INSTAGRAM REELS OF TOURISTS – THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY

 

How many times have you seen tourists ogling and making reels of things in the road that you might think as petty ordinary to you? So, what are they actually doing? A child happily beating an old cycle tire as it runs ahead of him, a family of four sitting on an Activa scooter, an elephant moving at a leisurely pace disrupting busy traffic, a fortune teller sitting with his parrot on the roadside, surrounded by his patrons, all these may be regular stuff for you, not even worth a second look, but to foreign travellers these are scenes petty unimaginable back in the country to which they belong. So, what is regular and not worth your attention becomes a viral Instagram reel! What is this phenomenon? How can a quiet book shop is Woy Woy, NSW or the train street in Hanoi, or an ordinary fish market in Kandy become an Instagram hit?

 

This is primarily the "Tourist Gaze" (and its social media evolution, sometimes called the "selfie gaze," "Instagram gaze," or "digital gaze"). Sociologist John Urry popularized the concept in his 1990 book 'The Tourist Gaze'. It describes how tourists are socially conditioned to seek out and visually consume scenes that contrast with their everyday life—focusing on the "out of the ordinary," unique, or picturesque. What locals see as routine becomes exotic spectacle for outsiders because it differs sharply from their more regulated, homogenized environments.

 

Social media amplifies this into a performance loop: tourists hunt for shareable, "authentic" moments that stand out in feeds, often recreating or staging them. The hermeneutic circle (Urry's idea) means pre-trip images from Instagram shape expectations, which travelers then recreate and share, reinforcing the gaze.

 

Why Mundane Becomes Viral

Novelty and contrast: In many Western or developed contexts, daily life is more predictable, car-centric, and regulated. Chaos, improvisation, animals in cities, multi-generational/shared transport, or informal street economies feels vibrant and "unscripted."

Visual appeal and algorithms: These scenes offer high contrast, color, movement, and human stories—perfect for short-form video. A quiet bookshop in Woy Woy, NSW (Australia), might go viral for its charming small-town vibe or literary quirk amid suburban normality. An Instagram reel from the account @booknspace, run by Grace Choi, a Korean mother who is studying in Australia and who seems to use social media much like the rest of us do, documenting interesting things she sees and does, is now a days making rounds and has been viewed more than 150,000 times so far. In it, she very charmingly documents her journey from Sydney to the NSW Central Coast, and her day in Woy Woy. So, what are the things that grabbed her attention? A second-hand bookstore, which is “filled with the smell of books”. There’s Fisherman’s Wharf, where she overhears “the warm chatter of Aussie grandmas”. There’s the wharf itself, where “kids run off with their fishing rods”. There’s the public library, with its “attic-like” reading room. Incidentally, this is her Instagram reel:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DZeB8jCp5hp/?utm_source=ig_embed&ig_rid=ANE4qJzb2ZO-iOnwvnZVCqP

Similarly, Hanoi's Train Street became an Instagram hit (and safety hazard) because trains barreling through a narrow alley lined with cafes is thrilling and photogenic—ordinary local life turned adrenaline spectacle. Kandy's fish market gains fame for its sensory bustle, colors, and "real" commerce that feels more alive than sanitized supermarkets back home.

Performance and connection: Posting signals "I've been there," builds personal brand, and lets viewers vicariously experience difference. It turns travel into content creation. The Woy-Woy I remember, though I crossed it while on a road trip from Sydney three decades back, had a large cemetry, was not at all charming, and it smelled of many things, though books are not the first that come to my mind. So, there we are, we both were travelers, but saw the same place with different eyes, different understanding and different social background. And, I was there in pre-social media era.

 

Good Aspects

Cultural exchange and appreciation: It highlights overlooked beauty in everyday life, fostering curiosity and empathy. Foreigners filming "petty ordinary" Indian scenes can humanize places often reduced to stereotypes (poverty, chaos) and showcase warmth, resilience, and vibrancy. You can laugh all you want, but we are all Grace Choi when we travel. We are all guilty of this idealized treatment of foreign places. And it’s only when you see someone else do it to your own country and your own culture that you have the shock of recognition, when you realize, oh God, this is me. I do this too.

Economic boost: Viral spots bring income to locals - cafes on Train Street, vendors near markets, places like Santorini in Greece, democratizes visibility for small businesses or regions. They have created many unlikely tourist places almost in every country due to their unique visuals, fairy-tale aesthetics, or surprising settings. Collonges-la-Rouge (Corrèze), a medieval village is built from striking red sandstone, creating a surreal, uniform crimson glow especially at golden hour and Sainte-Enimie (Lozère, Gorges du Tarn), a cliffside medieval village in a dramatic gorge with emerald river waters, stone houses, and a fairy-tale perched feel are two excellent examples in France. In Spain we have Setenil de las Bodegas (Andalusia, near Cádiz) where homes and streets literally built into/ under massive rock overhangs, creating cave-like passages with restaurants and shops beneath boulders, and the Pink Lagoon of Torrevieja and Cabo de Gata's dramatic volcanic coasts. Italy has Boccadasse (Genova/Genoa, Liguria), a preserved old mariners' fishing village with pastel-colored houses around a cobblestone/pebble beach, fishing boats, and narrow alleys. It also has Procida Island near Naples. Instagram reels have given their economy a real boost.

