Geena Truman wrote a "hit piece" on all Digital Nomads for Lonely Planet. As a travel blogger, and "real traveller", she believes she is the right kind of traveler, and nomads are ruining ethnic landscapes across the world.
Digital nomads are cringe, and they do swan about looking for yoga vegan cafes, yoga centres, and ayahuasca friendly co-working spaces, but traveler are just as annoying.
Way back in the day I was a big fan of grunge and alternative rock. At secondary school, I hung out with a large clique of similar minded gents, thus was the cultural behaviour of the times. You could have a completely different opinion on politics (something we didn’t give a fuck about), football, sexuality, films, everything, but musical taste was a unifying thing. Unlike most of my friends, I was always drawn to exploring music, I would see other sun-genres and be curious about what was good about it. The friends around me never liked to flirt with heavier music, if anything they preferred lighter things. I did like Nine Inch Nails and Ministry, that was some heavy shit, but it wasn’t heavy metal, though it would be lumped in with the rest of them. I decided to pursue a journey of discovery into heavier music. In those days I would buy albums purely based on reviews, or because I’d seen a t-shirt, or heard about the band, and often never even heard one of their songs. I lived dangerously like that.
I started off with Fear Factory, then went on to buy Korn, Sepultura, Dearly Beheaded, Godflesh, White Zombie, Pantera, Neurosis, and Machine Head albums. And it didn’t take long for me to be really into it, and soon I was going to live shows, wearing t-shirts, and worshiping Satan on alternate weekends. Most of the boys in my clique didn’t like it, and didn’t even want to sample the heavy side, except for a couple of friends who would go onto becoming big fans of some of those bands I mentioned. The common critique from the nay-sayers was either “it’s aggressive” or more often “I can’t even understand the lyrics.” I didn’t care that some lyrics were in-audible, the energy, power, and expression got me every time. I loved it, and still fucking love it.
The same was for hip hop. My old best friend who put me onto music like Jeru Tha Damaja, Wu Tang, Pharcyde, and Nine, wasn’t too into the west coast groovy gangster gangster shit. But again, I was curious, and made a journey that introduced me to artists like Too Short. Then in the early 2000’s, having been into Goodie Mob, I wanted to discover more southern stuff, and this was still a time when it wasn’t considered cool in many circles of “heads”. I fell in love with Trick Daddy, Three 6 Mafia, David Banner, Lil Flip, and on and so on.
When I became of age where my chine was chiseled and I should of had a wife and kids, I found myself as an old head, hanging around with other old heads. I wanted to find out what was new and what people were into now (back then). At first it seemed I had become like many other old heads, and every beat and artist just sounded the same to me. It seemed un-inspiring and lacking in originality. But fuck it, I dove in deep, and because of the digital age, I could dive in deeper than ever before and still pay for adult things, like bills and shit. And I loved it. All of it. I discovered some of my favourite artists, Kevin Gates and Freddie Gibbs, and oddly, Future.
I remember hearing “Tony Montana” for the first time and thinking, “what the fuck is this all about?” But after listening to Monster and DS2, Future became one of my most played artists, I just fucking love Future. I remember hearing about Lil Yachty, I saw his hair, and I thought, let’s try that out. I was never a fan of his breakout song “One Night”, but that Lil Boat mixtape got me. It wasn’t brilliantly produced or put together, but it had some energy and hooks that just took me over. Then I discovered all the South Florida artists, XXX, Ski Mask, Bass Santana, Craig Zen, Denzel Curry, Lil Simmy, Rob Banks, and I found a whole scene that I feel has been one of the greatest of all time. Truly. Then there’s melodic rap, sing-rap if you like. You know, the stuff pioneered by Drake, the style of Post Malone, Lil Peep, and Juice Wrld. I love it, I absolutely love Juice Wrld, Death Race for Love is one of my top 10’s, it is flabby, but there’s enough great songs to be a shortened classic, no doubt.
But me as an old head loving all this music, I am a rarity. Because most old heads don’t want to know, or even experiment. They’d never be able to try and listen to Lil Bibby, Chief Keef, or Lil Uzi, it just hurts them too much. They like their rap like how I like my Bollinger, from the early nineties. It could be brand new artists, barely 17 years old, but their sound is so nineties, and therefore, that’s ok for them. I often tried to play some bangers, I’ve even played them Killstation, and every time there was reactions filled with disdain. I even have a friend who’d continuously accuse me of deliberately liking music they hate just to piss them off.
You’ve heard the complaints from the old heads.
