Ah! I see some people (of a specific gender I will not name ahah) being triggered by the fact that the words 'toxic' and 'male' cohabit in my title. I mostly make videos analysing the things I like and the things I don't like about both male and female social media trends, there's nothing new about this one. It's maybe less analytical than usual, I had a bit more fun. And you know what? If it may reassure those who find it concerning that I only talk about men, then yes, I'll admit that all the things I said in the video can also be applied to certain categories of female travel vloggers. I wanted to look at men specifically because it has its own features, men aren't socialised like women. It's funny though that when I do those critical videos with female trends, people don't get triggered like that! But it must be a coincidence, right? 👀 am I right? 👀👀 ahah
Probably not a coincidence... Maybe people are realizing that your ideology, the one that sees women as always oppressed and men as always oppressors, is justifying misandry more and more and they're pointing it out. Maybe people are sick of this narrative where everything is to blame on the white cishet population.
Next do a vid about how France is a colonial empire and everything France had was stolen from ongoing centuries of human trafficking and slavery. It's so toxic when rich beneficiaries of slave owners have their toxic genre of quasi-deconstructing social trends, as if the French were not the greatest oppressors on the planet. New Caledonia, Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, how dare you use electricity from uranium dug by CHILD SLAVES in Niger. While they have no electricity! These toxic French hypocrite bloggers? Let them eat cake, tear down this bourgeois class violence, yadda yadda yadda... 😅 Toxic Frenchness is not a joke!
I think those "fake deep" and "profound" monologues are what kept me from falling into travel vlog stuff lol. That and it seemed that most of em were probably secretly trust fund kids who could afford to travel on a whim, which is fine, but the way they make it seem like they're an everyman just taking a chance felt very gross to me. But i get why people like it - the idealistic, adventurous young and free ideals of escaping, life on the road and having the experience of a lifetime. Who doesn't want that? But traveling and adventure is really not as glamorous unless you're loaded.
I have a similar issue with photography accounts on Instagram. I love good photography, but I can't stand the trend of having to put some inspirational and profound caption with every photo.
Exactly. Travelling isn't "a risk", buying a plane ticket requires money, not courgage and those vacations mostly teach them how to party, but partying has woefully little to do with the lives of most people out there. There's nothing wrong with some hedonism if you have the means to support it, but for many people life is full of work they don't wanna do for barely enough money to support themselves.
@@liquidKi Well ya, but if they got a huge audience, then they are basically being paid by advertisers to do it. It's a bit ironic, that their audience's potential to consume is sort of paying for the creator's lifestyle/content which happen to be the same thing, it's like "I pay you to go and live the life I wanna live so that I can look at it on my phone" (not exactly pay them directly, but you get the point). Anyway, I don't think their "privilege" is the problem here, it is their audience who provides for them after all and who am I to judge what others find entertaining... it's just, well... kinda strange, like if we tried to explain it to some aliens they would be like "wha...?".
Highly agreed, i felt the same way as well. To be fair, if they said and did things as it is, there would be no issues. They would just be random vlogging channels that people watch for entertainment, however the "fake deep" and "profound" monologues, is what makes them seem pretentious, unrealistic but also disingenuous. Me and my family have travelled due to my father's Embassy job and i can definitely say that travelling and exploring world is pretty amazing but it's really not as glamorous as people make it out to be. Things being grounded and genuine are appreciated but when things are superficial and disingenuous, that is the main problem.
I took about 6 months out to go backpacking around SE Asia and India in a really typical mid-20s middle class guy kindof way. I learned mostly that travel wasn't the experience it was really made out to be. It is, for the most part, not challenging, deep or even that hedonistic. It definitely did not leave me with a feeling of being changed. Tourists live in their own ecosystem. There is a whole economy designed around keeping you comfortable. It is actually quite a challenge to break out of it. While I met lots of people from the UK, EU and US, I had barely any real conversations with locals. While I made some effort to read about the countries and visit the museums, most backpackers did not. Your engagement with the culture feels limited to eating food, walking around town, visiting a temple and going to bars. Travelling from place to place so quickly means that nowhere has a chance to really affect you. Same with the people that you meet along the way. If you want a profound experience, you have to stick with it for a while. Its like the difference between a series of one-night stands and having a partner. The one night stands might be fun and some people might respect your high body-count, but its only when you are with someone for a while that you really learn about each other, you bear your soul and hopefully push each other to be the best versions of yourselves. Anthropologists spends years as participant observers to learn about a culture. Finally, its not as fun as its made out to be. If you like going out drinking every evening in clubs playing the most generic pop EDM possible, you will probably be ok. I went travelling in 2016, so pretty much every night I was listening to Justin Bieber, the Chainsmokers, Skrillex and Kygo. I went to the Full Moon Party, expecting some wild hippie gathering, and it felt like Tiger Tiger but on the beach. I could find better parties happening on my street than most of the parties I attended while travelling. If you indulge in narcotics, then you would also do better to stay home; when you are passing through, dealers have no incentive to give you good product. I would encourage anyone considering backpacking to reconsider. If you want to learn about different cultures, pick one place, choose an activitity that integrates you into the community somewhat, like working, volunteering or learning a skill particular to that area, and stay there at least a few months.
But what about just the act of travelling itself? I traveled western Europe for tow weeks last year and it was one of the most challenging, exhausting and wonderful experiences in my life and it certainly changed me. Not so much because of the places themselves, in fact if I would have had more time, I would have stayed in many places longer, but because it was the longest in my life that I was away from my support system, I had to navigate a lot of stressful situations basically all by myself and I did a lot of things that scared the hell out of me, like staying in hostels and talking to strangers. Did I have any deep insides about myself or the world? No. Did it still contribute to me feeling like an actual adult now, who has overcome there social anxiety enough to actually maybe make lasting connections in the future? Yes. I do understand what you mean by your post, but I also always find it strange when people say that they came back backpacking and didn't change at all, because doesn't any new, challenging experience change a person?
@@BirdOnATypwriter not really. i’ve traveled a lot and it didn’t change me, i’m still fundamentally the same person i was before traveling. i had some good times, but i could’ve had similar good times anywhere
@@coolchameleon21that's really sad. I'm in my mid-forties now and have spent most of my life before I married and became a father travelling and living abroad. There is nothing else in life that has informed the person I am more solidly than those experiences I sought out and all those amazing people I met and who I am friends with to this day. Travel I will always recommend but it has to be done right. Many expats and backpackers I saw on my travels just seemed to want to stay safe then go home and say they "did it".
@@j4ksx congratulations, not everyone is the same as you. you just made friends, you didn’t become a new person. you can make friends anywhere. 99% of the people i know who think travel “changed” them are just as tone deaf and ignorant as they were before they left. they go to all these underprivileged countries to pretend like they had some kind of spiritual awakening by seeing people living in harsh conditions, only to go back home and continue living the exact same way as they were before. travel can be fun, but it’s not the end all be all and it’s not even feasible for many people.
Your amazing comment needs more likes and appreciation, absolutely spot on. It's the narcissisms that really messes up any and all activities especially activism and exploration. People can do whatever they want but humbleness and self-awareness is important.
