Instagram has given regular people the ability to become role models with powerful access to skewing the way others view the world. Some welcome this opportunity with responsibility and grace, while others spread misguided perspectives. The growing trend of irresponsible travel influencers posting deeply offensive content on Instagram without consequence is jarring.
The way influencers with a large audience portray a place, person, or culture matters, as their photos and captions are seen by millions. Posts related to tourism are a significant category on Instagram — #travel has almost 400 million posts, and 48% of Instagram’s 1 billion users rely on the platform to find new destinations. Influencers have power and their followers think that if they mimic them, they too can have Insta fame. AMP marketing agency conducted a survey in 2016 of U.S. travelers between the ages of 18-55 to gauge the importance of user-generated content regarding travel itinerary decision-making. The study found that 84% of millennials and 73% of non-millennials are likely or very likely to plan a trip based on social media updates.
Instagrammer Aggie Lal of @Travelinher_Shoes is the epitome of travel influencers behaving badly. She currently has about 900K followers, even after a course she created was revealed to be a scam and loads of her ‘tribe’ members unfollowed her (yes, she’s a White woman who refers to her followers as her ‘tribe’). One of her very first Instagram posts from March 2015 is a snapshot of her crouched on the ground with a young Zulu girl that she met at an orphanage where she spent a few hours, according to her blog post. Children can’t give consent for their photos to be publicly shared on social media, yet children of color pop up on her feed often, exemplifying poverty porn.
One of the most atrocious offenses features Aggie surrounded by twelve Black orphans in Kenya, where she says she’s “blending in.” She encourages her followers not to be judgemental and inappropriately discloses a young Black boy’s HIV status, age, and nickname. She also says that the boy gave her the “warmest hugs” and that she’s “definitely aware it’s not something everyone would feel comfortable experiencing.”
Countless other influencers exploit brown children to garner their own gain on social media. Another infamous IG scammer, Jack Morris of @DoYouTravel, who started his account as a features feed, has his fair share of impoverished brown children in Asia and Africa peppered into his otherwise highly Lightroom-preset-edited feed. Using people of color as commodities takes away their humanity.
We reached out to Instagram for comment about these sorts of posts. “Content which exploits or endangers children is not allowed on Instagram,” says Paige Cohen, Instagram Communications Manager. She encourages people to report the content so that it will be investigated. “We have a number of proactive measures in place, including photo-matching technology which removes known child exploitative material,” she says.
Narcissism, Savior Complex, and How to be a Better Influencer
Thankfully, not all travel influencers are behaving badly. Dr. Kiona of @HowNotToTravelLikeaBasicBitch often uses her influence for good to speak to her audience of 35K followers about why these posts are dangerous.
“There’s something psychologically wrong when masses of people feel good at the expense of Black and Brown bodies or exploiting Black and Brown countries. There’s a missing piece of empathy that doesn’t consider everyday lived realities of other humans. Evaluating our individual ‘tourist gaze’ or ‘Instagram ethical footprint’ is important because how influencers present a person, place, or culture does exactly that,” she says. “So without thinking about who is benefiting or hurting from the content being put out there, influencers (including myself) are inadvertently defining places and people. If influencers don’t evaluate whether or not we’re doing a person, place, or culture justice, then they’re not considering the people who actually get affected by what they post the most.”
The broader culture of narcissistic social media has a negative impact on audiences.
Clinical Psychologist and Psychology Professor Dr. Ramani Durvasula says that the savior complex perpetuates the ideology that black and brown people in developing countries need to be “rescued” by fashionable white tourists. “It’s a dangerous precedent, which draws away from the far more important discourse about capacity building in these regions to foster self-reliance, and dismantling of traumatic historical oppression, especially for vulnerable groups such as women and children,” she says.
Dr. Jean Kim, a Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at The George Washington University, says that the savior complex is an offshoot of a narcissistic personality. “Many people seeking huge audiences and attention may have narcissistic personality traits. Despite being self-centered, they’re savvy enough to know that stories about helping others get lots of attention and praise,” she says. “It is somewhat frightening, but a few people who are the loudest are ironically mainly doing it for external reasons; they may think they look ‘benevolent’ for being superficially nice to poor brown people, even if they are actually being the opposite.”
Narcissistic personality traits include expectations of superior treatment, fixation of power and attractiveness, self-perception of being superior, need for admiration, sense of entitlement, exploitation of others to achieve personal gain, unwillingness to empathize with other people, belief that people are envious of them, and egotistical behavior. “Some Instagram influencers may have these tendencies, with the need to be the center of attention. In milder cases, they are just seeking validation from others; but in worse cases, they are actively exploiting and harming other people in the process to boost their own fragile egos,” says Dr. Kim.
