[HN Gopher] Recovering Anthony Bourdain's Li.st's
___________________________________________________________________
Recovering Anthony Bourdain's Li.st's
Author : thecsw
Score : 282 points
Date : 2025-12-13 21:18 UTC (22 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (sandyuraz.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (sandyuraz.com)
| thecsw wrote:
| A companion to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46054879, we
| now had successfully recovered all the remaining li.st entries of
| Anthony Bourdain that were thought to be lost to time.
|
| Please enjoy--there is nobody like Tony.
| cbarrick wrote:
| Almost all.
|
| According to the article, we are still missing one: "David
| Bowie Related" 1/14/2016
| coderintherye wrote:
| The missing David Bowie related list (
| https://li.st/l/7SmVwCFEU6JDQ2jKQfeJzh ) has an image preview
| shared on Reddit, though sadly not the text https://www.reddi
| t.com/r/AnthonyBourdain/comments/40wkx3/ant...
| nomilk wrote:
| This thread sounds like a community challenge.
| antihoney wrote:
| Very happy to see these recovered and archived :)! I hope images
| are able to be recovered, super curious about which records he
| was talking about.
| throwaway12345t wrote:
| love these, wonder what avenues still exist for the image
| archives
|
| I imagine they exist in an AWS or GCP rack somewhere, too bad
| thecsw wrote:
| Someone must have their browser untouched since 2015, which has
| all of the li.st content stored in their cache :D
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| I know we shouldn't be discussing website design, but using light
| grey font on a white background is not only ugly, it is basically
| illegible for anyone with oldster eyes.
| bunnybomb2 wrote:
| and the dotted background just ever so lightly still visible.
| Contrast is king
| thecsw wrote:
| Tell me more--these colors, #2B2B2B for fg and #F7F3EE for bg
| pass accessibility checks. See something like coolors [1] or
| WebAIM [2]
|
| You could run something like
| https://motherfuckingwebsite.com/ but contrast doesn't mean
| to run with black/white,
| http://bettermotherfuckingwebsite.com/ is better on the eyes.
|
| If it's bothering the eyes, like many more of other websites
| would, feel free to pull up your favorite browser's reader
| mode with your preferences. Cheers!
|
| [1] https://coolors.co/contrast-checker/2b2b2b-f7f3ee
|
| [2] https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/
| wffurr wrote:
| Raw colors are not the whole story. Font weight matters
| too. Being just on this side of passing the check is also
| not great, just better than bad.
|
| Ambient lighting and display quality matter a lot too.
| thecsw wrote:
| Okay, any specific feedback, then? Not seeing it
| (shrug)--I like how it feels.
| bunnybomb2 wrote:
| i think the white dots add another factor to my brain i
| have to decipher. It doesn't make or break the site but its
| like id rather not have to deal with a pattern and text.
| Just make the background white.
|
| If you really love it, keep it. I dont know anything. Im
| just a human
| Aurornis wrote:
| > but using light grey font on a white background
|
| The page does not have light grey text for me. Checked on
| desktop and mobile.
|
| The #2B2B2B color should not look like "light grey" or be hard
| to read on a white background unless your display setup has a
| severely broken color calibration or gamma curve.
|
| Site looks fine, in my opinion. The HN comments complaining
| about site design are probably best ignored.
| sndean wrote:
| I thought the same thing but noticed my dark mode extension
| changed the dark gray font into light gray. It looks fine to me
| with that extension turned off. Not sure if that happened to
| you.
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| Ah! That was exactly the problem. Dark Night on Safari on
| ios.
| ursAxZA wrote:
| A sudden burst of bright white on the screen really hits the
| eyes, I get that.
| treesknees wrote:
| At the risk of being downvoted... for the uninitiated among us,
| what's interesting about these or the person? I understand he was
| a chef and had several TV shows. Is it just celebrity
| fascination?
| bunnybomb2 wrote:
| Kind, curious, open minded, down to earth with a big mouth .
| Like any other common interest. Watching his stuff shows you
| how to open your eyes
| Papazsazsa wrote:
| He was the last cultured dude before tech made everyone into a
| superficial arrogant lmgtfy'er, disinterested in true
| discovery. (Heap your downvotes on me HN, I've seen what makes
| you cheer!)
|
| MY BOURDAIN LI.ST:
|
| 1) Masculinity without cringe: Tough, profane, credentialed
| through actual kitchen labor (not culinary school pedigree),
| but also emotionally literate, openly vulnerable, willing to
| cry on camera. He modeled a masculinity that wasn't apologetic
| but also wasn't performative.
|
| 2) Articulate outsider: Self-educated. Could reference Conrad,
| punk rock, and Apocalypse Now while maintaining blue-collar
| credibility. His book Kitchen Confidential read like a war
| memoir/crime novel.
|
| 3) Permission: He made it acceptable for men to care deeply
| about food, travel, culture -- interests traditionally female
| coded. The guy had done heroin and worked the line and was
| 'allowed' to opine about pho. This was before the internet or
| at least before the internet got ultra stupid.