Can you make a video about the fake deep quit your job, move to hawaii, manifestation girlies? Lol I used to be OBSESSED with them when I was a teenager
@ActionJackson-tc3dy really? I lost track of them all lol. That's interesting. At least they're leaving Hawaii alone. I can only hope it will increase tourism for us or something like that (I am Brazilian)
@@sweettea018 no. These r sex tourist. These so called male vloggers. These men r secretly trying to hook up with women. Places like brazil. Why u think they r in that country For the women. Duhhh
@@sweettea018 it only brings gentrification (I'm from Mexico). Rents have doubled in Mexico City just in the past 6 months, thanks to a big unregulated influx of "digital nomads" aka, immigrants who doesn't pay taxes on many things
@Gr95dc oh my god. I think you guys (Mexico) get the worst of it. Brazil isn't really a popular destination for that. Your government should do something to keep it from happening 🥲 make them pay taxes on everything or something like that
A couple of months ago I fell into the RUclips rabbithole of male travel vloggers and watched a few of them to find out what they were about. So yeah, there's a specific genre of this that is decidedly "male" in the same sense that this video seems to get criticism for alluding to, i.e. toxic masculinity. I suddenly found loads of guys traveling to poor places, sensationalizing poverty, crime etc, exoticizing their problems without appreciating the culture, pretending to have chance encounters with young, conventionally attractive women right in the streets and hanging out with them as if it was not obvious that they payed them to play the overly friendly stranger role etc. You will spot these easily enough by their fixation with emphasizing "dangerous" on the titles, or pretending to make "brutally honest" presentations of things like homelessness (invariably trying to inspire hate against homeless people) or by their constant inclusion of "hot women" in the thumbnails. Some of these men make not so subtle comments revealing this is a thinly veiled exercise in sex tourism, or that they were aiming to place themselves as idols for incels (the guy who scores everywhere), or that they enjoy poor countries because in their view poverty would render most women more submissive and themselves as western demigods because they are able to throw some money to their faces. This can also be served with the pseudo-antisystemic sauce of presenting the West as a decadent, failing part of the world, with developing countries being where one should go to live their live to the fullest - assuming that one can still be paid by western standards and use their economic privilege to take advantage of the locals, that is. Of course you can be a guy, do travel vlogs and be a far cry at least from promoting harmful ideas, but I can hardly think of a clearer manifestation of toxic masculinity in the context of travel vlogging than these guys that seem to have inundated RUclips recently.
I totally agree. I met a British guy, mid twenties, when travelling in Thailand. He had moved to Thailand and worked remotely as a day trader. He was open about struggling with depression after moving to Thailand. I think he'd thought having "everything" (because of the strength of the pound he could buy anything he wanted, I'm sure he partied a lot) would be his ticket to happiness, but I think he had a severe lack of genuine connection and meaning in his life.
@@jessicakennedy7287 Living in Greece, I have many friends who have gone to live abroad, more than those who remain here. Usually they leave because in Greece they would lack opportunities and decent pay for what they do, even if they end up in countries with higher poverty like, say, Thailand. And they do mention that it's nice to be somewhere with both higher wages - for what they do, at least - and a lower cost of living. Feeling connected and issues like what makes us happy beside not being drowned by economic necessities are matters that are certainly worth discussing (and it can be a bit haphazard, I can tell you I've felt that lack of connection even in nearby European countries). But I do feel like it's a more nuanced conversation compared to the deal with the guys I was describing above. I'm not sure the guy you met went there to live some neocolonial fantasy, or that he's there to actively exploit the locals, at least.
It’s essentially a “travel” version of Dan Bilzerian’s content. Around ten years ago, Bilzerian was seen as the “king of Instagram,” largely for the same kind of antics I see in these “travel” videos. If you remove the “travel” aspect of these videos, it boils down to the EXACT same thing as Bilzerian’s content.
Love this video and how you reflected about "teenager hedonism" takes. I personally can relate a lot to that (and probably most of us can to some degree)
Totally relate to being 14 and being all "maybe I'm just not like all those sheep who want an office job and house in the suburbs, I'm just so different and special" At the same time though, living in a small, rural town in Canada I am treated like some kind of specimen because I went abroad to uni and spent a year travelling. At my family reunion this year I was literally surrounded by relatives with all sorts of questions and commending me for going travelling. In some places (ie. rural North America) it is still radical to travel somewhere other than Mexico/Cuba for a resort vacation as a holiday. But also I see that quickly changing- the travel influencer space is getting SOO crowded.
i mean who actually does want to work a 9-5 in the suburbs lmao. most people wouldn’t live that type of life if they had the means to do something else
Do one about the 20 year old tech girlies who are super rich off their tech jobs, quit from overwork and travelled. "Moved to Paris to learn French" and live in charming Parisian apartments
Econazi narrative. Scary, cause you will support all the Agenda 2030 restrictions thinking you are doing the correct thing. Same as covidian doctors with the vaccines.
@@Dark3x I know. That's why I find it so repelling. And by "they taught me to think like that" I mean: Their behaviour awoke my wrath. It needs to be forbidden to waste resources like that.
“Every person has two lives, the second begins after realizing you just have one” I used to consider this as a superficial calendar quote as well. But when facing death, I understood the true meaning of it.
I find it a fascinating caveat that one 'cannot judge these people', for whatever reason. We absolutely can. If we cannot judge eachother as fellow citizens, what's left? Judge eachother as consumers? Wait for God's final judgement? Of course we should judge people, we should explicate what we admire and shun.
Perfectly said . This is what it truly means to go against the norm. While the world turns to hell you don't join the world in destruction but in fighting for what is right
In defense of the male travel vloggers: It would be interesting to see a statistical comparison regarding the numbers between them and the pretty girls, living almost the same lifestyle paid by their sugar daddies. They create content, which attract viewers and generate income. The girls don't need this, you can just see their photos on the Instagram time to time. Is it fake? Maybe. But I would chose it over a sugar daddy. :)
I worked with teenagers for over 20 years. I'm glad you tempered this with the "when I was a teenager" discussion. It's really hard to distinguish rebellion from transformation (particularly when you're young) when you've only grown up in a modern, capitalist economy. Sometimes it takes a while to realize what a "real" life really is.
Thank you for this lovely video! I have a sort of different take on these kinds of guys (or just travel vloggers in general with their excessive drone shots and all). Im currently planning my honeymoon and honestly these vloggers have helped me so much in my planning. I get to pan the different takes each vlogger has on different areas, i get to see the locations for myself, they tend to over-glamorize things but i know to keep that in mind, so for me i just owe so much to this culture of travel vlogging! I think its important to keep in mind that what they do is a full-time job, even if it all looks like a huge blast, even if their job is just beach. I need that guy when im picking out beaches! I know Alice knows how much work goes into making content ofc, and definitely these people are kind of shallow in the grand scheme of things (pretending life is as simple as just opting out and becoming the anti-normal free spirit) but i actually don’t believe they are as free as they posture themselves out to be? They provide a service and get rewarded for it. Their goals may be to live a very hedonistic life, but at the end of the day I dont think of it as genuinely hedonistic if its being done as a career, planned out, executed and edited for the viewers' pleasure rather than their own.
One thing that strikes me about travel influencers is they always talk about community among the locals they meet as something they admire. If they want community, why don't they stay in one place for a decent length of time and build up some local connections? Travel can be fun, but it's not (pardon the fake deep quote) the ultimate destination. To think otherwise strikes me as very alienated.
Cappelle always concretely identifies societal trends with a literate, philosophical and anticapitalist perspective which seems so rare on this platform, and I‘m a big fan :)
@@ruzzianbot I can - regarding that topic - imagine living in five modes: 1. I do everything myself in my household (cleaning, doing laundry, cooking). 2. I share these responsibilities fairly with people I share a flat with. 3. I don't do any of these things or the bare minimum for (mental) health reasons (which would never be planned/wanted) and live in a dirty flat. 4. I hire someone to do these things for me because I for example have the choice to live in my own flat with that kind of help or have to move to something like a nursing home or other care facility. 5. I hire someone to do these things for me because I am so vital at work performing surgeries or saving people from fires that it would be selfish to insist taking care of my own household at the risk of other people dying. Otherwise, I would also want to do everything in my household myself. I could never have a cleaner or something just because I don't feel like doing that kind of work. I would never want to be someone who hasn't vaccumed a floor or done laundry or done anything like that in years.
What a wonderful video. i am a therapist who works with women, and I often utilize your videos. I sure hope you never stop making them! Love from Arizona!
