Vanlife

[JST]

I thought this article in the New Yorker was pretty interesting, mostly for the perspective it gives on the fact that work is work, even if "work" is living in a van and posting #brand shots on Instagram.

Also, the development of this subculture is a good lesson in why everything gets ruined.

Also also, Jesus, Vanagons?!

#Vanlife, the Bohemian Social-Media Movement

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2...media-movement

[Plaz]

Ugh. I couldn't read that whole thing. Just ugh.

What if one of them needs an appendectomy? Will Cedars-Sinai accept an instagram promotion in lieu of insurance payments?

Ugh.

[JST]

So I'd recommend reading to the end, because that's where the real thrust of the piece is--in fact, at one point one of them does get sick, and then there's a whole thing about what kind of content they can post when they're off the road.

It's just interesting, because when you monetize your lifestyle, you obligate yourself to that lifestyle, even when it stops being fun.

[Plaz]

“I don’t think of myself as an employee of GoWesty but more like an ambassador for their vibe,” Smith told me.

Ugh

Smith made vegetarian chili that night. After dinner, King lit a stick of incense to cover up the mingled smells of cumin, damp dog, and unwashed human.

Ugh

Last year, he began providing donation-based vanlife consulting, offering to help people “live [their] vanlife vision.

Ugh

Later that afternoon, a rust-brown 1984 Vanagon Westfalia with a vanlife decal on its rear window pulled in to the parking lot. The driver introduced himself as Mike Hagy, a forty-two-year-old ad-agency art director from Santa Monica, and a fan of Where’s My Office Now. He had seen on Instagram that Smith and King were in Ventura and decided to come say hello.

Ugh

They are sponsored by several companies whose products they use every day, including TruthPaste, which makes clay-based toothpaste, and Four Sigmatic, a “superfood company” that sells instant coffee enhanced with mushroom elixirs.

Oh for fuck's sake.

“Corey, this is O.K., this is O.K., this is fun,” she said.

“Currently my work is storytelling and aligning with companies supporting our lifestyle and Earth.”

I guess the one thing I'd give them props for is that they're slightly less delusional than traditional hippies. At least they're doing something to try and support themselves a little bit. But they're still full of crap as they try and convince themselves they're doing some larger social good.

Make some money and get an apartment and donate to the ACLU or the SPLC or Doctors Without Borders. Or go work for a food bank or a shelter or something. You'll still have time to surf and contaminate your vehicle with B.O. and cumin vapor. And you'll actually make a difference that means something more than a bump in ad agency profits. And you can take a daily shower without it being a whole production.