|
| 4) Wanderer: Not tourism, not expat pretension, something
| closer to seeking, now dead thanks to social media influencers,
| and he was curious not escapist.
|
| 5) Recovery: Open about addiction, chaos, bad decisions. A
| redemption narrative for men who've made mistakes.
|
| 6) Tragic: Suicide landed hard because many recognized
| something in him of themselves in him.
|
| P.S. He's more elder millennial/genx coded for a lot of reasons
| so don't feel bad about not getting it but definitely read his
| book and watch his show, it's different than the slop you're
| probably used to.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > He was the last cultured dude before tech made everyone
| into a
|
| I enjoyed Bourdain, but this level of hero worship is really
| excessive. Not to mention antithetical to much of what
| Bourdain stood for.
|
| He was enjoyable to read and watch, but claiming he "made it
| acceptable" for men to care about food, travel or culture is
| weird.
|
| He was an entertainer. An interesting guy. A great
| storyteller who lived an interesting life. Charismatic and
| fun to watch. But he was not the "last cultured dude" or some
| demarcation point between the past and present.
|
| Holding a celebrity and television personality up as the
| realest, most genuine person feels like missing the point.
| Everything you saw of this man was carefully crafted and
| curated. Even the "unfiltered" takes were designed to sell
| you on some story. You didn't know this man as a person or a
| friend.
| Papazsazsa wrote:
| You'd think otherwise if you ever had the steak frites at
| Les Halles.
| RajT88 wrote:
| > 6) Tragic: Suicide landed hard because many recognized
| something in him of themselves in him.
|
| I would like to put it out there that his depression or
| whatever mental illness he had was on full display the whole
| time, and this probably resonated with people as well.
|
| A couple years back I started re-watching all of his shows,
| start to finish, after watching _Roadrunner_. Especially the
| early seasons, there was rarely an episode he didn 't joke
| about dying, being killed, or killing himself. (In the film,
| there was a quote from Tony about how an acquaintance
| observed they'd never met someone who wanted to die so much)
|
| I think a lot of people picked up on that, and it made the
| whole the whole thing work. The grit, the machismo, the
| empathy for the plight of your fellow man. A lot of people
| who worked with him said he was an asshole, too. This is also
| not surprising that he would be at times when the cameras
| were off.
| lettergram wrote:
| Bourdain actually joked about killing himself in the exact
| manner and location in, which he did. When I heard it
| happened, my wife and I both recalled the same times he'd
| mentioned it. It wasn't a surprise really.
|
| Bourdain had been referencing Hunter S Thompson and the way
| he went out for years. He'd also repeatedly mentioned
| wanting to go out in southern France after a great day.
| Bourdain generally had the same "vibe" as Thompson as well.
| Here's Thompson's last note to his wife:
|
| > No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More
| Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17
| more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy.
| No Fun--for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your
| old age. Relax -- This won't hurt.
|
| To me, it wasn't a surprise at all. My wife and I even had
| discussed when we thought it would happen. The main thing
| about Bourdain was that people could relate to him and he
| wrote excellent prose. He seemed authentic and he went out
| on his terms, which is what he wanted and was the way he
| lived.
| xyzelement wrote:
| Your list is spot on.
|
| An interesting question is whether any of this is good and
| worthy of emulation. I've been treating Bourdain as an
| cautionary tale and a reminder to check one's own priorities
| rigorously.
|
| I asked google if he was religious, and got this: "He grew up
| in a home where God, sin, or damnation were never mentioned,
| leading to a lack of religious upbringing and belief,
| focusing instead on food, travel, and human connection."
|
| And I think that's kinda the issue. The elevation of food and
| travel to the status anywhere on the same plain as deep
| religion (which I do think was the case here) is not going to
| lead one to good places.
| kakacik wrote:
| Ah, the good ol' self-righteousness of religious people and
| how they feel above others, morally and in other ways. I
| guess we can't have christmas without those, can we.
| datameta wrote:
| So, to make sure I understand what you are saying - any
| person whose life is gripped by intense interest in
| something and simultaneously they are irreligious is lesser
| or on the wrong path?
| tayo42 wrote:
| > He made it acceptable for men to care deeply about food,
| travel, culture
|
| That doesn't seem right. Tons of travel content existed
| before he got popular. Endless summer wasn't for women
| juddlyon wrote:
| I love Bourdain but wanted to note he did have a culinary
| school background. Also came from a wealthy family.
| asveikau wrote:
| Hard to summarize. He created the impression of being
| authentic. He had an unpretentious New York accent. He was
| happy in and advocated for unpretentious areas, which goes
| against some of the stereotypes of overly social media friendly
| foodie stuff. He encouraged his audience to travel and
| understand other people.