Just don't see the need to differentiate males from females here. Now if you did a feature on men enjoying being 'international men of culture' (taking inexpensive exotic prostitutes while on travel), then I'd understand.
Finally a video about this! I'm so tired of travel vloggers, who just copy all the other ones, and make it look like they are incredibly special in their content and in their ability to travel the world.
great vid, for real. it's been a while since I found a video in which there's some critical thinking. you say that this is not even analytical like your other vids, I'll need to check them out. thanks for putting forward this type of content, really reflective and refreshing.
@@MrFatpenguinYeah, but there is a real tradeoff with your security that we all have to face between freedom and sexual assault. You can chose to live more freely, but you have to face huge risks that men don’t have to deal with. We can make the same choices, depending on different factors, but we don’t all face the same risks
Could say the same thing about women travelers but probably many don’t post about it as much. I think chasing pleasure is a big issue in our modern dating culture.
redefining what 'radical living' means was pretty interesting. I remember hearing people say the platitudes mentioned in this video when I was younger and always feeling like that lifestyle wasn't as much 'against the grain' as it was gatekept from most people due to money as Alice mentioned; fun video.
what an excellent video! I thank you for that. We are at the Olympics, and because my country (Brazil) is doing very well in surfing, I decided to watch some films about the sport. I came across a supposed classic surfer film called “The Endless Summer” from 1960. It was a true racist aberration. They were Americans from California who were going to “explore” surfing in African countries and cultures that, according to them, were primitive. I felt that this film (still acclaimed, as incredible as it may seem!) is the embryo of these RUclipsrs who have fun in cheap countries mocking our culture. I say “ours” because unfortunately it's something I've seen too much on Brazilian beaches. Gringos (as we call them) completely apolitical and full of colonial thoughts
I ran into this film recently too. I was half watching it with sound off because I just wanted something nice in the background. About thirty minutes into it I got curious and turned the sound on and I was shocked. It was so ignorant, insensitive and supercilious.
showing the connection you can develop while traveling and being more present in the moment is uniquely valuable content, i got people in my life who share experiences like that and it can be a beautiful facette of life if you want to engage with it
there is a subsection of travel vids that actually kind of the opposite where they try to find the "worst places" in the world and then make clickbait videos to showcase the worst of a certain culture. vids titled like "don't go to this place in Bangladesh" or something like that. that's what i thought of what i read "toxic male travel vloggers lol"
Damn, I was hoping you'd talk about Yes Theory considering they're one of the biggest travel channels out there and they have a ton of fan clubs all over the world. Very interested to hear your opinion lol
You know it's a going to be a good video when Bentham and Plato are both quoted in the first five minutes! This is why I love your videos--engaging and very thought provoking! The camera work is superb as well. Have a great week, Alice!
Completely agree specially because it suggests women are not capable of that, like being a hedonist is like male trait, the title is completely misleading and biased. Actually this type of content is one of the few worth keeping, there is alot to criticize as well like the lack of veracity regarding a real travelling experience but again a total clickbait.
They are not toxic, their hedonism is.... or at least their version of it and I agree female hedonist travelers do exist and are just as toxic, but there is an important factor as to why they weren't mentioned: there aren't many of them, mainly because it is more dangerous and risky to be a traveller as a woman or even a group of women, like honestly all the female travellers that I have seen travel with their boyfriends or husbands
I used to think like this, looking to traveling as an act of rebellion and only pleasure (because you are leaving your boring day-to-day life). And reflecting on all of my trips, and seeing the examples of real rebellious acts that you mention, it reminds me of the reason I got in that point in the first place: having buddies who followed that lifestyle from the vloggers you showed, and having them hammering your head with those trips everyday, plus myself, again, having a very boring life and taking 4h trips to the office. It is that desire to get into that state of full pleasure (which you won't, seriously, I can't state how trips generally have its headaches and emergencies). Btw, did you see there is a bird that was vlogging about pranking a RUclipsr?
As always, thank you for your thoughts. I appreciate your detailed analyses just as much as these videos highlighting examples. Over the years, you've certainly nudged where I sit on different issues and provided valuable perspectives that are hard to access elsewhere for me.
I remember visiting France in 1987,and there was a heavy undercurrent of resentment of American tourists at the time. Having not returned to France from that time,I don't know how French people view Americans at this time,but I can assume not much has changed. Listening to this video has given me deeper insight into this resentment. I also sense some of the anti-male,male-bashing themes inherent in modern radical leftists as well. This particular theme from leftist discourse is deeply antagonistic in a way that I would think that someone needs to redress this. In America and other places in the western world,there is a growing backlash to leftists gender politics,which is really somewhat overdue. Making young men who lack experience into whipping boys for the failures of the western system will not radicalise them to the left. It will radicalise them to the hard right and alt-right. Also, criticizing young men for being hedonistic (especially on vacation) is hypocritical, given that in colleges across the west, women participate just as or even more fully in hedonistic Greek culture and it's debauchery, which supplies easily 70% of the business which abortion clinics engage in. Whether you believe abortion is evil or not, that is a sad record indeed. I agree our young men need to be trained to be more responsible when they go outside their own country,and encounter norms which they aren't always sensitive to. This is the job of parents, who have been put under ever-increasing pressure simply to provide for their children, let alone to fully engage in their moral development. It takes a village, and a village full of drunks and prostitutes isn't going to produce good, morally upright offspring. The state is also a terrible parent as well,however, and serves the short term goals of the rich and powerful. I'm not against capitalism, but I wish that our corporate leaders recognized that the most important product which society makes is it's offspring. Hedonistic tourism is just as much the product of a radicalised left wing,whose subcultures,such as the hippie movement in America and other places in the west, advocated hedonism as a response to the stiff morality of the WWII silent generation, who were trying to pick up the pieces of a world that had seen 6 of the most devastating years of conflict that the world had ever seen, and wanted so badly to return to something like,.....normal. What our young men need is indeed a rebirth of meaning. They also need a clear sense of right and wrong,one free of the constant double binding which the ever evolving moral haphazardness which the left brings on due to constant trial and error. They need simpler rules and simpler relationships. The complexities brought on by moral relativism are part of why most young men retreat from life into video games and virtual girlfriends, and live their fantasies through a few RUclips content creators,who really know precious little more about life than themselves.
Heard the quote awhile ago "There would be no where to travel to if people didnt decide to sit, stay, and build a life." Essentially saying traveling is not everything. Yeah, go some places, learn some things, but dont expect it to be as great as you think. Its not a deep quote. Just helps recontexulizes some things.
Theres nothing wrong with that! Shes not out to criticise you and what you enjoy. She is just making a comment about how this lifestyle isn't really as profound and deep as these people act like it is and really, it's just a form of escapism and then she explored a lifestyle she considered more fulfilling and actually profound.
Wait honest question, do women not do the same thing with travel blogs? I used to watch both men and women who made that kind of content, I didn't think it was a sex specific thing..
Fascinating look. It's also sad because you're not going to appreciate the things themselves as much as you are to erase what you have in your current life. Every time I get home from a trip I appreciate my life a little more for what I missed during that trip. That's what I like about travel.
I think it's not only fine, but positively great you are living to enjoy your life (as long as its not a superficial or empty enjoyment). Just do so in a way that is sustainable and also good for other people, not just yourself. You can travel sustainably, you can party with enough responsibility (i.e. not compromising your future with addictions!), and you can also, sometimes, mix both enjoyment and responsibility with things like volunteer work, and choosing non-destructive jobs that you enjoy.
being « radical » doesn’t mean being bad. THOSE WHO say / think that are PEOPLE trying to manipulate. YOU just need to know that there are consequences to YOUR choices, and there could be SACRIFICES (not killing! But do as THOU wilt).
