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

Episode Date: December 4, 2024

Let's escape December's darkness with a mental vacation to some exotic travel locales. Tulum! Bali! Lisbon! Millions of people visit these popular tourist destinations, but why? Is it for personal growth and discovery, or are we just chasing social rewards by notching another iconic photo on our Instagram page? Maybe it's both!  The idea that "social media has ruined travel" gets brought up a lot by grumbly Internet curmudgeons, but is it true? Bridget took a look at what social science has to say about it and discussed what she found with Producer Mike.  Read the research article by Drs. Lauren A. Siegel, Iis Tussyadiah, and Caroline Scarles https://doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2022.2086451  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter.

Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There are No Girls on the Internet as a production of IHeart Radio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet. So, Mike, as I know you know, and some of the listeners by now know,

who listened to the last few episodes, I have had kind of a rough few months, and during that time, I've basically stopped using social media. I just didn't really have a ton to update anybody on other than, you know, another day in the hospital with my dad. And honestly, it was getting to the point where scrolling social media would make me feel bad because when I did check in with what folks were doing online, I was then confronted with all of the ways that everybody around me continued to live their lives while mine had essentially stopped. So during that time when I was off social media, when I took the occasional

trip or did the occasional traveling, I was really out of the habit of posting online at all. So I didn't. And I realized, that with everything going on, not toasting about my traveling and my trips actually made me feel weirdly more connected to those experiences. At one point when my dad was in the hospital, I found this campsite near his hospital. Fun fact, it's the only legal campsite in Richmond, Virginia. And so I was able to go to the hospital and do hospital things with my dad during the day, and then for the evening, retire to this campsite and sort of really get that sort of nature, recharge in the evenings I was looking for, like by a campfire. It was probably one of the nicest,

coolest, most unique campsites I've ever been to, but because I wasn't on social media, I wasn't posting about it. And it weirdly felt kind of good to not be posting about it, right? I got to have this experience truly be focused around being something that, you know, spiritually nourished me and filled my cup personally, as opposed to really focusing on how do I need to present this to the outside world? How could I validate that this experience is as cool as it feels to be me experiencing it to others via social media. Does that make sense? It does make sense.

It makes a lot of sense to me. A guy that has maybe a couple dozen followers across all of my social media accounts. Yeah, that makes total sense to be really focused on your own perception of things and not focused on trying to present it to others. You know, maybe not the best strategy for explosive podcast growth. But in terms of personal satisfaction, it feels pretty good. I was going to say they say the best relationships. And I think this also goes for podcast host and podcast producer are one where one person is very online.

And then the other person is like never online. It's no idea what's happening online. Maybe that's what we have going on here. Yeah, that sounds a bit like our dynamic here. I'm happy to play my role of not knowing what the hell is going on and counting on you to tell me all about it. So as you know, I'm still sort of. of reintegrating back into my life, back into the world, which I got to say has been challenging given how depressing a lot of the news is these days and how depressing the world seems these days.

I feel like I got a little bit of a late start to all that. Like I was in my own depressing world. And then when I reintered the rest of you all, I was like, oh, stuff is bleak. Oh, everybody else has also really said, okay, cool, cool, cool, getting caught up, getting caught up. Yeah, you thought your dad dying was bad. Did you know about politics? Truly, I, in some ways, I was like lucky to be kind of spared from that. Like election night, I barely tuned into what was going on.

I'm on a new sure if I should say this. As far as I know, my dad went to his heavenly home thinking that they were still tallying the votes and that we still didn't know the winner. So I really, we've all taken a little bit of a intentional break from what was going on in the news. cycle. And so I only want today's episode to sort of be a break from the new cycle as I'm sort of getting caught off on everything and kind of like travel itself. It'll be a little bit of escapism and a chance to really explore who we are and how we show up in the world without the crushing pressure of dealing with all the disasters waiting for us back home, which brings me to my central question that I want to talk about today. Similarly to how I didn't really share the details to my

