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Complex Numbers #960251 added June 6, 2019 at 12:18am
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Tourons
Well, for once I'm actually tired and about to crash, and as of this moment I haven't seen a 30DBC prompt.
But hey, I can continue the theme of "vacations" on my own!
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/06/crowds-tourists-are-ruining-po...
Too Many People Want to Travel
Massive crowds are causing environmental degradation, dangerous conditions, and the immiseration and pricing-out of locals.
I'll give 'em bonus points for using the word "immiseration," a rare word that doesn't mean anything like "the act of becoming more miserable;" for example, getting dragged to Disney World by your kids. Though Disney World can certainly cause immiseration, which the dictionary I looked at (online) defines as "economic impoverishment." I guess it's more closely related to "miser" than to "misery," though those two words come from the same source... shut up, Waltz, and get to the point.
I have a friend who until recently lived on Maui. This was cool because it meant I got to visit Maui and stay for cheap. The room was the only thing that was cheap; everything else is pricier than a hooker at a priest convention. Even the supermarkets. Fun fact: You know how you can get a supermarket card, and the card can be used to access certain discounts at the market? At one point I had like 10 of these, until a Wegmans opened up in my neighborhood, at which point I quit shopping everywhere else. Anyway, point is, in order to get one of those cards for a supermarket in Hawai'i, apparently you have to show proof of residence. Tourists get to pay full price.
This is actually ingrained in island culture. They call it kama'aina (my apologies if I got that spelling wrong). It's the practice of giving breaks to locals in the tourist-heavy Hawaiian economic zone. Without it, there wouldn't be locals to do all the work for the freakin' tourists, and the whole system would collapse. Which would make some Hawaiians quite happy, I suppose.
Okay, back to the article.
If tourism is a capitalist phenomenon, overtourism is its demented late-capitalist cousin: selfie-stick deaths, all-you-can-eat ships docking at historic ports, stag nights that end in property crimes, the live-streaming of the ruination of fragile natural habitats, et cetera.
I have a modest proposal as regards "selfie-stick deaths:" Do nothing. It's a self-correcting problem that requires no action whatsoever, especially since even with my effectively nonexistent Photoshop skills, I could easily take an ordinary photo and then pop my own ugly mug into it, thus recreating the spirit of a selfie without having to lean halfway out over the Grand Canyon to do so. Guys, we have the story of Narcissus for a reason. I guarantee you if Narcissus had a mobile phone, it would be filled with selfies, with the last one being of his screaming face as he fell off the Acropolis or whateverthefuck.
I'd pay to see that, actually.
As for those other things: Stop it. You're embarrassing actual functioning humans. |
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