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Photographers, Instagrammers: Stop Being So Selfish and Disrespectful

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Re: Photographers, Instagrammers: Stop Being So Selfish and Disrespectful

#81

Post by mdpye »

ahartmetz wrote: post #76
mdpye wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a power imbalance there. You're on holiday, exercising your economic power and generally having a good time. How would you feel if hoards of Chinese people came over to photograph you in your native environment, say, stuck in traffic on your commute, or late to drop your kids off at school, or while they're standing in your front garden while you're up a ladder trying to clear the guttering? Perhaps you'd tir…

There is also an old-fashioned way to put it without reaching into the social justice toolbox: people doing something pleasant gawking at people doing something unpleasant. Imagine a tourist having a minor traffic accident or dropping their backpack into the mud, and locals standing around it taking pictures. It is less about a global power imbalance and more about a situational one.

That is what I meant (situational). The people you're you're meeting on holiday may well take nice holidays too, but they are not right at that moment :)

Re: Photographers, Instagrammers: Stop Being So Selfish and Disrespectful

#82

Post by paganel »

word-reader wrote: post #28
tjr225 wrote: post #2

It feels more and more that people go to cool places just to prove they have as many resources as their peers. Travel and social media is just an extension of "keeping up with the Jones's" but on a personal identity level- only at the cost of whatever destruction you are willing to put our planet through, be it that new camera you bought, or the jet fuel you paid to burn. I couldn't help but feel guilty on the way to…

Not nearly enough has been written about "travel as status-seeking". It is for some a way to portray that you're not materialistic, but still dunk on all the poors and other outgroup members while blowing thousands of dollars on what is ultimately a luxury. The sub-category of "travel as wasteful mating signal & ritual" deserves another novel on top of this. It didn't help that for several years (though it has thankf…

> Not nearly enough has been written about "travel as status-seeking".

The German film-critic Siegfried Kracauer wrote a very interesting essay against tourism as a mass phenomenon in the 1930s or so, just as the phenomenon was about to be born. Really interesting piece, you can find it in an essays book called "The Mass Ornament", and the book itself can be read in here [1] (warning, big PDF)

[1] https://monoskop.org/images/0/0f/Kracauer_Siegfried_The_Mass...

Re: Photographers, Instagrammers: Stop Being So Selfish and Disrespectful

#83

Post by mdpye »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #75
mdpye wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a power imbalance there. You're on holiday, exercising your economic power and generally having a good time. How would you feel if hoards of Chinese people came over to photograph you in your native environment, say, stuck in traffic on your commute, or late to drop your kids off at school, or while they're standing in your front garden while you're up a ladder trying to clear the guttering? Perhaps you'd tir…

Why? What happens if I show up in a Chinese photo album? I think the problem in this subthread started when jwmoz decided the "equivalent" of tourists coming to your fields, trampling your crops, and cutting and taking bunches of produce for themselves was tourists coming to a Starbucks and taking pictures.

It's the taking of the photos which is an intrusion, not the photos themselves.

Re: Photographers, Instagrammers: Stop Being So Selfish and Disrespectful

#84

Post by arvinsim »

word-reader wrote: post #28
tjr225 wrote: post #2

It feels more and more that people go to cool places just to prove they have as many resources as their peers. Travel and social media is just an extension of "keeping up with the Jones's" but on a personal identity level- only at the cost of whatever destruction you are willing to put our planet through, be it that new camera you bought, or the jet fuel you paid to burn. I couldn't help but feel guilty on the way to…

Not nearly enough has been written about "travel as status-seeking". It is for some a way to portray that you're not materialistic, but still dunk on all the poors and other outgroup members while blowing thousands of dollars on what is ultimately a luxury. The sub-category of "travel as wasteful mating signal & ritual" deserves another novel on top of this. It didn't help that for several years (though it has thankf…

> Not nearly enough has been written about "travel as status-seeking". It is for some a way to portray that you're not materialistic, but still dunk on all the poors and other outgroup members while blowing thousands of dollars on what is ultimately a luxury. The sub-category of "travel as wasteful mating signal & ritual" deserves another novel on top of this.

We are definitely getting to the point where since everyone is doing it, it's not special anymore.

Much like a bachelor's degree used to be something sought by companies. But now, they are considered the baseline.