Preservation incentive: Awareness can encourage maintenance of unique practices or spaces. These spots surged in popularity via short-form video (dramatic flyovers, golden-hour walks, local eats), so they can get busy in no time and get the attention of the tourism industry. So investing in their maintenance is a great preservation incentive.

Personal growth: Tourists gain perspective; locals might see their culture anew through fresh eyes. They offer authentic, visually striking experiences beyond over-touristic icons, perfect for Reels but rewarding in person for their history and atmosphere.

Train Street in Hanoi

 

Bad Aspects

Distortion and superficiality: It often captures fragments out of context—romanticizing or exoticizing without depth (e.g., "exotic" poverty or chaos as aesthetic). This can perpetuate stereotypes, "othering," or cultural voyeurism rather than understanding.

Commodification and staged authenticity: Places adapt for the gaze (souvenir overload, performative rituals, "airport art"). Real culture gets packaged, simplified, or altered, losing meaning. Over-tourism follows virality, overwhelming infrastructure The safety issues in the Train Street in Hanoi and the trespassing of private property in Santorini are excellent examples of this malady.

Disruption and resentment: Crowds disrupt daily life, create safety risks, inflate prices, and breed local hostility. Social media rewards spectacle over respect (e.g., intrusive filming, ignoring norms). People in Barcelona are no more as welcoming today as they were during the Olympics in 1992

Santorini - a victim of over-tourism

Environmental and social costs: Viral Reels drive sudden and concentrated tourist flows to specific “Instagrammable” locations, often natural wonders or fragile ecosystems—leading to trail erosion, vegetation trampling, soil erosion, disturbance to wildlife and alteration of  their feeding and mating behaviors, traffic, littering and increased pollution. It can erode the very "authenticity" seekers crave. In Bali 65% of the water is consumed by tourists. Local communities get displaced as cost of living escalates and visitors replicate curated digital content, reducing spontaneity and authentic engagement.

 

Does It Represent True Culture or Distort It?

I am of the opinion that it does both, but leans toward selective distortion. The gaze reveals genuine elements—India's improvisational energy, Vietnam's resilient urban fabric, Sri Lanka's market vitality, but through a filtered, outsider lens prioritizing visual drama and shareability. It misses nuances, complexities, and mundanity (bureaucracy, inequalities, quiet routines). "True" culture is lived, contested, and evolving internally; tourism versions often become performative for visitors. Social media accelerates this into echo chambers of highlights, not giving a balanced portraits.

Fish market in Kandy

Quiet spots like Woy Woy's bookshop or Kandy's market hit big because they offer escapism or contrast: peaceful literary haven vs. digital overload; raw, tactile commerce vs. clinical efficiency. Algorithms and human psychology reward the novel and emotional. This phenomenon is a modern extension of age-old travel curiosity, turbocharged by phones and platforms. It celebrates difference but risks reducing places and people to backdrops. Travelers can mitigate harms by seeking slower, deeper engagement—talking to locals, learning context, treading lightly—rather than just chasing the perfect reel. Locals benefit from the attention when it respects their pace and realities. The key tension: tourism thrives on difference, but mass pursuit of it often erodes that difference.

Travellers see the world through rose-coloured glasses. We are primed to indulge our sense of whimsy and magic. We also tend to fetishise the everyday when we’re in a foreign country, to turn routine rituals and probably meaningless events into examples of beauty and sophistication. Those old men playing chess in the Italian piazza are a sure sign that this is a tight-knit community where the elderly are held in such high regard. Those kids kicking an old football against a wall in Buenos Aires are loveable rascals who are killing time until their mothers call them in for dinner. That dive bar in middle America is a pillar of the community, where a grumpy but warm-hearted owner polishes glasses and listens to the woes of her customers.

Cherry Blossom and Kimono - two Instagram hits

And have you seen people go to Japan? A convenience store becomes a place of high culture and authentic experience when it’s viewed through the lens of social media reminiscence. The sight of an elderly lady in a kimono is an example of Japan’s reverence for the past and appreciation for beauty. Every tiny village is the next great discovery, the “real” Japan where you can get away from the tourists and have a proper experience.

We Indian travellers do this when we visit Europe, a lot. We idealize everything we see, turn it into reels for our Instagram or Facebook to demonstrate to all our friends how much better they do things over there in Europe. As now that our economy is looking up, our reels from African countries show how people there “just so happy even though they have so little”. It feels a little condescending, right? It’s also a way of “othering” foreign places, assuming that everything they do is so different, even if we perceive that difference as good.

 

So, our Instagram reels tell a lot about the places we visit, but they tell a lot more about us. We are regularly posting misty-eyed photos of elderly people just trying to go about their business and telling everyone how lovely and sweet it is. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this. It’s normal human behaviour. It’s also a sign of the mindset we tend to adopt when we’re travelling, the sense of positivity and wonder, the attention we pay to the little details that so often in our life back home just passes us by. That’s a great thing. But it just pays to bear it in mind that any time you’re about to declare the old-world charm of a rundown village in the middle of nowhere, or the greatness of those poor people who are so happy with nothing, there might be a little more to the story.