|
| His struggles and imperfections also evoked sympathy. He spoke
| about how he used to have a drug problem. His death by suicide
| was sad. He certainly would have had lots of interesting things
| to say in the last 9 years, had he been around.
| vasco wrote:
| He also covered up his girlfriend's abuse of underage people
| by paying to silence them and protected her to the end when
| he knew she was guilty. The shame of doing this got to him
| instead of setting the record straight also.
|
| Very mixed bag of a guy imo but the internet loves him
| because he came across genuine.
| basisword wrote:
| He wrote honestly about a profession he worked at all levels.
| His travel/food programmes sampled the fanciest of foods as
| well as the greasy spoons, local cuisines, and all without
| arrogance or false humility. He was very relatable for many
| people.
|
| I would recommend reading Kitchen Confidential. Alternatively
| watch any of his travel shows although I think understanding
| the man through the book first makes it easier to appreciate
| the shows.
|
| Regarding this specific find I don't see anything particularly
| special but for many it's one final glimpse into the life of
| someone they admire.
| tayo42 wrote:
| > Alternatively watch any of his travel shows
|
| His really early ones were kind of rough. Like you could see
| he was still figuring it out. There was one episode where he
| just narrated a lonely planet guide.
| basisword wrote:
| Yeah this is why I recommended the book first. I think you
| need to understand him and his humour to really appreciate
| the shows.
| EnPissant wrote:
| He was a super hipster who pretended to be an anti-hipster.
|
| This combination allowed him to make people feel like they were
| getting let in a little secret and were now part of a club that
| was better than everyone else.
| joeevans1000 wrote:
| You won't be downvoted by me. He wrote a fun book (Kitchen
| Confidential, which I enjoyed) and it was downhill from there.
| He detailed some of his sketchy ethics in that book and it was
| refreshing.
|
| Essentially, he seemed to me to be a bit of a &*$% and people
| liked that, confusing it for something admirable and for
| authenticity. He's till celebrated, especially by CNN, who paid
| a fortune for his show and then lost out on the chance for
| future episodes... now they peddle his old content on their
| landing page. Probably to try to recoup their probable losses.
|
| You're not missing anything.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| Foodie culture is an acquired .... _taste_ ...., for lack of
| better term, but if you dive into it the outsized influences
| aren't that many and there is a clear genealogy between the
| chefs, critics, and their restaurant concepts
|
| Which makes it all the more interesting
|
| Anthony Bourdain being a major one
| tsujamin wrote:
| > Great Dead Bars of New York:
|
| > 1. SIBERIA in any of its iterations. The one on the subway
| being the best.
|
| Timely, as the latest reincarnation of SIBERIA just re-opened in
| 59th Street/Columbus Circle station
| msephton wrote:
| Any movie list that features Tampopo is good by me.
| Grosvenor wrote:
| Worthwhile for the hotel and book recommendations.
|
| Obviously he has better food taste than I do, so those too. I
| will shit like a mink and love it.
| haunter wrote:
| >Kramer knives: I don't own one. I can't afford one
|
| I highly doubt he couldn't afford a $2,500 knife
| https://kramerknives.com/product-category/latest-creations/
| Wistar wrote:
| A _real_ Kramer is often much, much more than $2,500. Kramer's
| mid-line knives go, even _used_ , for $10-$30K while his high-
| end, rarer stuff goes for much more. In fact, Bourdain had a
| real Kramer with meteorite used in its construction that sold
| at auction in 2019 for $231,500.
|
| https://www.antiquesandthearts.com/anthony-bourdains-bob-kra...
|
| See also, some current mid-line Kramer pricing:
| https://eatingtools.com/collections/pre-owned
| jimnotgym wrote:
| So they are not real knives then, just rich boys play things?
| decimalenough wrote:
| Porque no los dos?
| xandrius wrote:
| The linked ones are real too. Probably just the economics of
| making blades might have changed.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Kudos to those who performed recovery and snatched back from the
| sands of time.
| mirandrom wrote:
| I went down the same rabbit hole and did the exact same thing
| last week in a fit of procrastination.
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46185128
|
| Would appreciate a shout-out if you saw it and were inspired,
| otherwise it's nice to see others converging independently on the
| same thing.
| thecsw wrote:
| Oh wow! Did not know that--I went off the original post by Greg
| and he mentioned to me after I sent him this link that someone
| looked at Common Crawl as well.
|
| Either way, I updated both the git and the webpage to shout-out
| the week-before-this findings! I linked directly to your
| website, lmk if that's how you prefer it.
|
| Cheers!
| amiban wrote:
| thank you very much for doing this. I'm a huge bourdain fan, and
| despite many of his shortcomings as a human i think he was one of
| the MOST interesting people in the zeitgeist. just seemed so
| authentic, real, and visceral. his parts unknown series is some
| of the best human anthro content ever put on TV. this was a very
| interesting read!
| RALaBarge wrote:
| I am big fan and it was sad to me when he died. It's bizarre to
| me how much CNN runs content featuring him without ever
| acknowledging he is dead. You'd think he was alive based on how
| often they flaunt his content.