“Look at how they dress, LOL”
“They’re pussies, rapping and singing about their feelings, LOL”
“This ain’t the real hip hop, real hip hop talks about the struggle. SMH”
“This mumble rap is shit, I can’t understand a word their saying, LOL”
I get it, you like old things, like the Amish. The argument about lyrics has always puzzled me though. You’re average hip hop fan isn’t living some kind of struggle, most of them lead quite regular lives and enjoy eating over priced pulled pork sandwiches with their hipster weirdo friends. But they can only relate to hip hop about the struggle (and come on, how long is this struggle supposed to go on for exactly?). But when they here Juice’s lyrics about all girls being the same, or Drake talking about drunk texting exes at 2am, apparently these people are too thugged out for such emotional honesty, whilst sipping a fruit cider at a Banksy exhibition wearing a ridiculous hat. But then there are “mumble” artists who are all about the streets and the struggle, but they don’t understand what they’re saying. Now I love a good lyric, quoting Snoop, Jada, Pusha, Cam, it’s great fun, especially Cam, you just can’t beat his lunacy. But who really gives a fuck. If the energy ain’t good and the beat is crap, I don’t really care for your witty entendres, metaphors and punchlines. And neither does the majority of planet earth.
Hip hop is global, so global that there is a scene in every country, even in countries you couldn’t even imagine having one. I’ve heard Bulgarian, Malaysian, Vietnamese, German, Polish, Palestinian, Egyptian, Japanese, Thai, even shit from countries not recognised by the UN. And if it’s banging, I’m all in. And so are they. When 50 Cent rocks up in Bahrain, and spits “Niggaz sayin’ they gon’ murk 50, how? We ridin’ round with guns the size of Lil Bow Wow”, you think even half the crowd has a clue what the fuck he’s going on about? You ever seen a club full Mongolians singing along to Lil Jon, hell even you probably don’t understand what skeet means. Shit, even little white girls in Southampton singing along to the chorus of “Loyal” have no idea what they’re doing.
Music is big worldwide because of a feeling, and if you don’t understand a word that Playboi Cardi and Gunna say, neither do Chinese and Estonian fans of Wu Tang when they fly in for a show. Music is a feeling, lyrics are fine, but I tell you this, the worst night out in the world of supposed music culture is a Don’t Flop battle. Just lyrics, pasty faces under Nu Era caps, and no fucking music. Give me Young Thug in a dress making weird noises any fucking day.
The 2000's, the naughties, Y2K, whatever, was the worst decade in living memory, even for those who weren't alive at the time! Comedy: TRASH. Music: TRASH. Fashion: TRASH. TV: TRASH.
Breaking is far from being the best TV show of all time, it's more comparable to MacGyver and Saved By The Bell than it is to The Sopranos and The Wire.
If you have been paying attention to important world events, by now you will know that crypto-currency is experiencing a massive boom, people who make memes are terrorists, and a silly American girl sprayed gorilla glue onto her hair.
The gorilla glue girl, or Triple G as I will call her, if you don’t know, decided that in order to make her hair-do more refined and sleek, she would use gorilla glue to achieve the desired look. Gorilla glue, if you don’t know, is more known for its super sticky properties, enabling everyday Joes and Janes to glue materials such as metal, wood, glass, and stone, and regularly used for household repairs and building projects. It has not, and will never, been recommended by hairdressers and barbers as a go to alternative to hairspray, wax, and gel.
But this girl decided to stick her finger up at convention and tell the man “not today daddy” and applied it to her barnet. It was after this that she discovered her hair was now rock hard and found washing out this might adhesive wasn’t going to happen. In her divine wisdom, she showed the results of her stupidity on the internet, a place well known for its forgiveness and support of the mentally un-equipped.
Predictably, much ridicule and banter followed, and Triple G became a mini-media-sensation. But instead of getting a record deal as is usual, Triple G has instead decided to sue Gorilla Glue. Further ridicule followed, plus support for her actions. One bastion of intelligence tweeted (I know, of-course they did) that people couldn’t make up their minds about wanting to eat the rich because criticising Triple G’s decision to sue was socking it to the man, and Gorilla Glue could afford it.
This, of-course, was a shitty hot take. Gorilla Glue make a good product, Triple G makes bad decisions, and rewarding people for their bad decisions has become so deeply ingrained in western culture, it has almost destroyed it. The whole point about being mad at greedy banking institutions is that they don't play by the same rules we're expected to play by. When our businesses fail, we lose everything, and that's on us. When big banks and hedge funds not only lose their money but the money of entire nations, then they get bailed out. They should be taking responsibility for their failures, and become extinct as a business. Triple G suing Gorilla Glue is not an example of corporations being accountable, they did nothing wrong except respect humanity enough to use their product without being a dick about it.