Alice, thank you for your videos, they are so well thought-through, narrated and explained. I'm an artist studying fine arts and they really inspire me, because you always talk about such interesting topics that make me dive even deeper in the things and people related to them. Good job and keep doing this!!! :)
The lifestyle of never being in the same place and meeting new people is so shallow to me. Its always about connecting ✨, but they will never see people long enough to go through avarage life hardships with them, to share their happiness and be vunerable. Real human conection is not as simple as they make it.
Hearing the stories you chose to shareI felt emotional and happy. All of a sudden those travel videos seemed so incredibly empty. I got goosebumps. Such an odd discrepancy.
This one feels slightly hypocritical. Hedonism is what thrives on social media. Consumerism for entertainment is a hedonist practice and it is everywhere. I get that this one focuses specifically on male travel vloggers, but it feels dishonest to point this genre out specifically. Even though I agree the fake deep stuff and the lifestyle advertisement aspects of it are of course shallow and empty, it feels like this angle is being used to paint a broadly negative picture of a wide group of people trying to experience more of the world. I expected some sort of deeper analysis and elaboration on this but then the video just ended, with the divestment point feeling very disconnected from the whole thing. "The often toxic genre of western men going on travels" god forbid.
This one comment feels slightly misguided. Hedonism is not what thrives on social media but what I would call the achievement fantasy. Hedonism is a way of life no matter if your poor or rich. On social media, this lifestyle is entertained as a reward after you achieved wealth. It is a badge of honor you show off. It is the reinforcing mechanism of the meritocracy myth. It is inherently a bourgeois position, the stereotype of that being a white toxic male.
If you are "trying to experience more of the world" do it without showing it ( or showing it off ) on social media, is the very act of *showing* innocent? Consciously or unconsciously. Along with your early twenties perfect abs and all of your narcissism and white cis male privilege that you were simply born in by matter of pure chance.
Excellent video. I won't lie, I put off watching this, thinking it wasn't relevant, but I was very wrong. Yours is a much better message than what's being peddled by these travel influencers. Thank you for all that you do.
I'd love, if you'd make a video on why life is important, why furture generations are important, why earth shouldn't be destroyed to the point of no life ever.
As a Latin American woman, I am deeply annoyed by these videos. Since moving to Europe, I have encountered many white, middle-class men with money to spend on travel, but without a true understanding of how the world works, especially for those from underdeveloped countries. I find it frustrating to hear them describe the povertyof my people as something exotic and life-changing, while it's clear they wouldn't last a day living the way we do. This has been a real source of annoyance for me.
We enjoyed it a lot, this is a great video, and you're doing great! No reason for being too self-critical about it. Still, it's totally OK to chill and set your priorities.
as a student protestor for gaza who got arrested back in October, finding ways to live in your values, live in community, live in a way that builds the world you want to be in, is so freeing. it is so joyful. so much more joyful than these vloggers can imagine
I agree with everything except that living radically doesn't just have to be about politics, it can be any form of living out your values. Orson Welles lived radically, because he had to scrounge for pennies over years to make each film, with little hope for financial reward or knowing whether it would ever be finished.
An examination of anything- literally any individual thing- is political by nature. Even the attempt to be "apolitical" is a political position because it is an explicit rejection of the political. Politics is not something which gets injected into subjects from outside. It is an examination of forces and relationships which already exist, whether we wish to engage with them or not.
as a person from russia somewhat connected to academia, i would like to say that pausing university exchange only robs talented people from opportunities and the world from their knowledge. thinking it can cause pressure on the government is delusional. anyways, thank you for the video.
I've never watched a youtube video this close to its publication and let me say. The comments are rancid i need the hive mind to like the best comments so i dont have to subject myself to this. Good takes girl but see you next week!!
@@jonathanmelhuish4530 screaming crying throwing up kicking the wall with my fists no daddy please don't dislike my comment I wil do anything sir banging my head against the floor what will I do a man has disliked my silly girly pop femme fatale empowerment comment I will never get a good grade at youtube which is both normal to want and possible to achieve uwu T_T nawwww what will become of me now help me anypony please
great video! one example that came to mind about a completely different, anti-establishment style of travel vlogs is Vagrant Holiday. while I have an inkling that he holds some questionable political opinions, his style of travelling is very outside the norm of traditional youtube travel vlogs. highly recommend, if not for the content, it's very interesting to see someone live that way
I have few people in my life I like to listen for hours and company them with cup of tea ı made myself . You would be one of them if we were friends . Great video
All of this could go away if everyone stopped using social media. People like this will always exist, but they wouldn't be able to make money off it, their influence would shrink to nothing. Its really not hard to stop using social media and end these peoples "careers".
I've been there, putting my dreams in the activist struggle and trying to identify the one self-sacrificial action that might make the world a better place. Now, I think these acts of activism are at most just a slight inconvenience to the system, and more often than not, acts of self-indulgence. Nowadays I believe only the workers' movement has the power to stop the climate catastrophe and create a society with actual human dignity.
5:02 It so happens, travel vloggers would arguably agree with Plato. While they show pleasurable moments, they definitely, like all other travellers, have moments that are unpleasant, enough to provide the contrast that Plato thinks so important. If you have ever walked a pilgrimage, you will know what I mean.
Ah! I see some people (of a specific gender I will not name ahah) being triggered by the fact that the words 'toxic' and 'male' cohabit in my title. I mostly make videos analysing the things I like and the things I don't like about both male and female social media trends, there's nothing new about this one. It's maybe less analytical than usual, I had a bit more fun. And you know what? If it may reassure those who find it concerning that I only talk about men, then yes, I'll admit that all the things I said in the video can also be applied to certain categories of female travel vloggers. I wanted to look at men specifically because it has its own features, men aren't socialised like women. It's funny though that when I do those critical videos with female trends, people don't get triggered like that! But it must be a coincidence, right? 👀 am I right? 👀👀 ahah
The video was great, thanks❤
Probably not a coincidence... Maybe people are realizing that your ideology, the one that sees women as always oppressed and men as always oppressors, is justifying misandry more and more and they're pointing it out. Maybe people are sick of this narrative where everything is to blame on the white cishet population.
@@posepause8703you haven’t seen her other videos, right? She has dozens of videos taking the same critical stance against female led trends.
Next do a vid about how France is a colonial empire and everything France had was stolen from ongoing centuries of human trafficking and slavery.
It's so toxic when rich beneficiaries of slave owners have their toxic genre of quasi-deconstructing social trends, as if the French were not the greatest oppressors on the planet.
New Caledonia, Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, how dare you use electricity from uranium dug by CHILD SLAVES in Niger. While they have no electricity!
These toxic French hypocrite bloggers? Let them eat cake, tear down this bourgeois class violence, yadda yadda yadda... 😅
Toxic Frenchness is not a joke!
Men who get triggered by that are same type of human that thinks you can be racist about white people
The colloquial term for them is "a**eholes"
That bird was probably vlogging about his exciting trip to Random Woman's Garage 😅
Nah, he was tweeting
He was saying edit this out and get to your point.
His? Are you assuming the bird's gender?
I think those "fake deep" and "profound" monologues are what kept me from falling into travel vlog stuff lol. That and it seemed that most of em were probably secretly trust fund kids who could afford to travel on a whim, which is fine, but the way they make it seem like they're an everyman just taking a chance felt very gross to me. But i get why people like it - the idealistic, adventurous young and free ideals of escaping, life on the road and having the experience of a lifetime. Who doesn't want that? But traveling and adventure is really not as glamorous unless you're loaded.
I have a similar issue with photography accounts on Instagram. I love good photography, but I can't stand the trend of having to put some inspirational and profound caption with every photo.
Exactly. Travelling isn't "a risk", buying a plane ticket requires money, not courgage and those vacations mostly teach them how to party, but partying has woefully little to do with the lives of most people out there. There's nothing wrong with some hedonism if you have the means to support it, but for many people life is full of work they don't wanna do for barely enough money to support themselves.
