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Things I Feel Strongly About: Rumba

Things I Feel Strongly About: Rumba: Congolese rumba, also known as African rumba, is a dance music genre originating from the Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic ...

Travel vlogging today

I was concerned about the current trends in travel vlogging, and wondered how the desires of the more thoughtful person in search of travel stories might be fulfilled. So I proposed the following to an AI chat bot:-

"There's not much intellectuality in the travel vlogging that fills the internet. Much of this kind of vlogging is limited to scenes and images, not necessarily the deeper, more meaningful stories that a thoughtful person might be hoping to see and hear. Discuss."

Then I received this response:

"You have pointed out a very real and visible shift in how we consume travel media. Much of the travel vlogging that dominates the internet today prioritises visual spectacle over intellectual or cultural depth, transforming what used to be a medium for storytelling into a fast-paced gallery of beautiful, but often hollow, imagery. Here is a breakdown of why travel vlogging has leaned away from "intellectuality".

The economics of modern internet platforms heavily favour short-form, high-stimulation content. Referred to as "the Attention Economy", platforms like TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts reward creators for hooking a viewer in the first two seconds. A stunning drone shot of a cliffside in Amalfi or an aesthetic slow-motion clip of a cafe is instantly digestible. A deep dive into the socio-economic history of that same Italian village requires time that the algorithm rarely rewards.Then there is the rise of "vibe" over substance. Travel content has increasingly shifted from travel journalism to lifestyle marketing. The focus is often less about the destination itself and more about how the vlogger looks and feels in that destination. The location becomes a mere backdrop for personal branding.

The internet hasn't completely killed intellectual travel storytelling; rather, the dominant platforms have buried it beneath an avalanche of highly aesthetic, easily monetisable lifestyle content. The "thoughtful person" can still find deeply meaningful stories, but it now requires active curation rather than relying on what the algorithm serves up on the front page."

When I am telling a story, I aspire to tell the story in the manner of Alan Whicker of old, and more recently Michael Palin. Even though those men were at the centre of the stories they told from around the world, the stories were never about themselves personally. You watched their storytelling and came away with having learned so much. It was real travel journalism. I try to do the same through my own preferred medium of expression, which is writing. The purpose, in my humble opinion, should be, through one's journalistic efforts, to capture the essence of the place that one is visiting.

Nowadays, though, it seems to be more about lifestyle than about travel.

PS: Donald Alan Whicker (2 August 1921 – 12 July 2013) was a journalist and television presenter and broadcaster. His career spanned almost 60 years, during which time he presented the documentary television programme Whicker's World for over 30 years. I used to watch him avidly when I was growing up, as he took us around the world.

Things I Feel Strongly About: Water No Get Enemy

Things I Feel Strongly About: Water No Get Enemy: You absolutely must listen to Shakara too.. .

Yellow Fever, Fela Kuti

This hit song by Fela Kuti from 1976.

Yellow Fever, the term is used as a satirical metaphor to criticise the popular and harmful practice of skin bleaching among African women. Fela framed the artificial lightening of dark skin using chemical creams as a form of sickness. He compared it to a fever, singing that while an "original" fever (like jaundice fever or malaria fever) is a natural illness that the body can fight off, skin bleaching is a self-inflicted, artificial disease. 

Beyond physical health risks, Fela used the term to attack a post-colonial inferiority complex. He viewed the obsession with lighter, "Caucasoid" skin tones as a sign of mental colonisation and a rejection of natural African identity.

The phrase "Yellow Fever" was originally a local nickname given to traffic wardens in Nigeria because of the bright yellow shirts they wore. Fela borrowed the term and redirected it at people who bleached their skin.

In truth, yellow fever, is, in fact, a serious viral disease spread by the bites of infected mosquitoes in tropical and subtropical regions of Africa and South America. 

Cotonou

I watched the dust of Cotonou settle onto my shoes, realising how strange it felt to be an outsider in a place that looked exactly like home. As an African travelling across my own continent, crossing a border doesn't mean entering a new world; it means entering a mirror that has been slightly tilted. Back in Lagos, the cacophony is loud, the soundscape is always of busy traffic, loud car horns, and raised voices, but here, there is hardly a noise, with the Atlantic humidity wrapping around you like a heavy, familiar cloth, as if you are constantly in the pleasant Lagos city district of Victoria Island wherever in Cotonou you are.

Walking through the Dantokpa Market I didn't feel the sharp detachment of a foreign tourist. Instead, I felt a quiet frustration—the sensation of recognising everything and recognising nothing at all, all at once. The rhythm of the women bargaining, the vocals of Beninese local music spilling from speakers were familiar yet unfamiliar at the same time; and the aroma of roasting plantains was entirely intimate, but I could not speak the local Fon and Egun languages, or French, fluently enough to blend in.

My friend and I went to the city’s port. There were newly imported used cars from Europe for sale, and my friend was interested in replacing his car. The ambience was relaxed, nothing like the hurried helter-skelter of Lagos, where everyone seems to be dashing around at a frenzied pace. It was in Cotonou that I heard Zouk music for the first time, this French Caribbean music genre pioneered by the French Antillean band Kassav' in the early 1980s. In Cotonou, in the Republic of Benin, the word "chill" took on a new meaning for me.

Stranded between the comfort of shared identity and the isolation of being a stranger, I found a strange kind of peace. I didn't need to explain myself here. The land understood my bones, even if the city didn't know my name.