| nicwolff wrote:
| His favorite bar, Siberia, is also back, now at the south end of
| the Columbus Circle subway station. Same owner, Tracy, and same
| no-frills atmosphere.
| tedggh wrote:
| Loved his series until he visited my hometown and completely
| misrepresented it. I get his style was anti establishment and
| mainstream, but he ended up hanging out with the wrong crowd in
| town, one of them known for being a fraudster, a spoiled child
| running bad restaurant after bad restaurant. Somehow these guys
| managed to be featured in the show as the progressive minds of
| local cuisine. It made me question everything else I have watched
| from Bourdain.
| sizzle wrote:
| What city so I can avoid that restaurant
| jama211 wrote:
| He probably didn't personally vet the politics behind each
| person, the production team would've organised it in advance
| and he just turns up and goes along with it. That being said
| it's still grounds to be skeptical of his shows. Also, please
| tell us your town
| gnz11 wrote:
| The production crew would have used "fixers" to get insight
| into good locations for filming and other things of interest.
| Whatever fixer they used was probably just friends of and/or
| part of this "wrong" crowd. Bourdain and his producers made a
| lot of shows over the years, some are going to be better
| produced while others are flawed. How it goes. Bourdain and
| his team weren't perfect -- doesn't make them inauthentic at
| a wider perspective.
| jghn wrote:
| Not only this, but depending on which season of which show
| of his, there may have been other reasons for why spots
| were chosen. For instance there was at least one season of
| No Reservations where episodes were themed with the
| location as a backdrop. The episode he had in my hometown
| caused a lot of locals to complain that he wasn't choosing
| the best spots, but the point was the whole episode was a
| narrative and the spots chosen fit the narrative.
| Oarch wrote:
| I had the same sense. I can see why people like the shows, but
| to me there's a subtle arrogance to the rich, white American
| guy just holding court everywhere he goes and explaining local
| matters as if he's an expert. The food aspect of his shows was
| often secondary.
| PunchyHamster wrote:
| It's always funny when I watch stuff about some foreigner
| visiting my home country and they either focus on something
| not all that important, or get something completely wrong.
|
| The funniest part is trying to present some dish as
| "traditional" that everyone here eats, while it's some super
| niche thing only one region does, occasionally, if you have
| grandma that remembers how to make it
| michtzik wrote:
| If you only eat it when you have a grandma that remembers
| how to make it, I would consider that the very definition
| of "traditional". And also interesting to hear about!
|
| (But yea, perhaps not "everyone here eats" in that case.
| And yet, if everyone knew what it was -- even if it's "what
| grandma used to eat" -- I'd even let that slide. I don't
| eat what my grandparents ate, but I know more about it than
| a foreigner.)
| rdtsc wrote:
| > I had the same sense. I can see why people like the shows,
| but to me there's a subtle arrogance to the rich, white
| American guy just holding court everywhere he goes and
| explaining local matters as if he's an expert. The food
| aspect of his shows was often secondary.
|
| My most memorable moment from the show was when Bourdain
| visited some poor farmer to see how they were harvesting yuca
| (or maybe yams, I forgot) and he went into the typical (I am
| paraphrasing) "oh look, this is the life, so perfect being
| one with nature, etc...". And the farmer shut him up pretty
| quickly with something like "How about a trade: you stay here
| and farm yams in the rain, in the perfect unity with the
| nature, and I go to live in your apartment in New York?"
| jorvi wrote:
| Jon Krakauer pointed something similar out in relation to
| the native people around Everest attaining a higher quality
| of life (and thus more Western lifestyle) as more and more
| commercial Everest expeditions started happening.
|
| Climbing tourists would be complaining that the local
| culture was being destroyed and that the huts they would
| visit would have the local kids be wearing, say, a fashion
| shirt and the huts themselves had amenities like a heater
| instead of burning dung for heat.
|
| Basically, wealthy climber tourists wanted these people to
| live in stasis in a lifestyle of poverty just so the
| atmosphere of quaint mountain life was maintained for them.
| Almost like an open-air museum.
| matwood wrote:
| Which town? I felt he did this in a few places and wondered how
| his team picked where he wild go.
| kavrick wrote:
| I appreciate that must have been difficult. If you could set
| the record straight, where would you have taken him? Love to
| hear your reccos and thoughts!
| testfrequency wrote:
| I empathize with this as vice news at their peak did similar
| things in Chicago, which is why most chicagoans don't like
| Vice.
| eucyclos wrote:
| Maybe it's just the similarity in appearance and cause of death
| to Carradign and Epstein making me see patterns that aren't
| there, but I cannot watch a Bourdain clip without getting the
| sense something is deeply wrong.
| esseph wrote:
| Deeply wrong?
|
| Yeah, he was struggling with mental health problems.
|
| What a way to publicly slander a dead guy that didn't commit
| any crimes that we know of.
