You're preaching to the converted, Lucy, and that's my fear with these consultants and grifters - messages like yours don't get to their target audiences. Thankfully there are voices like yours getting the word out there, but alas...these nasty pests are everywhere, exhorting us to 'live like locals' and 'capture the dream life abroad in all its glamour!' Ugghhh...
(remind me not to...remind you about my piss poor German language skills after over 4 years in Austria...)
Alright then. GET OUT THERE AND LEARN SOME BLOODY GERMAN, MAN!!! (I found that being abandoned in a village with no English speakers helped… plus a pain in the arse mother in law)
I’m trying, honestly! My daughter is my teacher, though I’m not sure how effective her methodology is - insulting, snickering and criticising my attempts, especially my pronunciation, isn’t exactly the best motivation!
That’s the trouble with being in Vienna - everyone speaks English. Every time I attempt to speak German, EVERY TIME, they respond in English.
Lucy. My lord. We are annoyed by the same things. Bless you. The “expert consultants” on Portugal lately never cease to leave me chateada. Portugal is a culture, not a commodity to be repackaged and sold as something to redesign or sell like a brand at an amusement park.
One of my more notable forms of personal cringe is the constant parade of expert consultants that grift off of that. The pushback locals get for calling out that the sardine emperor wears no gravy (and at 'the sardine festival", no doubt) is likely because it breaks the fourth-wall of constructed escapist fantasy.
Much of the travel content produced and consumed on the Internet and TV, and formerly books and magazines, has undergone a dramatic shift in the past couple of decades. If you've got most of an hour and are curious, I do recommend this rather academic read on the evolution of travel in the Western world: https://fugitivemargins.substack.com/p/the-end-of-elsewhere
We now live in an era where people travel more to verify what they've already seen on a screen. And for the many more who now consume travel content with little intention of using it beyond daydreams, a place, its community, and its people are more the props and central casting for that escapism.
Example: the much-promoted "live like a local" mantra while no one really wants that. Living like a local means filling taxes online in a new language, helping find childcare for your sick neighbor, and participating in the body politic of how social and political decisions are made that likely impact your life.
Nobody signs up for YouTubes of that. Most of us want the sanitized, fake version that can make us feel better about the world and ourselves without daily concerns. And certainly not the responsibility of caretaking.
Locals are inconvenient because we burst the bubble and invalidate that desired fantasy just by existing.
There’s no way you’re panicking more than me. I’ve signed up to do an admin course at the local college! I think this year of freelancing has finally driven me mad. If it helps, you are insanely talented and things will probably pick up 🤞
Sad that I have but one year remaining before being shunned as a very shitty Lusophone. But I assiduously try to avoid the Murricans and Brits crapping out the place.
You're preaching to the converted, Lucy, and that's my fear with these consultants and grifters - messages like yours don't get to their target audiences. Thankfully there are voices like yours getting the word out there, but alas...these nasty pests are everywhere, exhorting us to 'live like locals' and 'capture the dream life abroad in all its glamour!' Ugghhh...
(remind me not to...remind you about my piss poor German language skills after over 4 years in Austria...)
You have a dispensation re the language cos of Ukreasons!
Please, I beg you, don’t indulge me and be too nice - berate me for the pathetic language learner that I am, no mercy! 😂
My daughters (20-smthgs) still laugh when I get a word wrong. Little bastards. Keep going, and tell the Viennese to stop speaking English to you!
Alright then. GET OUT THERE AND LEARN SOME BLOODY GERMAN, MAN!!! (I found that being abandoned in a village with no English speakers helped… plus a pain in the arse mother in law)
I’m trying, honestly! My daughter is my teacher, though I’m not sure how effective her methodology is - insulting, snickering and criticising my attempts, especially my pronunciation, isn’t exactly the best motivation!
That’s the trouble with being in Vienna - everyone speaks English. Every time I attempt to speak German, EVERY TIME, they respond in English.
That’s how bad my pronunciation is.
Lucy. My lord. We are annoyed by the same things. Bless you. The “expert consultants” on Portugal lately never cease to leave me chateada. Portugal is a culture, not a commodity to be repackaged and sold as something to redesign or sell like a brand at an amusement park.
One of my more notable forms of personal cringe is the constant parade of expert consultants that grift off of that. The pushback locals get for calling out that the sardine emperor wears no gravy (and at 'the sardine festival", no doubt) is likely because it breaks the fourth-wall of constructed escapist fantasy.
Much of the travel content produced and consumed on the Internet and TV, and formerly books and magazines, has undergone a dramatic shift in the past couple of decades. If you've got most of an hour and are curious, I do recommend this rather academic read on the evolution of travel in the Western world: https://fugitivemargins.substack.com/p/the-end-of-elsewhere
We now live in an era where people travel more to verify what they've already seen on a screen. And for the many more who now consume travel content with little intention of using it beyond daydreams, a place, its community, and its people are more the props and central casting for that escapism.
Example: the much-promoted "live like a local" mantra while no one really wants that. Living like a local means filling taxes online in a new language, helping find childcare for your sick neighbor, and participating in the body politic of how social and political decisions are made that likely impact your life.
Nobody signs up for YouTubes of that. Most of us want the sanitized, fake version that can make us feel better about the world and ourselves without daily concerns. And certainly not the responsibility of caretaking.
Locals are inconvenient because we burst the bubble and invalidate that desired fantasy just by existing.
Very much so, all of the above.
(Will read the link asap)
There’s no way you’re panicking more than me. I’ve signed up to do an admin course at the local college! I think this year of freelancing has finally driven me mad. If it helps, you are insanely talented and things will probably pick up 🤞
Thank you my Sweet!
If you see me signing up for a TEFL, same.
Fuck AI etc.
Sad that I have but one year remaining before being shunned as a very shitty Lusophone. But I assiduously try to avoid the Murricans and Brits crapping out the place.
I don’t mind if you speak it badly :)