a very cool top secret camping spot, does social media ruin and take the fun out of travel? So right off the bat, y'all know that we have kind of a love, hate thing going on with social media here at Tengote. I am not out to demonize social media and say like, oh, it's those damn phones ruining everything. Because I think that when we outright demonize technology, it really becomes way too black or white. And then we're not able to come up with reasonable frameworks for its use and for its place in society. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And as we've said a lot of times on this show, there's a lot of positive things that we get from social media in the internet. So yeah, trying to flatten things down into simple black and white doesn't really do anybody any good. But isn't it fun to just focus on one negative thing and just like really hate on it for a little while? You know it's my absolute favorite. But I mean, I will say I would never have been able to do the amount of meaningful solo travel as a black woman on my own in many places, if not for me. social media. But it is, for me, often fun to just dig into the research and what people are

saying about the negative impact that social media and technology do have on travel. So pretty high level, there are places that the entire internet swears up and down have been completely ruined by social media, specifically like influencer types, I think. I did a little bit of very unscientific research, and by that I mean I searched on Reddit. And there's apparently a bunch of popular tourist destinations that travelers say are just done, cross them out, they've been ruin, they're cooked, it's over. Do you want to know some of those destinations? Yeah, I mean, I feel like I probably have a sense, but what did Reddit have to say? So Portugal, which you're welcome everybody. Mike, you and I spent about a month in Portugal, I guess, ruining it for everybody.

Yeah, I guess we caught the tail end because I thought it was awesome, but there were a lot of us there, us non-Portuguese. Oh, if Portugal would have me permanently, I would gladly go. I'm sure me and like a million other Americans, I'm sure, are saying that right now. Bali, have you ever been there? No, I've never been to Bali. I've never been to that part of the world. I would love to go. But I guess maybe I shouldn't, but I still want to. According to Reddit, you maybe missed the boat on that one. I spent about a month in Australia and a lot of Australians vacation to Bali because it's not that intense of a flay. It will be a very intense flight for me coming from the East Coast of the United States. And so,

I sort of had a kind of a fascination with it kind of early on from that trip, but I've never gone. And if you ask Reddit, it's too late, don't go. Tulum, Mexico. Have you ever been there? No, I haven't. And that's definitely a place that I'm interested in. A lot of people I know have like gone and had really positive experiences. But I do have a lot of hesitation because it just seems so overrun with tourists and not just tourists, but like a specific type of like all-incorations. inclusive ayahuasca seeking, like new agey tourists to like eat, pray, drink margarita. I don't know. It's like it seems kind of fun, but also a little like commercial. It seems quite commercial in 2024. So we talked about this off mic, but I'm, you know, how I was talking about how I'm not doing Christmas this year.

I'm just skipping Christmas. And so I was like, oh, if I don't do Christmas, maybe I'll go to like a yoga or like retreat or something. And so just doing the most preliminary of research, there are so many of them in Tulum. And I can say like all of them look beautiful. It's like these really picturesque, Instagramable places. But I cannot not see that and wonder like what exactly is the impact that a bunch of non-Mexican people coming to Toulom to do a mindfulness retreat or a yoga retreat or whatever. I cannot see these beautifully Instagramable pictures and not wonder what.

is the impact on the locals? Like, what is the ecological impact? As beautiful as this stuff all looks, it's just very difficult for me to not see this as a kind of like consumption question. I think is a particularly difficult question because Tallum is a great example of a place that I think is marketed as like an ecological paradise of pristine beaches and beautiful jungle and an easy place to just like hang out on the beach and relax and decompress. But meanwhile, going there and enjoying those things is putting a lot of environmental pressure on the very beaches and jungles that people want to see. And all that relaxation and fun is maybe contributing to a lot of economic inequality and strife. So there's no free lunch. No, I feel the exact same way. And part of me thinks

it's kind of funny because taking a step back, the threads I was looking at on Reddit with people complaining about these different popular tourist destinations, presumably are written by tourists themselves who are visiting there and then cast whatever blame they have outward toward other people saying that they're the problem. Like, I'm trying to visit this place for vacation and all these tourists keep ruining it for me.