@@liquidKi Well ya, but if they got a huge audience, then they are basically being paid by advertisers to do it. It's a bit ironic, that their audience's potential to consume is sort of paying for the creator's lifestyle/content which happen to be the same thing, it's like "I pay you to go and live the life I wanna live so that I can look at it on my phone" (not exactly pay them directly, but you get the point).
Anyway, I don't think their "privilege" is the problem here, it is their audience who provides for them after all and who am I to judge what others find entertaining... it's just, well... kinda strange, like if we tried to explain it to some aliens they would be like "wha...?".
@@LeSpeederus it _can_ definitely be a risk, but that kind of travel involves much less hotel stays and club visits at resorts
Highly agreed, i felt the same way as well. To be fair, if they said and did things as it is, there would be no issues. They would just be random vlogging channels that people watch for entertainment, however the "fake deep" and "profound" monologues, is what makes them seem pretentious, unrealistic but also disingenuous. Me and my family have travelled due to my father's Embassy job and i can definitely say that travelling and exploring world is pretty amazing but it's really not as glamorous as people make it out to be. Things being grounded and genuine are appreciated but when things are superficial and disingenuous, that is the main problem.
I took about 6 months out to go backpacking around SE Asia and India in a really typical mid-20s middle class guy kindof way. I learned mostly that travel wasn't the experience it was really made out to be. It is, for the most part, not challenging, deep or even that hedonistic. It definitely did not leave me with a feeling of being changed.
Tourists live in their own ecosystem. There is a whole economy designed around keeping you comfortable. It is actually quite a challenge to break out of it. While I met lots of people from the UK, EU and US, I had barely any real conversations with locals. While I made some effort to read about the countries and visit the museums, most backpackers did not. Your engagement with the culture feels limited to eating food, walking around town, visiting a temple and going to bars.
Travelling from place to place so quickly means that nowhere has a chance to really affect you. Same with the people that you meet along the way. If you want a profound experience, you have to stick with it for a while. Its like the difference between a series of one-night stands and having a partner. The one night stands might be fun and some people might respect your high body-count, but its only when you are with someone for a while that you really learn about each other, you bear your soul and hopefully push each other to be the best versions of yourselves. Anthropologists spends years as participant observers to learn about a culture.
Finally, its not as fun as its made out to be. If you like going out drinking every evening in clubs playing the most generic pop EDM possible, you will probably be ok. I went travelling in 2016, so pretty much every night I was listening to Justin Bieber, the Chainsmokers, Skrillex and Kygo. I went to the Full Moon Party, expecting some wild hippie gathering, and it felt like Tiger Tiger but on the beach. I could find better parties happening on my street than most of the parties I attended while travelling. If you indulge in narcotics, then you would also do better to stay home; when you are passing through, dealers have no incentive to give you good product.
I would encourage anyone considering backpacking to reconsider. If you want to learn about different cultures, pick one place, choose an activitity that integrates you into the community somewhat, like working, volunteering or learning a skill particular to that area, and stay there at least a few months.
But what about just the act of travelling itself? I traveled western Europe for tow weeks last year and it was one of the most challenging, exhausting and wonderful experiences in my life and it certainly changed me. Not so much because of the places themselves, in fact if I would have had more time, I would have stayed in many places longer, but because it was the longest in my life that I was away from my support system, I had to navigate a lot of stressful situations basically all by myself and I did a lot of things that scared the hell out of me, like staying in hostels and talking to strangers. Did I have any deep insides about myself or the world? No. Did it still contribute to me feeling like an actual adult now, who has overcome there social anxiety enough to actually maybe make lasting connections in the future? Yes.
I do understand what you mean by your post, but I also always find it strange when people say that they came back backpacking and didn't change at all, because doesn't any new, challenging experience change a person?
finally someone said it
@@BirdOnATypwriter not really. i’ve traveled a lot and it didn’t change me, i’m still fundamentally the same person i was before traveling. i had some good times, but i could’ve had similar good times anywhere
@@coolchameleon21that's really sad. I'm in my mid-forties now and have spent most of my life before I married and became a father travelling and living abroad. There is nothing else in life that has informed the person I am more solidly than those experiences I sought out and all those amazing people I met and who I am friends with to this day. Travel I will always recommend but it has to be done right. Many expats and backpackers I saw on my travels just seemed to want to stay safe then go home and say they "did it".
@@j4ksx congratulations, not everyone is the same as you. you just made friends, you didn’t become a new person. you can make friends anywhere. 99% of the people i know who think travel “changed” them are just as tone deaf and ignorant as they were before they left. they go to all these underprivileged countries to pretend like they had some kind of spiritual awakening by seeing people living in harsh conditions, only to go back home and continue living the exact same way as they were before. travel can be fun, but it’s not the end all be all and it’s not even feasible for many people.
That bird talked back, nobody can convince me otherwise
Whenever narcissism enters into any activity everything gets fucked up, especially activism and world exploration.
Your amazing comment needs more likes and appreciation, absolutely spot on. It's the narcissisms that really messes up any and all activities especially activism and exploration. People can do whatever they want but humbleness and self-awareness is important.
👏👏
Can you make a video about the fake deep quit your job, move to hawaii, manifestation girlies? Lol I used to be OBSESSED with them when I was a teenager
They all heading to latin america now
@ActionJackson-tc3dy really? I lost track of them all lol. That's interesting. At least they're leaving Hawaii alone. I can only hope it will increase tourism for us or something like that (I am Brazilian)
@@sweettea018 no. These r sex tourist. These so called male vloggers. These men r secretly trying to hook up with women. Places like brazil. Why u think they r in that country
For the women. Duhhh
@@sweettea018 it only brings gentrification (I'm from Mexico). Rents have doubled in Mexico City just in the past 6 months, thanks to a big unregulated influx of "digital nomads" aka, immigrants who doesn't pay taxes on many things
@Gr95dc oh my god. I think you guys (Mexico) get the worst of it. Brazil isn't really a popular destination for that. Your government should do something to keep it from happening 🥲 make them pay taxes on everything or something like that
The fake deep video you reacted to hit different once I realized they were in my country 😭😭
A couple of months ago I fell into the RUclips rabbithole of male travel vloggers and watched a few of them to find out what they were about. So yeah, there's a specific genre of this that is decidedly "male" in the same sense that this video seems to get criticism for alluding to, i.e. toxic masculinity. I suddenly found loads of guys traveling to poor places, sensationalizing poverty, crime etc, exoticizing their problems without appreciating the culture, pretending to have chance encounters with young, conventionally attractive women right in the streets and hanging out with them as if it was not obvious that they payed them to play the overly friendly stranger role etc. You will spot these easily enough by their fixation with emphasizing "dangerous" on the titles, or pretending to make "brutally honest" presentations of things like homelessness (invariably trying to inspire hate against homeless people) or by their constant inclusion of "hot women" in the thumbnails. Some of these men make not so subtle comments revealing this is a thinly veiled exercise in sex tourism, or that they were aiming to place themselves as idols for incels (the guy who scores everywhere), or that they enjoy poor countries because in their view poverty would render most women more submissive and themselves as western demigods because they are able to throw some money to their faces. This can also be served with the pseudo-antisystemic sauce of presenting the West as a decadent, failing part of the world, with developing countries being where one should go to live their live to the fullest - assuming that one can still be paid by western standards and use their economic privilege to take advantage of the locals, that is. Of course you can be a guy, do travel vlogs and be a far cry at least from promoting harmful ideas, but I can hardly think of a clearer manifestation of toxic masculinity in the context of travel vlogging than these guys that seem to have inundated RUclips recently.
Too long, didn't read.
Free Palestine.
I totally agree. I met a British guy, mid twenties, when travelling in Thailand. He had moved to Thailand and worked remotely as a day trader. He was open about struggling with depression after moving to Thailand. I think he'd thought having "everything" (because of the strength of the pound he could buy anything he wanted, I'm sure he partied a lot) would be his ticket to happiness, but I think he had a severe lack of genuine connection and meaning in his life.