The culture of not taking responsibility is rampant, and has turned us from free thinking responsible individuals into reckless, dumb, pathetic lambs. Once there was a time that you would take responsibility for our silly actions, consequences are what help us learn to do better, this has been replaced with a sinister cuddle from ambulance chaser legal firms, over-protective peers, and a welfare state that spunks out more money than a bin man who just won the Euro millions. It’s turned us into pathetic little slaves who cannot make any sensible decision without looking to some overlord or grifter to guide us in a terrible direction.
Triple G had to pay the medical bills she amassed from having to get her hair de-glued. Good. You won’t be doing that again will you. In this modern age we find ourself languishing in, we have lost site of the importance of balance. The ying and yang that balances our universe has been kicked to death like an ugly puppy on a Northampton council estate (yes, I am bashing the poor, because I fancy myself as an EU supporting Journalist). Conservatism and Liberalism are both needed in a “sound” society.
Taking responsibility for your actions is a very good and strong conservative value that we all should take on board. At the same time, the liberal value of helping the less fortunate, such as the disabled, is a very good value, because this is modern society, and some people need help and don’t have any family support. But we have gone way too far in that direction, and somehow all responsibility has been taken away. Except for businesses, they have a responsibility to make sure stupidity and laziness doesn’t find a way to use their products in a harmful way. This is a double standard that cannot be tolerated, litigation cripples business, and small business even more so. In a time when small business is being punished for just existing, this precedent of suing every mother-fucker because of our stupidity has to be called out. We all must take responsibility.
You could argue that Triple G is mentally deficient, and therefore has a disability and must be protected by society, she does not know any better. If that’s the case, then all of us should have a special needs-short bus with flavoured windows transporting us to every destination, including our own bathroom. Nonsense. Too often people are rewarded by the state and muddy-coddling laws for being dumb and irresponsible, and we all stand around scratching our balls and lady caves wondering how the hell have people become so stupid and inept.
I had a discussion with an American the other night, and we both found ourselves meeting at a strong bridge of consciousness. As we are both residing in a country with far less rules and regulations, no free healthcare (as in, none, if you don’t have money, you will be left to die), and no such thing as a high street ambulance chasing firms, it was mutually agreed that there is a significant price for freedom, one that both our countrymen didn’t seem to really understand anymore. In countries such Vietnam, my covid-19 haven for the past year, you can find a family of four riding around on a small moped, with babies sleeping in the foot well, with a wardrobe and six canisters of butane strapped to the back. They can do that, they are free to do so, but if it all goes wrong, and it can horrifically wrong, who they blame? No-one, it’s on them, a baby smashed to pieces and set ablaze in the street is the fault of the parents, because they chose to drive around like that.
There are no handouts here, there are no safety nets, there are less rules. It’s freedom, and it comes at a price, just like responsibility. You don’t get to pick and choose when to be responsible. If you kill someone when you’re drunk, and would not normally commit an act that leads to someones death, you’re still going down. You are responsible for how much you drink, if you sue a bar because they let you drink so much that you killed someone, with all due respect, fuck yourself.
Triple G sprayed glue on her head, heavy duty industrial strength glue. There are labels on glue telling you not what to do, but this idiot princess decides to sue them anyway. Maybe she should also sue her school and the education department for not educating her correctly enough to function as an adult in society. Where does it really end. It ends with people taking responsibility, that’s how you don’t become a slave. We aloud too many people to shirk responsibility and get rewarded for it, from having babies, to being lazy to work, to walking into a hole in the street on purpose because there wasn’t a sign for your stupid face telling you about the hole you saw, and getting paid big for it.
Suing culture is a very American, it’s been one of the worse imports from the great nation and they can have it back. When I was run over as a child, the man who did so was very wealthy. We didn’t sue him, it wasn’t the done thing. I could have been rewarded handsomely, but even though he was driving too fast, I wasn’t paying attention. I was definitely worse off, and all he did was reach out later and ask if I’d like to take a trip in his plane. I declined, I’d seen his driving. He should have been punished a bit more, but I was punished for not paying attention, and in life you can’t spend everyday being led by the hand. I learned to stop, look, and listen, and funny enough I haven’t been run over since. I doubt this will be G’s last act of stupidity, and I also doubt she will learn any lesson, because that’s the culture we aloud to prosper.
Vlogging couples are big out there in the Travel Vlog world, but are also incredibly "safe" and somewhat "beige". I take a look at their vide "The PERFECT Day in Saigon".
