CH: I want to ask the room: Have any of you ever put a country count up on your Instagram?
[Unanimous no’s]
CH: Okay, no. Have you seen it around, though?
Jamie Spain: Yeah, especially with, like, Instagram travel, you know, social media travelers where that’s their job. Like, “150 countries and counting!” I think it reveals more about how much you travel—a lot—than the places you visit.
Emily Adler: Can I play devil’s advocate and ask: Isn’t Instagram just shallow as a whole?
Megan Spurrell: That it’s more of what Instagram already is? I mean, fair. The thing about a bio is that people, in a very small space, are trying to convey why you would trust and follow them—why they matter. Which is already a silly task, but people feel a need to justify themselves. It comes back to bigger issues with travel. Who is it for? Are you doing it to tell people you did it? Would you take the trip if you could never post about it or tell anyone?
My problem with country counting—beyond that it’s annoying as are many things that all of us on social media including me do—is that it strips away the nuance that in one country, there are many things to do and see. People will be like, “Oh, well I’ve already been to Japan, so I’ve checked it off my list and I won’t go back.” But if you’ve only been to Tokyo, you haven’t seen Japan; you’ve seen Tokyo. If you go elsewhere in the country, you see a whole different thing. So it discourages people from looking for nuance and it’s a bad habit.
CH: Once you check a box on a screen, it’s very final, like you’ve completed something. And travel is wonderful when it makes you want to return.
JS: Even aside from there being multiple places to visit within one country, there’s also something about falling in love with and visiting the exact same city many times. I think of you, Matt, and Paris, where every time you go it’s a new experience. You cannot physically see these places on one visit, not to mention that things change and open and close.
MS: I think about that too with regard to the self: You are also different when you go back. In my early thirties, I am now returning to places I first saw in my early twenties because I’ve seen a lot of other things now and have things that bring me back or am choosing to circle back around. They feel so different, and it’s so emotional—you’re different, life has changed, the city has changed.
Kat Chen: I want to give everyone that does this the benefit of the doubt that they’re doing so to spark inspiration. But whenever I’ve tried to engage in conversation, what I get back just brushes the surface of a place. There’s also this undertone of Eat, Pray, Love Orientalism going on with this. Any time someone posts about Taiwan, I naturally get excited about it, but I find that people want to brag about going there because it’s “exotic” without actually engaging with a place and it’s people. Check, I went here.