| fooster wrote:
| He did the same thing with Shanghai.
| linhns wrote:
| I wish he sticked to food, his only expertise. His Newfoundland
| episode in Parts Unknown is the best and most tasty piece of
| television I have ever watched. Why is that good? Guess what,
| he brought on his pals that are great chefs from that place.
| vasco wrote:
| People who abandon their kids don't really have anything to teach
| you. There's isn't much worse you can do. But in this case
| Anthony did that also:
|
| > Anthony Bourdain paid a $380,000 settlement to actor Jimmy
| Bennett in 2018 to silence allegations that Asia Argento had
| sexually assaulted him in 2013, when Bennett was 17 and Argento
| was 37
|
| Great role model. People see a guy that looks cool and says edgy
| shit and that's it, he is now a great person, lol.
| meindnoch wrote:
| I have never been particularly fond of Bourdain, nor have I fully
| understood the widespread fascination with his jet-setting New
| York hipster persona.
|
| He played a significant role in popularizing a now-familiar
| posture among affluent Americans: the earnest declaration that
| "travel is my passion", followed by carefully curated excursions
| to economically disadvantaged countries, enthusiastic consumption
| of the local cuisine, and a subsequent return home marked by
| self-congratulatory reflections on how much they have supposedly
| "learned" about other cultures.
|
| The phenomenon is difficult to admire. It resembles a kind of
| cultural primitivism - an unintentional revival of archaic
| rituals in which consuming the body of the enemy was believed to
| confer insight, power, or spiritual essence. In this modern
| iteration, wealth functions as the enabling mechanism: privileged
| travelers fly abroad to ingest cuisines, aesthetics, and
| experiences, mistaking consumption for understanding and appetite
| for empathy.
|
| One returns, enriched - spiritually, one assumes - having _eaten_
| well.
| zild3d wrote:
| > economically disadvantaged countries, enthusiastic
| consumption of the local cuisine, and a subsequent return home
| marked by self-congratulatory reflections on how much they have
| supposedly "learned" about other cultures.
|
| There can certainly be a quite shallow "instagram" quality to
| some traveler's trips, but it's also clear an economically
| disadvantaged country benefits mutually from this, and if it
| wasn't they'd be restricting tourist visas, etc
| david-gpu wrote:
| _> it 's also clear an economically disadvantaged country
| benefits mutually from this, and if it wasn't they'd be
| restricting tourist visas, etc_
|
| Countries are not a monolithic entity. The people in control
| of the flow of tourists are a tiny minority, and whatever
| incentives they have to open or close the borders do not
| reflect what the people who deal with tourists on a daily
| basis want.
| landryraccoon wrote:
| It depends on the county of course, but in my experience
| service workers at many "touristy" countries seem to
| benefit directly from tourism.
|
| For example, some of the workers at resorts in Thailand
| went to college and studied Tourism, a major I didn't even
| know existed, and their wages come directly from the
| tourist industry.
|
| What countries in particular are you thinking of where the
| locals are very unhappy to see more tourists? I've heard
| Japan might be in that category, and the United States
| certainly feels that way, but did you experience this
| yourself?
| lurk2 wrote:
| Hawaii, Barcelona, and some cities in Latin America like
| Medellin have had a few incidents to suggest that people
| are unhappy with tourists there.
|
| A city I have stayed in banned AirBnBs to address an
| affordability crisis. Tons of locals went wild reporting
| houses they expected to were circumventing the ban. I
| remember looking at the press release and finding that
| all of the AirBnBs in the city amounted to less than 2%
| of the city's housing stock.
|
| From what I can gather, these sort of attitudes are an
| appropriation of reactionary xenophobia directed to an
| appropriate target in Barcelona, a cultural inferiority
| complex in Latin America (which receives virtually no
| tourists compared to all the expatriates they send to the
| developed world), and a legitimate existential crisis for
| the Hawaiians.
| lurk2 wrote:
| > The people in control of the flow of tourists are a tiny
| minority
|
| The people ultimately in control of this policy are usually
| elected officials, so I'd (idealistically) say they have at
| least some incentive to make decisions that the general
| public wants.
|
| Economic benefits by themselves are just one metric by
| which we can evaluate desirability, but do you have any
| reason to suggest that existing policy towards tourism is
| contrary to the prevailing opinion among those who interact
| with tourists on a daily basis?
| david-gpu wrote:
| _> The people ultimately in control of this policy are
| usually elected officials_
|
| Even assuming we are talking about democracies, you still
| face the same issue: policies regarding tourism are
| decided at the national or supra-national (e.g. EU)
| level, while the effects are concentrated on specific
| neighborhoods of specific towns.
|
| _> do you have any reason to suggest that existing
| policy towards tourism is contrary to the prevailing
| opinion among those who interact with tourists on a daily
| basis?_
|
| Have you not heard of any popular protests against
| tourism? Speaking the local language helps here, but
| sometimes it is also reported in English.
