Instagram addicts keep staging their lives with hashtags and selfies, setting the trend (or not).
Instagram is the paradise of addictions that are apparently acceptable in public and are preferably legal. There are over 15.3 million posts to the #traveladdict hashtag used by proud travel addicts. There, they’ve got it all: many silly clichés (messy sunsets) and far too many ideas that are more than dubious (selfies in Auschwitz....). You also learn that travel is a risky addiction, with several levels of danger.
At level 1, you find people who bathe fully dressed. Well, they’re going to ruin a fragile garment and get angry with the person they borrowed it from. The drier option, “photos on the back in the middle of a museum”, allows you to take beautiful shots of the Vatican gallery ceilings, for example. Seeing as ridicule never killed anyone. On the other hand, the guards aren’t happy.
At level 2, animals and exotic encounters. The joy of chatting with an elephant or feeding a live giraffe? It’s priceless. Yes, but the elephant had a trunkful of morons who talk to him like a baby when he’s been past 100kg for a long time. The giraffe? She can’t take any more of those dry treats handed to her all day long, so she turns her head toward the lens. Headbutting or biting, it’s your choice. Posing in a toxic setting, near a very, very blue lake, for example, still counts as an act of a level 2 #traveladdict. Provided you don’t bathe in it.
Level 3 is also called the “back pages” level because it’s in these pages that travel addict who reach it often finish. In this category, there’s the locker room humor option, in search of the most absurd bet, and that’s a lot of work.
Playing with and throwing a ball in the middle of a parachute jump and filming yourself, for example: yes, indeed, you had to think about it, have the time and be very motivated. The classic on this level is the “not even afraid!” photo: you pose on a narrow railing (the yoga pose is optional) or very close to the edge of a cliff (on a windowsill on the ground floor doesn’t count) and there, inevitably, you slip up...literally.