I love going to a place and complaining about the tourists. Me too. And I have to say, I mean, it wouldn't be an episode of there and no girls on the internet. didn't ask, what is the role of misogyny here? Because all of these threads on Reddit are people complaining specifically about influencers. And part of me wonders, are these actual influencers, like people who are creating content? Or is this just sort of a veiled way of hating on women because

women are associated with things like travel blogging and influencing and contact creating? And so it's just a way of hating on things that people associate with women. I always want to ask that because I do think there has to be some thread of massagity and woman hating going on here with the vitriol that we'll talk about influencers or perceived influencers going to some of these places. I'm not saying that influencers, that their behavior is above reproach. If you are pushing people over to get your perfect selfie or holding up traffic, obviously, but part of me wonders, are these actual influencers or are they just like young women traveling that people think are annoying? so they're just hating on them and saying, oh, it's because I hate influencers. They're ruining travel. Yeah, that's a great question. Is there any science about this, Bridget? Well, there is actually a ton of research out there about how social media impacts travel behavior.

Now, some of it is pretty benign and some of it is really not so benign. So according to the research, social media absolutely does impact where we travel. In a paper called Social Return and Intent to Travel published in Tourism Management, they looked at the concept of what they call social return, and that is the amount of positive social feedback that someone's social media posts about travel will generate. They looked at folks's intentions to visit Cuba, a place that I've traveled and absolutely loved.

They picked Cuba because I guess it seemed like kind of an unusual tourism destination. They write, Cuba is considered a novel tourism destination for U.S. travelers, as visitation is still restricted for most U.S. citizens despite recently restored diplomatic relationships between the U.S. and Cuba. It was chosen as a destination of interest in this study as the inconspicuous consumption of novel tourism destinations is likely to elicit greater social return or status than the consumption of a mainstream tourism destination.

That makes some sense. You know, like rarity is something that people look for. If everybody's going to one place, it's not as cool to go there as compared to like some place where nobody else is going. Yeah. I'm trying to remember why. I went to Cuba. I went alone. I went kind of on a whim. I think I, if I remember, it's been so long now, if I remember correctly, I was just looking at places where you could get an easy flight. And it just happened to be someplace that I was like, oh, this flight is like a deal. It's not too far away. I can do

this. I had one of my biggest travel blunders of my entire life going to Havana, Cuba. Have I told me this? You did, and it was because of that terrible bank that you use. You should, I'm always telling you that you should use a good bank like Chase. That's right. Well, we do use Chase for our business, our shared like business accounts. So shout out to Chase. For my personal banking needs, I am not lucky enough to bank with Chase for my personal needs. It's a whole long story. So Chase is not responsible for what happened to me in Cuba, which is that I called my bank, my non-chaise personal bank, and I said, hey, I'm traveling to Cuba. What do I need to know when I get there? And the banker said, you'll be fine. Your bank card will work like normal. You can take out cash like normal.

It's basically like banking anywhere else in the United States. I said, cool, that my dumbass gets on the plane. I don't take out any cash. I land in Cuba. And I'm like, first things first, time to go to the ATM. The ATM said, I don't think so. You can't use an American bank card in a Cuban ATM. It turns out there had been some diplomatic change like that week. And so the information I was getting from my personal bank that was not Chase was correct when they told it to me, but I guess became incorrect like days later. So I had to spend the entirety of a week-long trip in Havana, Cuba with like $20 cash to my name and no other way. to use money or spend money or really make money.

But you know what? Thanks to the good people of Cuba, it actually all worked out fine. It actually was not that. It actually ended up being fine, and I remember it fondly as one of my best trips solo. That must have been pretty challenging to get around on $20. You know what? I made it work.

Good thing you're so charming. Yeah, that was really the saving grace. So back to this study, basically, they looked at people's intention to go to Cuba, and they graded it along what they called the social return scale, which is basically how much love and an interest online traveling to Cuba might get on social media. They found that the social return scale also had a positive and significant relationship with the intention to visit Cuba.