| lurk2 wrote:
| > Have you not heard of any popular protests against
| tourism?
|
| I mentioned in another comment that I know of vandalism
| that has occurred in Barcelona, some demonstrations in
| Medellin, and a long history of nativist sentiment in
| Hawaii, but I'm not convinced that these people represent
| a majority opinion even in tourist destinations. Have you
| seen any surveys or anything of the kind that would
| suggest a substantial portion of people are opposed to
| tourism?
| lurk2 wrote:
| > He played a significant role in popularizing a now-familiar
| posture among affluent Americans: the earnest declaration that
| "travel is my passion", followed by carefully curated
| excursions to economically disadvantaged countries,
| enthusiastic consumption of the local cuisine, and a subsequent
| return home marked by self-congratulatory reflections on how
| much they have supposedly "learned" about other cultures.
|
| I only dislike these people if they blog about it. None of them
| are nearly as insightful as they think they are, and most of
| them aren't self-aware enough to realize that this whole shtick
| hasn't been "cool" since 2010.
|
| > mistaking consumption for understanding and appetite for
| empathy.
|
| This disparaging attitude towards tourists is in vogue among
| Europeans right now; there's a group of anarchists in Barcelona
| that have spent the last year or two scrawling: "TOURISTS GO
| HOME, REFUGEES WELCOME" on the sides of buildings.
|
| The theory goes that tourists are a net negative to cities
| because they cause neighborhoods to gentrify and displace those
| who intend to actually live within the city. The money coming
| in is a negative because it causes the city to deploy resources
| intended to cater to tourists, the tourists fundamentally
| change the character of the neighborhood by their very presence
| (the cannibalism you are alluding to), the tourists are rude,
| the tourists look funny, etc.
|
| Disdain for tourists is just a socially-acceptable way for
| progressives to practice the xenophobia that is now in vogue
| among reactionaries. They can't blame all of their problems on
| foreigners writ large like the reactionaries do, so they "punch
| up" at the only sort of foreigner that is likely to make a
| positive contribution to their country.
| kaashif wrote:
| I suppose the idea is that even if tourism brings in billions
| of euros, makes up 15% of the economy, and provides 150k jobs
| in a country where youth unemployment is rampant and jobs are
| hard to come by...
|
| No, actually, I find it impossible to make sense of that.
| lurk2 wrote:
| In my experience the majority of xenophobia is driven by a
| fear that one is not being afforded proper respect.
| Sometimes this fear is well-founded; half of the countries
| with citizens wealthy enough to engage in mass market
| travel (e.g. Germany, Israel, Russia, China, UK, etc.) have
| their own reputations for being Ugly Americans. Not every
| tourist is respectful, and even those who are polite may be
| disrespectful inadvertently.
|
| Casual xenophobia is endemic to most societies; it's quite
| normal to distrust the unfamiliar, and it strikes me as
| being a natural topic of conversation, and one that does
| quite well when sensationalized by journalists. I think
| most cosmopolitan westerners have this idea that xenophobia
| is the exclusive purview of a racism that originated in
| Europe and is now resurging in the Anglosphere, but from
| what I have observed, most of the world is like this and
| probably always has been.
| NoboruWataya wrote:
| > so they "punch up" at the only sort of foreigner that is
| likely to make a positive contribution to their country
|
| Honestly I doubt they are punching up in many cases. Sure,
| the Americans who holiday in Sicily are probably pretty well
| off, because that's expensive. But a lot of the tourists who
| visit the large Spanish cities or coastal towns are working
| class people from northern Europe for whom it may actually be
| cheaper to get a Ryanair flight and an Airbnb for a couple of
| days than to take a trip within their own country. I don't
| know anything about the kind of person who sprawls this
| graffiti around Barcelona but I suspect there's a good chance
| they (or their families at least) are wealthier than the
| tourists they are raging against.
| mft_ wrote:
| It may be much more straightforward than you suggest, and not
| at all related to xenophobia.
|
| A core problem is that an influx of tourists hits the housing
| supply. Short-term tourism incentivises conversion of local
| housing to accommodate them (AirBnB, etc.) and long-term
| tourism results in foreigners buying local housing as their
| permanent or long-term holiday home.
|
| The result is obviously a relative shortage of housing and
| rising prices, both of which make it harder for locals (who
| are often relatively poorer) to live where they need to. This
| pattern has been repeated from small villages in scenic
| areas, to big cities (e.g. Barcelona), to whole islands (e.g.
| Mallorca).
|
| I'm probably one of the people that has contributed to this
| to some extent over time; and yet I fully understand the
| frustration of the locals.
|
| It may result in apparent xenophobia in some, but its roots
| are rational and economic.
| lurk2 wrote:
| > A core problem is that an influx of tourists hits the
| housing supply.
