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Would you visit a new place if you couldn’t take pictures? Yes/No
A while ago I was navigating Instagram stories from my account, and, suddenly, I found the above Instagram poll question. From my perspective, an active Instagram user, the question was out of place. I would have answered “who cares about the pictures when one has the opportunity to make new experiences, new connections, etc.”. Nevertheless, I found out that some people actually answered “No”. I wondered:
Is the picture more important than the experience?
Social media are great tools to create networks and gather information. As well as, share personal experiences and moments of our lives, and there is nothing wrong here. People build their profile based on the images they want to show of themselves. Nowadays, travelling and making experiences is still considered “cool”, even if it is pretty accessible to many people in the Global North. Social networks are the perfect showcase for self-presentation pictures. Volunteerism, or volunteer tourism, is very discussed in the humanitarian sector for the way volunteers sometimes represent themselves and the “others” – the beneficiaries in Global South. Barbie Savior, Radi-Aid, and Humanitarians of Tinder explain the phenomena with irony and seriousness.
A selfie? Why not?
Barbie Savior is a satirical account on Instagram and Facebook that highlights some of the stereotypical representations of volunteer tourists from the Global North. A common perception about social media is that “looking good” or “appearing to do good” is a great way to get likes and comments. “Appearing to do good” is easy and it doesn’t necessarily mean “doing good”, which requires a deeper analysis. On one hand, posting a picture is quick, it takes only a few seconds. The reward in terms of visibility is immediate. On the other hand, it is not that immediate to think that a picture can be very harmful if it reinforces stereotypes.
How bad can a picture be?
As the video from Radi-Aid shows, the internet is packed with self-referential pictures of Western people portrayed in the Global South. Beside the stereotypical representation, one of the main problems of these portraits is the lack of context. Often people show their “do good” without a background nor a holistic description of the situation. This appears not only on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, but also on Tinder – a dating app.
On Tinder the self-focus of the Western user is even more evident. Considering that the user can only upload six photos and a short description, it is almost impossible to give a dignified representation of the people from the Global South on the images, who, most likely didn’t give their consent to post a picture portraying them. Moreover, the Tinder profiles are accessible to a wide range of users, and it aims to appeal to a possible romantic date or a possible sexual encounter. Humanitarians of Tinder collect screenshots of these profiles to make fun of them and to raise acknowledgment on the problematic.
In my previous post I mentioned how poverty porn is used in the humanitarian sector to fundraise. Here, I would like to draw attention to the stereotypical representation of humanitarians, and, without blaming volunteering work, to the danger of “appearing to do good” on social media.
What do you think about volunteerism and humanitarian pictures? Share and comment.