostels and AirBnBs, and then they hit couple 100K followers and now they are staying at lavish resorts all comped because of the “audience” they now have! These same people complain that a museum charges more than $10 USD, and then state on the videos that the admission was too high for them to afford to go in, sorry…Or, they have Patreon accounts that allow viewers to send x dollars a month, while they are making $30-100K/month from Youtube! To top all of this off, they think that viewers are too stupid to see how they are conned!
I canceled subscriptions on Youtube to many, many of these phonies! No more, no way, no how!
Gee, I got into the wrong type of blogging John!
Youtube/vloggers not my thing. I have no patience to sit through a 20 minute video. But if you have an example pls feel free to send to me privately, I’d be curious to see an example of what you’re talking about (and yes, many of these Influencers suddenly start thinking they’re god’s gift…)
Oh, I 100% agree! They’re so self-centred, don’t care about anyone else. All they want to do is to ‘get their shot’. I hate the term ‘influencer’. Such an arrogant term. Instagrammers have ruined a lot of travel. Their travel blogging is generally rubbish, too. Ok, mine’s not great. But I don’t blog just to sell myself. I blog (and currently not a great deal at the moment) because I like documenting what I experience.
I agree with everything you say Stephen.
In the end, I think the best blogging is by people who love/care about what they do. I think that comes through. It might not be the most polished stuff, it might not sell to most people, but if you love what you do that comes across to people who care about what you have to write about. So I wouldn’t worry about that. Some of the bloggers I’ve met don’t really care about blogging – they got into it because they saw it as a way to source their travels. And maybe it does…but long term will they continue through the ups and downs of blogging? I don’t think so.