These results suggest that social return is a salient symbolic factor in destination selection process. So basically, the research suggests that we're picking where we travel based on this idea of social return, how much will people who and I have read on social media? The researchers write, in recognition that the traveler is keenly aware of the social value of their travel and that not all travel experiences are evaluated equally, there is the opportunity for varying travel experiences to generate different levels of social return. In the age of widespread social media use, particularly in the context of travel, social return can be conceptualized as the amount of positive social feedback that one's social media posts will generate. The general idea is that the more well-referred

received a social media post, the more social media return the post will generate through increased likes, comments, and sharing. This in turn leads to an enhanced social status of the poster among their social group. In essence, social media has provided a medium for peer groups to manicure their social images to demonstrate the cultural capital needed to effectively climb the social ladder. So basically, we're all just traveling to like look cool on Instagram, to impress our friends, not necessarily because that's where we want to go. That makes sense. You know, I think they're doing the thing that us social scientists love to do, which is taking a pretty common sense idea and putting a label on it, social return.

But it is useful to think about it that way. And it, you know, prompts you to think about what other types of motivation somebody might have for traveling, you know, either to learn more about a place, learn more about history, learn about connections to where your family might be from, you know, social return. return is a big part of it. And it sounds like this research is suggesting that social return is increasingly a big part of it. Well, on that list of reasons that one might travel, where do you put as a way to express one's own vanity and narcissism? Because that is another reason why people travel thanks to the rise of social media. Basically, this research found that instead of being like a meaningful thing that you might do for the sake of doing it, travel can be just another commodity to craft one's digital identity. They've been.

Right. This is especially important as narcissism becomes more normalized, and the posting of travel experiences on social media becomes a more prominent primary motivation for travel. These self-centered motivations being related to the current techno-meritocratic system that we have entered where one's value is partly derived from the image they procure through digital platforms, this focus on social return is similar to other measures of the symbolic value of travel consumption, such as self-concept or self-congruity. However, with social social return, the attention is on the anticipated image enhancement through posting about travel experiences on social media sites. So as, like, nefarious as that sounds, I have to say I'm 100%

guilty of it, by the way. You know, if you're going through a bad breakup and you want to project that you are out here living your best and most glamorous life, what better way to do that than go on a, like, luxurious far-flung vacation and post. about how much fun you're having on Instagram, right? So yes, I have seen the social return travel dynamic play out, and I have been guilty of it myself. Where would you say is the top place that you went because you were seeking that social return,

and did you get the social dividends you were looking for? Ooh, this is a good question. Also, not a place that I've actually gone for social return, but a trip I've sort of been planning in my mind for a very long time that is like partially based in social return is going to Washington State where they filmed the show Twin Peaks or the movie Twin Peaks as well. I think I would get a kick out of being there because I like any kind of pretty outdoor sort of like mountainous place. But I'm a big David Lynch fan and I am in all kinds of like online communities talking about

David Lynch. And so the idea of being like, oh, I crafted the perfect Twin Peaks itinerary. I went to all the spots where they filmed. I went to the diner. I went here. That's like fully a social return planned vacation in my mind. I love that because, I mean, I also love Twin Peaks, but I feel like Twin Peaks is the perfect piece of media example for this because it's like quirky and weird and universally loved.

It's like, oh, y'all, I'm so quirky and like avant-garde. This piece of media that literally is. ridiculously acclaimed by everyone is important to me. Did you just know this? It's an expression of my personal identity. Yeah, I'm one of the few people who can appreciate this hit television series that was like a runaway success on network TV. This is such a non-sec winner and I'm so sorry, listeners.

I was watching Love Island and there was a couple on there who the guy was like, oh, I'm so nerdy. I'm so into these like nerdy things like Marvel movies. And then the woman is like, oh my God, Marvel movies? That's so weird. I love them too. I'm screaming at my TV. Like, they are literally the most popular films on planet Earth.

They are like, no, their box office smashes. They're like the only movie they make. Y'all aren't like quirky and special that you have this, this like incredibly popular thing in common. Yeah, I feel that's like a really good analogy for what we're talking about here. You don't want to go on a trip to a place that's like too, too, basic or too common. You know, it's like, what's the point? Nobody's even going to be impressed.