@@jessicakennedy7287 Living in Greece, I have many friends who have gone to live abroad, more than those who remain here. Usually they leave because in Greece they would lack opportunities and decent pay for what they do, even if they end up in countries with higher poverty like, say, Thailand. And they do mention that it's nice to be somewhere with both higher wages - for what they do, at least - and a lower cost of living. Feeling connected and issues like what makes us happy beside not being drowned by economic necessities are matters that are certainly worth discussing (and it can be a bit haphazard, I can tell you I've felt that lack of connection even in nearby European countries). But I do feel like it's a more nuanced conversation compared to the deal with the guys I was describing above. I'm not sure the guy you met went there to live some neocolonial fantasy, or that he's there to actively exploit the locals, at least.
Bro doesn’t how to format paragraphs 🤡
Kinda long, glad I read. It was based.
It’s essentially a “travel” version of Dan Bilzerian’s content. Around ten years ago, Bilzerian was seen as the “king of Instagram,” largely for the same kind of antics I see in these “travel” videos. If you remove the “travel” aspect of these videos, it boils down to the EXACT same thing as Bilzerian’s content.
damn i havent heard about that guy in years, im glad hes not relevant anymore
@@guguigugu I think he's in jail for tax fraud
Love this video and how you reflected about "teenager hedonism" takes. I personally can relate a lot to that (and probably most of us can to some degree)
Totally relate to being 14 and being all "maybe I'm just not like all those sheep who want an office job and house in the suburbs, I'm just so different and special"
At the same time though, living in a small, rural town in Canada I am treated like some kind of specimen because I went abroad to uni and spent a year travelling. At my family reunion this year I was literally surrounded by relatives with all sorts of questions and commending me for going travelling. In some places (ie. rural North America) it is still radical to travel somewhere other than Mexico/Cuba for a resort vacation as a holiday. But also I see that quickly changing- the travel influencer space is getting SOO crowded.
I don’t think it’s even perceived as radical, just impressive and interesting. People don’t understand what radical means.
i mean who actually does want to work a 9-5 in the suburbs lmao. most people wouldn’t live that type of life if they had the means to do something else
@@coolchameleon21I would rather live 100 lifetimes in the suburbs than a single day in a city
The hate the suburbs get is obviously jealousy
Do one about the 20 year old tech girlies who are super rich off their tech jobs, quit from overwork and travelled. "Moved to Paris to learn French" and live in charming Parisian apartments
All kinds of excessive (as in: consuming many non-renewable or slowly renewable resourses) hedonism repel me when I see them.
Also those that indirectly exploit countless hours of someone else’s labor
Partying is excessive? There's no shortage of food or lights or drinks or anything like that lmaooo what 😭
Econazi narrative. Scary, cause you will support all the Agenda 2030 restrictions thinking you are doing the correct thing. Same as covidian doctors with the vaccines.
The people who taught you to think like that all fly around in private jets.
@@Dark3x I know. That's why I find it so repelling.
And by "they taught me to think like that" I mean: Their behaviour awoke my wrath. It needs to be forbidden to waste resources like that.
Hedonism is hedonism despite gender, race and religion.
“Every person has two lives, the second begins after realizing you just have one”
I used to consider this as a superficial calendar quote as well. But when facing death, I understood the true meaning of it.
I'd never heard of Cedric Herrou - so great to learn about such an amazing guy! Thank you :)
Hopefully he's locked up under an RN government.
The bird did not bother me. Nice background song.
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
It bothered me
@@liquidpebbles7475 bird noises should be a togglable feature on yt videos so we can each have it according to our preference
It was driving me mad i was very close to go tell it to please stop the birding i cant listen to her
I find it a fascinating caveat that one 'cannot judge these people', for whatever reason. We absolutely can. If we cannot judge eachother as fellow citizens, what's left? Judge eachother as consumers? Wait for God's final judgement? Of course we should judge people, we should explicate what we admire and shun.
I wait for the final judgement of Donkey Kong
Perfectly said . This is what it truly means to go against the norm. While the world turns to hell you don't join the world in destruction but in fighting for what is right
How long until we start getting deep fakes of fake deeps?
Considering AI influencers are becoming a thing, probably not too long at all really
Never heard of them. But they reminded me of the beginning of Far Cry 3 (game released in 2012).
I agree with you.
In defense of the male travel vloggers:
It would be interesting to see a statistical comparison regarding the numbers between them and the pretty girls, living almost the same lifestyle paid by their sugar daddies.
They create content, which attract viewers and generate income. The girls don't need this, you can just see their photos on the Instagram time to time. Is it fake? Maybe. But I would chose it over a sugar daddy. :)
I worked with teenagers for over 20 years. I'm glad you tempered this with the "when I was a teenager" discussion. It's really hard to distinguish rebellion from transformation (particularly when you're young) when you've only grown up in a modern, capitalist economy. Sometimes it takes a while to realize what a "real" life really is.
"nothing human will make it out of the near future"
First of all, welcome back! Second of all, so heartening to see you in the lineup of ’Creators For Palestine’.
Imagine if she saw bald and bankrupt
Thank you for this lovely video! I have a sort of different take on these kinds of guys (or just travel vloggers in general with their excessive drone shots and all). Im currently planning my honeymoon and honestly these vloggers have helped me so much in my planning. I get to pan the different takes each vlogger has on different areas, i get to see the locations for myself, they tend to over-glamorize things but i know to keep that in mind, so for me i just owe so much to this culture of travel vlogging! I think its important to keep in mind that what they do is a full-time job, even if it all looks like a huge blast, even if their job is just beach. I need that guy when im picking out beaches! I know Alice knows how much work goes into making content ofc, and definitely these people are kind of shallow in the grand scheme of things (pretending life is as simple as just opting out and becoming the anti-normal free spirit) but i actually don’t believe they are as free as they posture themselves out to be? They provide a service and get rewarded for it. Their goals may be to live a very hedonistic life, but at the end of the day I dont think of it as genuinely hedonistic if its being done as a career, planned out, executed and edited for the viewers' pleasure rather than their own.
Hedonism is easy to start but is hard to finish.
One thing that strikes me about travel influencers is they always talk about community among the locals they meet as something they admire. If they want community, why don't they stay in one place for a decent length of time and build up some local connections? Travel can be fun, but it's not (pardon the fake deep quote) the ultimate destination. To think otherwise strikes me as very alienated.
Cappelle always concretely identifies societal trends with a literate, philosophical and anticapitalist perspective which seems so rare on this platform, and I‘m a big fan :)
Being rich and good looking rarely makes someone into a decent person
Exactly. People like that need to be humbled but never will. Life is just a fun game to them.
@@ruzzianbot I can - regarding that topic - imagine living in five modes:
1. I do everything myself in my household (cleaning, doing laundry, cooking).
2. I share these responsibilities fairly with people I share a flat with.
3. I don't do any of these things or the bare minimum for (mental) health reasons (which would never be planned/wanted) and live in a dirty flat.
4. I hire someone to do these things for me because I for example have the choice to live in my own flat with that kind of help or have to move to something like a nursing home or other care facility.
5. I hire someone to do these things for me because I am so vital at work performing surgeries or saving people from fires that it would be selfish to insist taking care of my own household at the risk of other people dying.
Otherwise, I would also want to do everything in my household myself. I could never have a cleaner or something just because I don't feel like doing that kind of work. I would never want to be someone who hasn't vaccumed a floor or done laundry or done anything like that in years.
Incel horseshoe theory
What a wonderful video. i am a therapist who works with women, and I often utilize your videos. I sure hope you never stop making them! Love from Arizona!
Just don't see the need to differentiate males from females here. Now if you did a feature on men enjoying being 'international men of culture' (taking inexpensive exotic prostitutes while on travel), then I'd understand.
Finally a video about this! I'm so tired of travel vloggers, who just copy all the other ones, and make it look like they are incredibly special in their content and in their ability to travel the world.
