Saturday
May092009
May 9, 2009 New recurring feature?
Any thoughts on a SWPL-type series of posts on Stuff Light Travelers Like? There are clearly some humor/infotainment possibilities here. My only fear is that the occasional Googler who stops by may not know how to take it. Maybe an explanatory disclaimer appended to each post would take care of that. (By the way SWPL is not racist; it just makes fun of trendy urbanites and progressives -and the author is a trendy urbanite progressive)
SWPL does travel too and pokes fun at a few of our favorite thing like taking a year off, Moleskines, and performance clothing,
Reader Comments (4)
Good idea...I'm always looking for new ideas on how to "lighten my load."
Not sure if I would like that. I think there are fun sites (like SWPL) and serious sites (like this one). Each has their justification and purpose. If SWPL would start giving serious advice on issues of sociology and stereotyping, he'd water down the main message and alienate or confuse readers on both sides of the aisle. I fear the same would be true here.
Plus, how much fun can you really poke at a light traveler? I mean that Buddhist monk I met who carried nothing put his ticket and ID in a fold of his garb for a three day trip, how could I make fun of that? Then there are the people who chop down their toothbrushes. Well, that's perhaps a bit much for me but overall it is not a stupid thing to do and not really funny, either.
I can see poking fun at people who look like they are going on a safari when they are only visiting NYC. But those are usually not light travelers.
Finally, as you say, poking fun at a certain group of people usually works from a certain standpoint and in a certain direction. Different pre-conditions have to be met, like trendy, urbanite, young, progressive and white. For his niche that works perfectly and the site is hilarious. But for light travelers it would be probably be hard to find a fix common profile. The only thing that unites them is that they probably travel quite a bit and that they are somewhat anal, but then again, smartly so.
I'd say not to water down the site that has become one of the web's best resources for the smart and light traveler. A post full of humor here and there? OK. But an extra rubric or something for this kind of stuff on a regular basis? Nah. It's just not a smart decision also in terms of advertising, I'd guess.
Hey, some of us who LIVE in NYC dress like we're on safari every day! (After all, it's a jungle out there...)
I'm leaning more to the informative - maybe just a series of "light travel essentials" posts. A blog is not really the place for a static how-to guide. A running series better suits the medium. As for how-to guides, I'm convinced that so clever and resourceful a lot as light travelers need no such thing - just a little information, interaction, and inspiration.