Well, so this is anecdotal, so I don't have any research about this. But I have actually almost noticed this, like, negative social return thing happening. I don't know if that's what you're referring to where a travel destination is deemed to be too basic. And then I'll see people in, like, online travel communities turning up their nose at it a little bit saying, like, oh, you went to Turks and Kekos, everybody goes there. That's not exciting. That's not cool.

Like, call me when you go someplace really far flung. Have you seen this? Oh, definitely. I feel that happens all the time. I feel like Tulum is kind of a good example of that, because I feel it's often a little unfair to the place. It's like, yeah, you've created a really cool scene or place or experience that a lot of people want to come to,

and now we're going to hate on it because you've been too successful. Yeah, I mean, even I feel like taking a step back, any conversation about travel kind of has that undercurrent, because we're talking about these, places that don't exist for us to explore as tourists, right? They're these incredibly dynamic, culturally rich places with like a rich history and a rich people, like the idea of experiencing them only through this very narrow focus of, is it a good place for me to come and hang out for a week?

It's so narrow. So the whole conversation feels a little bit icky of defining some of these incredibly dynamic places through this very narrow lens of, are they good, as far as destinations or not. Let's take a quick break. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guide. Not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends.

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Is there anything to the idea that because you're, You're from Harvard. You only got in because your parents made a huge donation. The group. The yard birds, right? That's the name. The Harvard Yardt. They're open.

Do you have a name suggestion? We're open. Since you guys are middle-aged. One erection. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the I-Heart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. You love me. I need some. Some jokes to make me seem funny.

And we're back. Okay, so I have to shout out a researcher whose work I stumbled upon while I was putting together my thoughts for this episode. Dr. Lauren A. Siegel, Ph.D., Lauren got her PhD from University of Surrey in the UK, with a focus on behavioral performance and visitor impacts to destinations considered Instagramable. Dr. Siegel published a paper with colleagues Ice Tassiata and Caroline Scarls called Cyberphysical Traveler Performances and Instagram Travel Photography as I

deal impression management. That basically says that thanks to the rise of platforms like Instagram, when we travel, we are all about getting that perfect picture for social media and less about sort of where we're at or why we're going there. And that this can really be connected back to the rise of Instagram. They write, a refreshed code of choreographed movements as photographic practices has emerged that did not exist before the popularization of Instagram. Less than 2% of the photos analyzed solely feature the landscape.

reinforcing the shift to self-presentation strategies as the foremost importance. That's so interesting. I went and read that study, and, you know, the photos that they analyzed were the top ones for each location recommended by the algorithm. So I have to wonder, like, how much of that is driven by people wanting social return for themselves, making themselves the subject of the photo, and how much was driven by the algorithms rewarding photos that just center people. And so I thought about that a little bit and I was like, well, wait, maybe those are one and the same thing.

Like, which came first, the narcissism or the algorithm? Oh, my God. I love that question. And truly, like, I mean, this could be, I want to do a whole series on this, but how much of what we like and what we do is algorithms and how much of it is actually us. I feel like in 2024, the things are all collapsed. And what I like is just what my algorithm surfaces up to me and vice versa. They're one and the same. And like trying to parse them at this point is a very important.

possible. I totally agree. I think, yeah, any attempt to say that one is purely causally driving the other is just missing the point. So Dr. Siegel's work basically says that we're not really trying to capture memories when we travel anymore. All we're doing is what she calls self-presentation. She writes, there's been a shift in personal photography such that photos are used to construct one's idealized identity, which is contrary to past photographic practices as a form of memory documentation. As such, users will look to ideals perpetuated by sociocultural norms to internally assess the level of manipulation that their travel images require. And this is apparently especially true on Instagram. As Instagram is the most visual social networking site, it lends itself to

self-presentation practices more so than other platforms. Photographs are much more effective than tax for impression management as the myth of photographic truth lends credibility that is often missing text. Instagram consists primarily of photographs and therefore intensifies the importance of visual self-presentation. However, despite the potential for instant image publication, most Instagram images are not mere point-and-shoot-style photos and require the equivalent of a photo shoot carried out in tourist settings. So I could not read that bit and not think of those fake tourist pictures. Do you know what I'm talking about? Those pictures where everybody goes to Turkey and they have that same picture of like hot air balloons behind them, right?