Thank you for mentioning the students ❤❤️
great vid, for real. it's been a while since I found a video in which there's some critical thinking. you say that this is not even analytical like your other vids, I'll need to check them out. thanks for putting forward this type of content, really reflective and refreshing.
It has always upset me that as a woman, I could never go on a solo hitchhiking trip no matter how hedonistic I feel
Why not?
While traveling I've met many women who did, though. I get your point, but it certainly does not prevent all women from doing that.
@MrFatpenguin let's be real those women usually have a few screws loose
@@bear5945 It's not very feminist to call women who can and choose to live a different way crazy.
@@MrFatpenguinYeah, but there is a real tradeoff with your security that we all have to face between freedom and sexual assault. You can chose to live more freely, but you have to face huge risks that men don’t have to deal with. We can make the same choices, depending on different factors, but we don’t all face the same risks
Could say the same thing about women travelers but probably many don’t post about it as much. I think chasing pleasure is a big issue in our modern dating culture.
Aw, I thought the bird was deliberate background music. It sounded nice, like a nature soundscape!
Thank you ma‘am. You reminded me that I must travel more😉
redefining what 'radical living' means was pretty interesting. I remember hearing people say the platitudes mentioned in this video when I was younger and always feeling like that lifestyle wasn't as much 'against the grain' as it was gatekept from most people due to money as Alice mentioned; fun video.
LOGAN PAUL = OYSTER 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
what an excellent video! I thank you for that. We are at the Olympics, and because my country (Brazil) is doing very well in surfing, I decided to watch some films about the sport. I came across a supposed classic surfer film called “The Endless Summer” from 1960. It was a true racist aberration. They were Americans from California who were going to “explore” surfing in African countries and cultures that, according to them, were primitive. I felt that this film (still acclaimed, as incredible as it may seem!) is the embryo of these RUclipsrs who have fun in cheap countries mocking our culture. I say “ours” because unfortunately it's something I've seen too much on Brazilian beaches. Gringos (as we call them) completely apolitical and full of colonial thoughts
I ran into this film recently too. I was half watching it with sound off because I just wanted something nice in the background. About thirty minutes into it I got curious and turned the sound on and I was shocked. It was so ignorant, insensitive and supercilious.
@@hakanelmaci1348 wowwww
showing the connection you can develop while traveling and being more present in the moment is uniquely valuable content, i got people in my life who share experiences like that and it can be a beautiful facette of life if you want to engage with it
there is a subsection of travel vids that actually kind of the opposite where they try to find the "worst places" in the world and then make clickbait videos to showcase the worst of a certain culture. vids titled like "don't go to this place in Bangladesh" or something like that. that's what i thought of what i read "toxic male travel vloggers lol"
Loved this video - thank you for making it!
Damn, I was hoping you'd talk about Yes Theory considering they're one of the biggest travel channels out there and they have a ton of fan clubs all over the world. Very interested to hear your opinion lol
You know it's a going to be a good video when Bentham and Plato are both quoted in the first five minutes! This is why I love your videos--engaging and very thought provoking! The camera work is superb as well. Have a great week, Alice!
So hedonistic female travel vloggers are non toxic?!
Like everything, females are just better at toxicity. They can even whisper toxicity confidently, endlessly.
I enjoy some male vloggers mostly bc I don't see a lot of them. I don't really agree with the title as to why we should view them as toxic...
Completely agree specially because it suggests women are not capable of that, like being a hedonist is like male trait, the title is completely misleading and biased. Actually this type of content is one of the few worth keeping, there is alot to criticize as well like the lack of veracity regarding a real travelling experience but again a total clickbait.
They are not toxic, their hedonism is.... or at least their version of it and I agree female hedonist travelers do exist and are just as toxic, but there is an important factor as to why they weren't mentioned: there aren't many of them, mainly because it is more dangerous and risky to be a traveller as a woman or even a group of women, like honestly all the female travellers that I have seen travel with their boyfriends or husbands
Lighting is really good here. You have like a silver-lining around your hair.
I used to think like this, looking to traveling as an act of rebellion and only pleasure (because you are leaving your boring day-to-day life). And reflecting on all of my trips, and seeing the examples of real rebellious acts that you mention, it reminds me of the reason I got in that point in the first place: having buddies who followed that lifestyle from the vloggers you showed, and having them hammering your head with those trips everyday, plus myself, again, having a very boring life and taking 4h trips to the office. It is that desire to get into that state of full pleasure (which you won't, seriously, I can't state how trips generally have its headaches and emergencies).
Btw, did you see there is a bird that was vlogging about pranking a RUclipsr?
By the way, the best reaction video i ve ever seen in my life, so relatable.
As always, thank you for your thoughts. I appreciate your detailed analyses just as much as these videos highlighting examples. Over the years, you've certainly nudged where I sit on different issues and provided valuable perspectives that are hard to access elsewhere for me.
I have a much higher opinion of the average oyster than I do of Logan Paul.
I remember visiting France in 1987,and there was a heavy undercurrent of resentment of American tourists at the time. Having not returned to France from that time,I don't know how French people view Americans at this time,but I can assume not much has changed. Listening to this video has given me deeper insight into this resentment.
I also sense some of the anti-male,male-bashing themes inherent in modern radical leftists as well. This particular theme from leftist discourse is deeply antagonistic in a way that I would think that someone needs to redress this. In America and other places in the western world,there is a growing backlash to leftists gender politics,which is really somewhat overdue. Making young men who lack experience into whipping boys for the failures of the western system will not radicalise them to the left. It will radicalise them to the hard right and alt-right.
Also, criticizing young men for being hedonistic (especially on vacation) is hypocritical, given that in colleges across the west, women participate just as or even more fully in hedonistic Greek culture and it's debauchery, which supplies easily 70% of the business which abortion clinics engage in. Whether you believe abortion is evil or not, that is a sad record indeed.
I agree our young men need to be trained to be more responsible when they go outside their own country,and encounter norms which they aren't always sensitive to. This is the job of parents, who have been put under ever-increasing pressure simply to provide for their children, let alone to fully engage in their moral development. It takes a village, and a village full of drunks and prostitutes isn't going to produce good, morally upright offspring.
The state is also a terrible parent as well,however, and serves the short term goals of the rich and powerful.
I'm not against capitalism, but I wish that our corporate leaders recognized that the most important product which society makes is it's offspring.
Hedonistic tourism is just as much the product of a radicalised left wing,whose subcultures,such as the hippie movement in America and other places in the west, advocated hedonism as a response to the stiff morality of the WWII silent generation, who were trying to pick up the pieces of a world that had seen 6 of the most devastating years of conflict that the world had ever seen, and wanted so badly to return to something like,.....normal.
What our young men need is indeed a rebirth of meaning. They also need a clear sense of right and wrong,one free of the constant double binding which the ever evolving moral haphazardness which the left brings on due to constant trial and error. They need simpler rules and simpler relationships. The complexities brought on by moral relativism are part of why most young men retreat from life into video games and virtual girlfriends, and live their fantasies through a few RUclips content creators,who really know precious little more about life than themselves.
You wrote an essay in the comment section…..and it was much more balanced and mature than the video. Thank you!
I follow people who fit into the demographic you’ve mentioned. Currently reevaluating my life choices lol
Heard the quote awhile ago
"There would be no where to travel to if people didnt decide to sit, stay, and build a life."
Essentially saying traveling is not everything. Yeah, go some places, learn some things, but dont expect it to be as great as you think. Its not a deep quote. Just helps recontexulizes some things.
😂😂
Theres nothing wrong with that! Shes not out to criticise you and what you enjoy. She is just making a comment about how this lifestyle isn't really as profound and deep as these people act like it is and really, it's just a form of escapism and then she explored a lifestyle she considered more fulfilling and actually profound.