|
| This is the explanation these activists rely on and it's
| cribbed directly from posts I was reading on /pol/ ten
| years ago. While it sounds plausible, I've never found it
| to have any basis in empirical reality. Tourist
| accommodation represents a negligible proportion of
| dwellings outside of resort towns, and in resort towns the
| whole economy is based around tourism. Some people might
| object to tourism changing the character of the cities they
| live in, but their primary objection is cultural, not
| economic.
|
| If you look at the signs you see in Latin America ("Expat?
| No! You are an immigrant!" and "Speak my language!") or the
| graffiti in Barcelona ("Tourists go home, refugees
| welcome.") it becomes fairly apparent that most of these
| people don't have coherent objections at all, they just
| resent people they perceive to be wealthier than
| themselves; this is why the refugees are not targeted,
| despite their having had far greater impacts on housing
| markets in Latin America and cultural cohesion in Europe.
| ahar083 wrote:
| While in some cases there may be other aspects at play,
| it really is the case that turning rentals into AirBnBs
| for visitors has dramatically increased rent in towns
| such as Barcelona, and even in Central Sydney where I
| used to live. (I say this has someone who has rented in
| the center of big cities, and also as someone who has
| taken advantage of accomodation which has been "cheap"
| for me, as an outsider, in cities such as Barcelona).
|
| One can have zero racist sentiments, but if you suddenly
| get kicked out of your rental, because it's more
| profitable for your landlord to make money from tourists,
| you will be outraged. (And it's not an insignificant
| number if inner city apartments impacted by this).
| Obviously other cost of living factors have led to
| increased rents, but this is still a big factor in some
| cities.
| lurk2 wrote:
| > Sydney
|
| "Sydney has 18,000 Airbnb listings, of which 80% are
| whole homes. This equates to around 3.2 Airbnb listings
| per 1,000 residents or 0.9% of Sydney's private homes."
| [0]
|
| This is about half of the usual 2% figure I mentioned
| elsewhere in the thread, which is what the numbers are
| for London, Los Angeles, and New York City (before the
| ban).
|
| > Barcelona
|
| Barcelona has 19,410 listings, of which 11,828 are whole-
| house-apartment listings.[1]
|
| [0]: https://matusik.substack.com/p/airbnbs
|
| Note that the author is pulling his data from here:
|
| [1]: https://insideairbnb.com/sydney/
| mft_ wrote:
| I'm not sure you've looked very hard. Let's consider
| Mallorca. It's not _all_ a resort town, but no doubt it
| 's an attractive destination.
|
| Estimates of course vary, but there are estimates that
| 60% of the total housing stock is owned by foreigners [0]
| and in 2024, >40% of all houses sold were bought by
| foreigners. [1] (It's also worth noting that [1] suggests
| foreigners purchased >20% of houses sold in Valencia, the
| Canary Islands, Murcia, and Catalonia, so this isn't
| limited to Mallorca.)
|
| If these numbers are even close to accurate, this would
| be your empirical reality, and such numbers would
| certainly by sufficient to drive demand, shortage, and
| price increases.
|
| [0] https://www.falcrealestate.com/en/magazine/property-
| market-t...
|
| [1] https://humansofmallorca.com/balearics-lead-spain-
| for-homes-...
| lurk2 wrote:
| > It's not all a resort town
|
| Tourism comprises 45% of the economy, which is what I was
| characterizing as a resort town. If you look at cities
| that have anything else going on for them, you're looking
| at figures of less than 2% of housing stock. London is
| around 2.5%, New York City was around 2% before the ban,
| Los Angeles is around 2.1%.
| mft_ wrote:
| So... except for the places where the concept applies, it
| doesn't apply?
| sallveburrpi wrote:
| > Expat? No! You are an immigrant!
|
| This is just anger about the insane double standard at
| play - if I as a European move to Latin America, I'm a
| sophisticated expat and they should be happy that my rich
| ass is living there - whereas when it's the other way
| around they are immigrants and treated like actual scum,
| working the lowest of low jobs. The double standard at
| play makes me sad and angry even if I'm the one on the
| surface benefitting from it.
|
| > Speak my language
|
| This one i can also understand - I know American "expats"
| who lived in my country 15+ years but never bothered to
| learn the language, not even a little tiny bit. I don't
| expect you to write a doctors thesis but if you can't
| even order food in the local language or have some
| smalltalk it's pretty pathetic and disrespectful.
| Meanwhile non-English speaking "immigrants" get yelled at
| if they don't speak the local language perfectly.
|
| Not everything is as easily explained away by
| "progressives training to be xenophobic"
|
| > Some people might object to tourism changing the
| character of the cities they live in, but their primary
| objection is cultural
|
| Is that not a valid objection? I know places in
| Greecethat have been utterly RUINED by the (mostly Anglo-
| Saxon) tourists, for example Santorini or Mykonos. These
| used to be really beautiful and chill places in the
| 70/80s, now they are horrid
| ericmay wrote:
| > These used to be really beautiful and chill places in
| the 70/80s, now they are horrid
|
| Isn't this a bit of gatekeeping? What do you propose the
| solution is? Ban tourists? Take it another incremental
| step and now you're banning immigrants too. "Don't visit!