According to Dr. Kim, people with narcissistic traits have difficulty with empathy. “They’re mainly concerned with their own feelings. They may simply view commentary from others as mere attacks and criticism, instead of being able to truly hear, understand, or even care about the hurt feelings being expressed by other people.”
Travel influencers aren’t only exploiting brown children. Aggie posed topless with indigenous women in the Amazon. Her caption stated that she’s appreciating culture–not appropriating it. She shares no information about the culture or livelihood of the women sitting with her. In another photo Aggie is seen comparing her ivory skin with the tribe members.
@LisaHomsy, a former member of Aggie’s “tribe,” posted photos wearing a Traditional Tahitian Grand Costume and called herself a Tahitian Queen on Halloween. Such commodification of culture and exotification of native women is violence. Sacred dress that’s reserved for certain persons or events shouldn’t be worn as a costume — this isn’t a baffling concept. Aggie and Lisa seem to be completely clueless about the power dynamics that have resulted from colonialism and white dominance.
This savior complex predates Instagram but is drastically more apparent in the age of social media. We spoke about the influx of these damaging behaviors with April Harter, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker. “Social media is a new frontier where almost anything goes. Influencers are not required to have ethics in order to lead. It’s the perfect breeding ground for narcissistic behavior to grow,” she says.
Dr. Durvasula believes that by interjecting themselves into photos, influencers make the post about themselves, rather than the culture and lives of those they’re documenting, which reduces them to tourist iconography like the Eiffel Tower. “This idea of the safari-clad white woman standing against people who have experienced the scourges of colonialism appears to be thoughtless and misguided,” she says.
More Insta Issues
Morris’s girlfriend, Lauren Bullen, aka @Gypsealust, has avoided using brown people as props but is no stranger to scandal herself after supposedly creating a fake account that ‘copied’ all of her poses. Using the derogatory racial slur gypsy in an IG handle is never okay, even as a play on words. These Instagram behaviors are extremely harmful and triggering for people of color who haven’t healed from racial trauma. Exploiting brown people as commodities erases their dignity and humanity. “It normalizes racist behavior in society and dehumanizes people of color. Racist behavior is, by its very nature, exploitive and abusive,” explains Harter.
A favorite faux pas of IG influencers is ignoring trespassing signage. There are signs everywhere in Oia, Greece requesting people to stay off of roofs, but Jack and Lauren couldn’t resist breaking the rules to get the shot, and neither could @ParisVerra, who also recently joined Aggie on a controversial press trip to Saudi Arabia. Even Greek @Lucyinthesskyy doesn’t respect her neighbors. It’s entitled of influencers to ignore rules.
It’s dangerous and disrespectful to post editorial photos of forbidden places. In Barcelona, Spain Jack, Lauren, and Paris all got the coveted shot on top of the Mt. Montserrat monument. So many have gone to recreate this risky shot that the area is now fenced off and has a security guard. This problematic behavior encourages followers to also disrespect signage and trespass, which sometimes results in actual death. “Audiences make an assumption that because an influencer has followers, that certainly, they are credible sources of information,” says Harter. Disrespect for the sake of the ‘gram has gone so far that Auschwitz has had to release a statement asking visitors not to pose for editorial shots at the site.
Reckless interactions with nature are destroying our planet — from trampling on wildflowers for the perfect capture to questionable photos with wildlife. Touching animals, even at sanctuaries, directly contributes to travelers believing it’s permissible to seek out their own unethical wildlife experience and endanger animals. Instagram has committed to taking a stand against these dangerous posts. Cohen says that Instagram doesn’t allow content that includes acts of animal abuse.
Ultimately, if these influencers wish to be more ethical on Instagram they must take accountability and acknowledge that these behaviors are harmful. “Our community uses Instagram to share their experiences and on occasion, this may result in content that some may find upsetting. While we do not allow content that directly encourages violence or abuse, we try to create a safe environment that balances people’s desire to express themselves and in some cases condemn what they see,” says Cohen.
Yet, the content influencers have posted that marginalizes impoverished cultures and animal cruelty for the sake of elevating their engagement remains on Instagram. It’s time for these influencers to stop glamorizing poverty and appropriating culture for the ‘gram.
Learn how to #beabetterinfluencer here.
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