Taking a picture here and there and just traveling somewhere for another story and to show off. That is something completely normal in this society. Social Media is it really social?
How social is social media?
Since people are making money off social media and see a potential there, they want to show off. Showing how amazing they are and how amazing every place they go is and how amazing their life is.
It is so often not the reality being shown there.
Influencers are presenting everything to be always great, are afraid of showing bad sights and are afraid of presenting themself as not perfect.
It is not only in the travel influencer bubble, it is literally everywhere, but I will be focussing on traveling, because it is the only bubble I am actively seeing.
Travel Influencer
Don’t get me wrong, there are some authentic travel influencers, who are doing crazy stuff because they want to do it and because they love doing it. Sadly it is not the case for most travel influencers. Most of them push themself of make as much content as possible and try to focus on making it look as amazing as possible.
After seeing almost 50% of all countries, it is just not possible.
There are bad things happening everywhere in countries, why talk only about the good things, why not be a little bit critical?
People want to see authentic things, but they mainly see the perfect place after the perfect place. In reality it often doesn’t look the way it is presented, or at least not empty. This of course depends on which destination we are talking about.
People who usually are not traveling much dream of a place they see online and are extremely hyped for it and are disappointed when visiting, because the negative sides are not mentioned. Also wrong information is in many reels, which is sad to see.
What do I experience myself on my social media behavior?
I was in a few phases on using social media. At first it was very new and interesting, I was taking pictures and uploaded them. People liked it and many new people came and watched them. I started getting hundreds of likes on pictures. I was hyped and making more pictures and tried to improve my content the way the people liked seeing it.
Trying to make the followers happy and keep up with that. Posting regularly is important for the algorithm, I wasn’t big on traveling back then, but still saw quite something.
The follower number started getting high and I tried to push my account with some methods like engagement groups. Over the time I still had to deal with lack of motivation due to depression which made it harder to keep up and post regularly.
I did a few breaks and came back, but the algorithm made it happen that people didn’t care anymore, even with better content as before.
I traveled to places where people wouldn’t usually go and tried to prove to myself that I am better than how people treated me in school. Running after a goal without looking at myself and I can see it with many others in the traveling bubble. One record after another, without doing something for yourself.
The last episode was with my ex when we were having a story and being in print media and online news. It was interesting and a different style of traveling. We were not having many followers, but people who actually cared. This was healthy in a way, but also not healthy for the US and was probably a factor of breaking up.
Travel Burnout
A travel burnout is something people are getting from traveling a lot and ignoring signals from the body. It was something probably happening before the huge travel boom as well, but not as much.
People are putting a high amount of pressure on them and pushing as hard as possible to make the most out of it. “Last year I traveled to 10 countries, I need to beat that” usually of course in higher amounts than that.
People are using traveling as a form of therapy, I was sadly not better.
Traveling is no therapy, this is important to mention!
Traveling can help you mentally don’t get me wrong, but you still need to do things which actually help you solve your inner problems.
Click here to read more about Travel Burnout.
When you see only gray and lose the excitement, just stop or go back to a place where you can feel well. It is not helpful to push it further, listen to what your body is telling you.
What should be changed?
Influencers would not stop influencing and to an extent it is nothing bad. It is helping communities to show something different than the classic media. Social Media and especially travel content on Social Media has a good right to be there. It has to be more transparent and not fool others.
Be honest and tell if you didn’t like it somewhere.
When you sleep badly it is okay and if you were robbed tell how to be aware of things.
Also it is important to do things you want to do and don’t look at others. Make your own trends and make the best out of your life and don’t fulfill other life’s.
It is important to bring back to mind that there is a world outside of the internet. People, myself included, are addicted to the internet, it is not helping you at all.
I am in the process of detoxing from the internet, but it is not easy. Still I almost haven’t posted anything of my last trips, only here on the blog. It doesn’t have that many readers here. Still I write about my truth and about whatever I just feel like writing. Criticizing things which need to be criticized and that is also something which is needed. I am still wanting to travel to every country in the world. Still I have time and don’t need to stress myself with it.
Tell me what you feel about this article in the comments would be great to hear.
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