Re: Photographers, Instagrammers: Stop Being So Selfish and Disrespectful

#85

Post by trax »

robocat wrote: post #78

So, NZ is on the receiving end of some of this, and here's my opinion: * Our popular areas are completely overrun during tourist season - I personally think not much fun for tourists or locals (unless a crowd is good e.g. party zones) * As a local, I can usually find something way better when I travel in NZ that isn't overrun by tourists (e.g. from article, that one lavender farm in France is overrun, but I bet there…

Everybody wants to travel but nobody wants to be a tourist.

Re: Photographers, Instagrammers: Stop Being So Selfish and Disrespectful

#86

Post by arvinsim »

aikinai wrote: post #50
speedplane wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I never understood travel culture, but I've seen it contribute to depression in my friends and neighbors because they somehow have been convinced that a meaningful life requires global travel ... I view travel culture as very toxic Sure, traveling just to achieve certain bragging rights is superficial and silly, but that doesn't mean travel itself isn't valuable. Similarly, reading books just to say you've read the…

Very very few people “viscerally see how people live and value things differently” when they travel. And they can’t without an order of magnitude more time and money to spend on that travel. Actually living in a different place will certainly do that, but “travel” almost never will.

Yeah, traveling for a week for a vacation is very different from staying in a place and interacting with the local culture for an extended amount of time.

Re: Photographers, Instagrammers: Stop Being So Selfish and Disrespectful

#87

Post by dominicr »

drivingmenuts wrote: post #32
tayo42 wrote: post #24

Ive been curious, without knowing how to prove it or not, If social media/instagram is really a significant contributor to over tourism? I guess I have a hard believing its not coincidental. People have always taken pictures around the world. But recently travel is becoming a lot cheaper, a lot safer, developing countries are developing so they are easier to get to, its easier to get to far corners of the world, chin…

Probably something to do with the ubiquity of cameras these days, as well. Anecdatally, I remember when my grandfather bought a Canon A-1 in the late 70s and it was A BIG DEAL. While lots of people had Polaroids and other low-level stuff, this was the equivalent of a prosumer camera, at the time and it was expensive for the time, too. The slides he took were for his own amusement, and the family’s, just like most oth…

I'd agree, it's the ubiquity of digital cameras, plus social media making it normal/expected that people will post photos from a trip.

In the past photos were mainly for your own use and you'd talk to people about your trip. Now photos are how people tell each other about what they're doing and where they are. As social media has become competitive for many people that compounds the effect.

When I was travelling around SE Asia twenty years ago with a film SLR I was a novelty. At a viewpoint most tourists would take one photo with a point and shoot and I'd take perhaps 2 or 3. The rest of the time was spent looking & exploring.

Re: Photographers, Instagrammers: Stop Being So Selfish and Disrespectful

#88

Post by dustinmoris »

Wow the last photo of Angor Wat is shocking. I actually feel sick and disgusted by looking at this photo. I travelled South East Asia extensively in 2012 when Instagram was not a thing (yet) and honestly this place was almost empty and one of the most magical things I've ever seen. If I was to go there today and this would be my experience then I would have never gotten the travel bug. What's wrong with these people, honestly the majority of people are just dumb sheep, no self respect, no dignity, no respect for our planet and other living beings. Nobody with a tiny bit of self respect would put themselves into this crowd just for a narcissistic Instagram photo.

Re: Photographers, Instagrammers: Stop Being So Selfish and Disrespectful

#89

Post by TeMPOraL »

kd5bjo wrote: post #58
modernthumb wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see your point but as a passportless 21 year old I can't help but feel I'm missing out on something. I've never really experienced anything outside of the US. It's such an exciting prospect to visit somewhere exotic that looks nothing like the place I've always known, has completely different food, language, animals. Maybe the joy is temporary but it's still joy and I hope if I ever get the chance to travel it'…

As someone who has travelled some, the tragedy of the modern tourism industry is that it has homogenized so many places that it’s hard to tell them apart. I first noticed it when I took a Caribbean cruise a decade ago. The port areas are dominated by tourist culture instead of local culture, and you’re hard-pressed to tell one from another. Here in Iceland(1), shops downtown are regularly being replaced by copies of…

> And that’s not necessarily a bad thing: like everything else, travel needs welcoming, entry-level experiences. The trouble comes when it gets so prevalent that it starts to warp and destroy the local culture in order to sell more spectacle.

Kind of like software development these days, on the web in particular - the "entry-level experience" makes most money, so over time it starts to dominate and push out everything else.

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