Like I cannot not think of these basically fake tourist photos that have become almost like a whole little industry. And I'm not hating on the people who run these industries because oftentimes they're locals and like people's fascination with getting this perfect shot means money for them and money in their pocket as it should. But it's so interesting. A great example is the Gates of Heaven Temple in Bali, which is this beautiful temple that gets thousands of visitors each year,

and you can take this iconic picture that looks like you're standing under the temple on a body of water and there's this mirror image reflected. So it looks like, wow, you're standing under the temple right on this lake and it's like a mirror image that doubles what's being seen in this picture. However, apparently there is not any water whatsoever at this temple. And what it is is like a guy holds, holding a mirror beneath you.

And so the image that I think of, like, if you've ever seen an image of a temple from Bali, this is probably like what you're thinking of, that image is partially thick because there is no water there. This leads to some pretty unhappy reviews from people who saw this picture, traveled there, waited in line, and then did not see the like expected lake or body of water.

Here's one review from TripAdvisor. The title is, Gate to Heaven, a really long cue. Do you like waiting in queues? Do you enjoy waking up at 3 a.m.? Or love the idea of trying to be creative with poses for a photo, but it's not technically real, per se? I got the perfect place for you. This temple is located quite a distance from most people's hotels. So for me, I left the hotel at 3.15 a.m. to get there by 5.15 a.m.

After a shuttle ride and getting a number, paying the fee to take a photo, and then walking up a steep hill, I was finally at the gate of heaven. But in actuality, it's the gate to a very long time. Q, I got out there by 7 a.m. despite being one of the first ones there at 5.15 a.m. The employees here use a trick of the camera to create the image that has a reflection. You were given three or four poses to take the photo of you at the gate. I felt it was kind of corny and touristy. I guess if it's one's first time in Bali, why not?

But anyone who does it more than once is crazy. Wow. I remember when like that story broke. You know, it was like the story of how. those images were, this temple was not what it seemed, that mirrors were involved in creating the sense of this great lake inside the temple when, in fact, it was just like guys holding mirrors. So you know how you were saying that it's like classic social scientist behavior to identify a thing that everybody can already see and sort of give it a name? Which, by the way,

you can say that because you are a social scientist, right? Yeah, I say that with love. I mean, people are like, oh, it's just common. sense, but it's important to give things names because then we can have a definition and we can all talk about it. We can get cited. It's important. So Dr. Siegel calls that the whole temple thing, a micro-destination, which is a specific place in a tourist destination that really pops off on social media content, like those blue domes in Santorini Greece, like these places that you would probably need like specific coordinates to recreate that specific photo that has now kind of become iconic on social media.

Yeah, I remember experiencing that same thing at Arches National Park. We hiked up a mountain in the sun for like three hours. It was not the hardest hike, but definitely not an easy hike. It was really windy at the top, really sunny and hot. And so after all that, we're up at the top of this very windy, barren, arid mountain and unforgiving landscape. And what do me and my friends find up there? a long queue of people waiting to take photos in front of the historic arch.

And I definitely got in line, waited like 30 minutes to get my photo. It was actually kind of a fun experience, like laughing with the other people up there. But it was definitely a micro destination, like that one spot in this vast park in an even vaster desert. I was on that trip with you. Many a hat blew off. The conditions up there were a lot. I remember it very clearly. But we did take that photo.

So I'm not even saying this like, I'm, like, we're above it. Like, what I think it's interesting about Dr. Sekel's work is that it, it pulls out these things that we all do. And so I don't think any, I'm certainly not above this. I don't think anybody is above this. We took that, the arch photo, like we came all that way. Like, we're not going to take the photo.

And so in some ways, part of this is like, well, do you blame anybody who, like, this is your vacation? You want to get the iconic photo, whether it's really a lake or a guy holding a mirror or not. Yeah, absolutely. I got it. I'm proud of it. And it was actually nice communal experience being up there with all these other people who had hiked up there to get it.