@@sanitygone-l9y Of course I know that. I’m just being facetious
Wait honest question, do women not do the same thing with travel blogs? I used to watch both men and women who made that kind of content, I didn't think it was a sex specific thing..
Well welcome to 2024
Right? Like why gender an issue when the issue itself is not gendered.
Seems pretty baised again men.
You can't even go 5 minutes without scaring a bird and im supposed to believe all women are not evil?
It brings me delight that someone is paying you to read out Trogdor's name every month
Fascinating look. It's also sad because you're not going to appreciate the things themselves as much as you are to erase what you have in your current life.
Every time I get home from a trip I appreciate my life a little more for what I missed during that trip. That's what I like about travel.
The rain’s okay but the bird’s not?
RIP bird friend :(
I think it's not only fine, but positively great you are living to enjoy your life (as long as its not a superficial or empty enjoyment). Just do so in a way that is sustainable and also good for other people, not just yourself. You can travel sustainably, you can party with enough responsibility (i.e. not compromising your future with addictions!), and you can also, sometimes, mix both enjoyment and responsibility with things like volunteer work, and choosing non-destructive jobs that you enjoy.
I really wish we could live in a world where everyone could travel like this. Not just rich fail sons. Lol
Ok now i want your take on bald and bankrupt
Doing a hit piece on a retired spy is tricky. The training makes them dangerous.
@@Chris-xc1tmanother commenter called him a sex pest. I’m going to check him out!
@@Chris-xc1tm He's not a spy
7:35- that's why i am afraid of expressing my views. I might retrospectively cringe at them in the future.
Alice: "...Jeremy Bentham..."
Me: 🎵"Bent-ham's Heaaaad"🎶
being « radical » doesn’t mean being bad. THOSE WHO say / think that are PEOPLE trying to manipulate. YOU just need to know that there are consequences to YOUR choices, and there could be SACRIFICES (not killing! But do as THOU wilt).
Never heard of any of these people.
Alice, thank you for your videos, they are so well thought-through, narrated and explained. I'm an artist studying fine arts and they really inspire me, because you always talk about such interesting topics that make me dive even deeper in the things and people related to them. Good job and keep doing this!!! :)
The lifestyle of never being in the same place and meeting new people is so shallow to me. Its always about connecting ✨, but they will never see people long enough to go through avarage life hardships with them, to share their happiness and be vunerable. Real human conection is not as simple as they make it.
Hearing the stories you chose to shareI felt emotional and happy. All of a sudden those travel videos seemed so incredibly empty. I got goosebumps. Such an odd discrepancy.
Great video, Alice. Just wish it was longer! 😄
Thank you for the video, but especially the later portion sharing information on activists and divestment! It's very inspiring
This one feels slightly hypocritical. Hedonism is what thrives on social media. Consumerism for entertainment is a hedonist practice and it is everywhere. I get that this one focuses specifically on male travel vloggers, but it feels dishonest to point this genre out specifically. Even though I agree the fake deep stuff and the lifestyle advertisement aspects of it are of course shallow and empty, it feels like this angle is being used to paint a broadly negative picture of a wide group of people trying to experience more of the world. I expected some sort of deeper analysis and elaboration on this but then the video just ended, with the divestment point feeling very disconnected from the whole thing. "The often toxic genre of western men going on travels" god forbid.
This one comment feels slightly misguided. Hedonism is not what thrives on social media but what I would call the achievement fantasy. Hedonism is a way of life no matter if your poor or rich. On social media, this lifestyle is entertained as a reward after you achieved wealth. It is a badge of honor you show off. It is the reinforcing mechanism of the meritocracy myth. It is inherently a bourgeois position, the stereotype of that being a white toxic male.
If you are "trying to experience more of the world" do it without showing it ( or showing it off ) on social media, is the very act of *showing* innocent? Consciously or unconsciously. Along with your early twenties perfect abs and all of your narcissism and white cis male privilege that you were simply born in by matter of pure chance.
Most respectful French bird
Excellent video. I won't lie, I put off watching this, thinking it wasn't relevant, but I was very wrong. Yours is a much better message than what's being peddled by these travel influencers. Thank you for all that you do.
I'd love, if you'd make a video on why life is important, why furture generations are important, why earth shouldn't be destroyed to the point of no life ever.
As a Latin American woman, I am deeply annoyed by these videos. Since moving to Europe, I have encountered many white, middle-class men with money to spend on travel, but without a true understanding of how the world works, especially for those from underdeveloped countries. I find it frustrating to hear them describe the povertyof my people as something exotic and life-changing, while it's clear they wouldn't last a day living the way we do. This has been a real source of annoyance for me.
100% agree
The bird was chill
Today I learned that I am jealous of oysters.
We enjoyed it a lot, this is a great video, and you're doing great! No reason for being too self-critical about it.
Still, it's totally OK to chill and set your priorities.
YOU ARE WONDERFUL, ALICE!!!
Yet again, an amazing video 🤍 thank you
as a student protestor for gaza who got arrested back in October, finding ways to live in your values, live in community, live in a way that builds the world you want to be in, is so freeing. it is so joyful. so much more joyful than these vloggers can imagine
I agree with everything except that living radically doesn't just have to be about politics, it can be any form of living out your values. Orson Welles lived radically, because he had to scrounge for pennies over years to make each film, with little hope for financial reward or knowing whether it would ever be finished.
An examination of anything- literally any individual thing- is political by nature. Even the attempt to be "apolitical" is a political position because it is an explicit rejection of the political.
Politics is not something which gets injected into subjects from outside. It is an examination of forces and relationships which already exist, whether we wish to engage with them or not.
@@nondescriptname you're wrong
THAT BIRD 🦜
Always a treat and inspiration, Alice
The "Ah, Voilá" made me chuckle.
That birdie legit said “idgaf”
as a person from russia somewhat connected to academia, i would like to say that pausing university exchange only robs talented people from opportunities and the world from their knowledge. thinking it can cause pressure on the government is delusional. anyways, thank you for the video.
I've never watched a youtube video this close to its publication and let me say. The comments are rancid i need the hive mind to like the best comments so i dont have to subject myself to this. Good takes girl but see you next week!!
@@jonathanmelhuish4530 screaming crying throwing up kicking the wall with my fists no daddy please don't dislike my comment I wil do anything sir banging my head against the floor what will I do a man has disliked my silly girly pop femme fatale empowerment comment I will never get a good grade at youtube which is both normal to want and possible to achieve uwu T_T nawwww what will become of me now help me anypony please
great video! one example that came to mind about a completely different, anti-establishment style of travel vlogs is Vagrant Holiday. while I have an inkling that he holds some questionable political opinions, his style of travelling is very outside the norm of traditional youtube travel vlogs. highly recommend, if not for the content, it's very interesting to see someone live that way
I have few people in my life I like to listen for hours and company them with cup of tea ı made myself . You would be one of them if we were friends . Great video
Your videos are always a pleasure to watch :)
Amazing lighting. Nicely done
All of this could go away if everyone stopped using social media. People like this will always exist, but they wouldn't be able to make money off it, their influence would shrink to nothing. Its really not hard to stop using social media and end these peoples "careers".
You are my favorite RUclipsr ❤ thank youuuuuuuuuuu for every video ❤❤❤lots of love from Peru 🇵🇪
I've been there, putting my dreams in the activist struggle and trying to identify the one self-sacrificial action that might make the world a better place.
Now, I think these acts of activism are at most just a slight inconvenience to the system, and more often than not, acts of self-indulgence.
Nowadays I believe only the workers' movement has the power to stop the climate catastrophe and create a society with actual human dignity.
5:02 It so happens, travel vloggers would arguably agree with Plato.
While they show pleasurable moments, they definitely, like all other travellers, have moments that are unpleasant, enough to provide the contrast that Plato thinks so important.
If you have ever walked a pilgrimage, you will know what I mean.
god you're insufferable aren't you