And, you know, standing in queue was not terribly unpleasant because it was a incredibly beautiful spot. So it's like, okay, I just got to stand here and look around at all these beautiful mountains and rock formations for a while and laugh it up with like this. family that's standing here in front of me and these like weird guys who are standing behind me. Well, speaking of photos, Dr. Siegel's research even gets into the nitty-gritty of the way, the particular ways that people pose for social media travel photos. So you know the shot, and you close your eyes and picture, you know exactly what I'm talking about, the shot of a woman walking in motion with like a flowy dress behind her in front of a beautiful backdrop, or like the photo of somebody sort of candidly not looking at the camera.

with a pretty backdrop behind them. Hold on while I pull up like 500 examples of this on my phone right now. Y'all, it turns out we are all just staging this. Those pictures, we are all just staging all of those poses all of the time. This is from Dr. Siegel's research. It's hilarious, but I feel very called out personally. Most notable in these poses are the off-camera gaze and gesticulations of being in motion. Another prominent theme to emerge from a content analysis was a facial

expression, wherein the subject's visual gaze was focused somewhere out of the camera's view. Only 35.3% of the photos in the content analysis featured subjects looking directly at or into the camera lens. The researchers also did on-site ethnographic observations in Bali, which were consistent with the findings of the content analysis. Many of those observed tourists fix their gaze off camera while posing for photographs. Such behavior indicates a clear motivation for the subject to appear as if they were caught off guard. or in the midst of having an enjoyable experience rather than staging a curated photo.

Photos in which the subject apparently lacks an awareness that they're being photographed are known in popular media as Plannedids, i.e. plancandid. Plandids could also be considered a reinvention of Uri's concept of the romantic gays with the purpose of conveying an idealized lifestyle and the nonchalance of an intended and performed ignorance to the presence of a camera and or documentation of the experience.

Oh, who, me? I wasn't even aware a photo was being taken because I'm too busy living in the moment. You feel a little called out? Oh, that is my like classic Like, oh, my, I'm not even look.

Oh, a picture is being taken? I wasn't aware. I was just engrossed in this book I'm reading in this beautiful park. Yeah. You know, it's so funny because so this is a little bit of a non sequitur, but it does connect.

I've been spending time on blue sky recently, which I've really been enjoying. And my feed includes a lot of natural landscapes, nature photography, and space photography. But also, there's just a lot of AI-generated stuff that people are like engagement farming there. And so there's this AI-generated images purporting to be photographs and being like, hey, this is fake. This isn't real. like you should at least label it as AI generated. But talking about this now, it really makes me think like, well, what is real, right? Like is a planned real?

Like, yeah, it's a photograph, but, you know, maybe so what if people are posing? Like they're, they really are there just gazing off into the distance thinking about, you know, the butler or whatever. Yeah, it reminds me of this thing I saw on, I think I think on, I think on, possibly on blue sky, where it's a picture of a man with his son. And it's just like beautiful sky background. And somebody asks, how did you get that sky effect in the photo? And he said, it was just a regular sky. Like, what do you mean? It's not an effect. It's just what the way the sky looked at me were outside. I feel like every single time I talk about this on the show, it sounds like I've just taken a massive bong rip, but I swear I have not. When you start breaking

into like what is real, I mean, you know that that line, once you start writing, it all becomes fiction. Like once it's on social media, it all becomes fake. And so like the question of what is real, it's almost like not the right question to be asking because it's like Bodriard's concept of hyper reality.

Like it's even what you see on Instagram in some ways becomes even more real than what would be real otherwise. Like you couldn't tell me that temple doesn't have a lake at it, even though that lake is fake because I've seen that lake on Instagram so many times. Yeah, that's a good point.

And I guess, you know, now that I think about it, at no point in any of Dr. Siegel's research, does she use the word real that I noticed? Right? She's just talking about the different behaviors that people do. And she's also talking about their motivations for doing it. Real isn't really even part of the analysis. Yeah, I don't think that's even what she's interested in, in, like, grappling with. And it almost kind of seems like a afterthought of like, well, what is real? Like, what does real mean in this context? And I know a lot of this stuff can be funny, but it's also pretty serious. You know, the way that social media intersects with travel can lead to things like over tourism, which can be a problem with a place just doesn't have the infrastructure to handle a certain level of tourism. National Geographic notes that 80% of travelers visited just 10% of the world's destination.

So, like, that can have a really big impact. And as Dr. Siegel puts it, it can create. a cycle that contributes to more self-indulgent travel, it could also wreak ecological damage and exacerbate income disparities. And so it's kind of like navel-gazy and interesting to think about this intersection of social media and travel behavior. But it also really has, you know, talk about what's real, what's not. It has very real IRAL offline impacts for these destinations as well. And some big tourist destinations are actually working to combat it. So Bali, which I know we've talked about quite a bit during this episode, released new guidelines for visitors in June

23 that includes rules about proper behavior in sacred temples, rules about how you should behave on the island, and behave with locals, and rules around respecting the natural environment. Tourists now need a license to rent motorbikes and may not set foot on any mountain or volcano in Bali due to their sacred nature. Travelers also have to stay in registered hotels and villas, which obviously will impact things like Airbnb's. And Bali has introduced a tourist task force to enforce these restrictions through raids and investigations if necessary. This is all from a piece for CNN.com that Dr. Siegel wrote.

Dr. Siegel also points out that other destinations have also taken similar steps. Places like Hawaii, Iceland, New Zealand, Costa Rica, and others have all adopted pledges for visitors to abide by local laws and customs. And there's also these big campaigns like Switzerland's, drama campaign, Finland's Be More Like a Finn campaign, the Netherlands, how to Amsterdam campaign,

which I think was all about like British party lads coming and probably like indulging too much in the tea shops, etc. and like creating a problem. In Austria, they have the Sea Vienna, not hashtag Vienna campaign, which really asks for folks

to really have a more mindful approach to their tourism when they're in Vienna. And in a study called Does Social Media Help or Hurt tourist destinations, a qualitative case study, Dr. Siegel actually looked at the tourist board of Vienna with their kind of anti-hashhtag marketing campaign, urged that encouraging visitors to go offline while traveling in the city. And she found that apparently it's been like pretty well received. So like you went to Vienna. Was it pre-hash-hag or post-hash-hash-tag? Oh, man, I was in Vienna pre-Iphone.

So it was definitely pre-hash-tag. But I loved it. It was just the coolest, most charming place. I won't get into the whole thing of it. But what really struck me about Vienna was that it was both like old and classical and beautiful, but also like a vibrant, exciting city where, like, people lived and worked and loved and played and all the things. I just had the best time there.

I was so impressed. And so I don't know what hashtag Vienna is, but the actual city that I got to experience back in those pre- iPhone days, no further date specification provided, was incredible. And so if people were going there pursuing hashtag Vienna,

whatever that might have been, I do have to wonder if they were missing out on some of the more subtle beauty that was there to be had. Well, so that's exactly what Dr. Siegel found that the staff of the tourist board in Vienna who created this kind of anti-hash tag campaign explained that all these tourists would come to Vienna

and that their image of Vienna was this, quote, metropolis without stress. And yet, the tourism board felt that visitors to their city were increasingly just missing out on these very enjoyable experiences because they were too busy on their dang phones, as my mom would say. So this seems like a pretty important number.

relevant to all these other Instagram-driven behaviors that we've already talked about, that focus on getting this perfect picture for other people and having that stand in the way of actually being present and enjoying oneself. And that's exactly what I think that the Vienna Tourism Board, it sounds like, was trying to combat. And y'all, if there is one thing I have learned over the last couple of months, it is that life is too dang short to live it for validation or people in your phone or other outside people. You shouldn't be living it or you. So if you're doing any travel over the holiday season, try to keep out of mind. What a nice sentiment, Bridget. Thanks so much, Mike. And thanks for listening. I'll see y'all on the

internet. Got a story about an interesting thing in tech or just want to say hi? You can reach us at hello at tangoati.com. You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tangoody.com. There are no girls on the internet was created by me, Bridget Todd. It's a production of IHeart Radio and unbossed creative. Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer. Tari Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Amato is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Dodd. If you want to help us grow, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts.

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