| Stay in your country!" "Go home tourists/immigrants",
| it's the same song and dance. It's the same sentiment.
|
| There is a solution to the tourist "problem" though,
| which is to just charge a shitload of money to visit. But
| then you'll be accused of being inequitable or hating
| poor people or something.
| lurk2 wrote:
| Lottery system solves this issue but then people start
| thinking of reasons that they deserve to visit more than
| someone else and try to implement quotas affording
| priority access to their group (e.g. local residents,
| ethnic minority, etc.)
|
| It's an intractable problem encountered when dealing with
| scarce resources; the key is navigating to a point that
| the functional number of people consider to be fair.
| ericmay wrote:
| Yea lottery works too though it can be a huge pain for
| coordinating plans. I think making everything much more
| expensive at least gives people flexibility in their
| arrangements. Like say you want to go to Paris and visit
| Musee de Orsay and also Versailles. You get lottery
| ticket to one and not the other - bummer.
|
| If you take the current $20 prices and make them, say,
| $200 that would alleviate a lot of extra visitors. I
| guess some people say it's not fair, but based on my
| visits I don't think most people really go to these sites
| to do much more than check a box, which is unfortunate. A
| higher price at least allows those with interest to have
| a better experience instead of fighting crowds of selfie-
| takers, which is the current experience.
|
| On the other hand, maybe some of these artworks should be
| more spread out to be enjoyed by more people instead of
| concentrated in a select few prestigious museums.
| lurk2 wrote:
| The expat-immigrant distinction is a simple one; an expat
| lives abroad, an immigrant intends to gain citizenship
| and stay. This isn't actually necessarily reflective of
| how illegals view the country anymore; a lot of them
| intend to leave after working a few years so that they
| can retire in their country of origin. The reason Latinos
| get so upset by this distinction is quite simple: Very
| many of them move to developed countries and want to stay
| there. By contrast, hardly anyone moves to to Latin
| countries, and virtually none of those that do will ever
| attempt to become citizens. An Australian who moves to
| Peru and becomes a citizen is still an immigrant, not an
| expat; this just basically never happens, so a subset of
| Latinos wrongly assume it's a race thing.
|
| > This one i can also understand - I know American
| "expats" who lived in my country 15+ years but never
| bothered to learn the language, not even a little tiny
| bit.
|
| It is obnoxious. My point was that the objection these
| people have to tourists is not rooted in their actual
| economic impact, but cultural anxiety that they are being
| left behind or disrespected. These anxieties are
| warranted, the issue I take with it is that cosmopolitans
| will chastise Cletus for not wanting to be replaced by
| Mexicans who refuse to learn English but celebrate Jose
| for saying the same thing but in Spanish.
| ponector wrote:
| >> RUINED by the (mostly Anglo-Saxon)
|
| I've heard that Norman invasion dealt with them long
| before Santorini became a tourist hotspot. You probably
| should decrease consumption of content created by russia
| today.
| jeromegv wrote:
| There's been tons of studies in tons of cities. It's
| quite clear, for a landlord you make more per month on
| Airbnb than on a long term rental. So economically it
| makes sense. Toronto had to do those studies before city
| council passed a law to restrict airbnb.
|
| You also saw it through covid when all those units
| flooded the rental market when international borders
| closed.
| lurk2 wrote:
| > There's been tons of studies
|
| Such as?
|
| > You also saw it through covid when all those units
| flooded the rental market when international borders
| closed.
|
| Toronto had an average of 12,270 daily active listings in
| 2019 [0]. Toronto had a population of around 2.7 million
| in 2019. The majority of this impact was caused by people
| leaving the cities to buy in the suburbs, move in with
| family, or return to their country of origin.
|
| [0]: Page 7 https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2021/ph/b
| grd/backgroundf...
| decimalenough wrote:
| Your snark is misplaced to such an extent that I suspect you
| have not actually read his books. Bourdain is genuinely
| obsessed with food, and when _Kitchen Confidential_ entirely
| unexpectedly became a megahit and shot him from borderline
| poverty to wealth and fame, he was genuinely delighted to be
| able to (I quote) "travel around the world, eat a lot of shit,
| and basically do whatever the fuck I want." His admiration for
| (most) other cultures is genuine and many of his favorite
| destinations are also places that can hardly be called
| economically disadvantaged (Singapore, Japan, France, etc).
|
| > _popularizing a now-familiar posture among affluent
| Americans_
|
| So would it be preferable if they stayed at home, didn't share
| any of their wealth with less developed countries, and
| marinated in completely ignorant bliss of the world outside the
| USA instead?
| birdie2 wrote:
| I think the point is that the attitude of enjoying rather
| than assimilating is not appreciated.
|
| There's no equivalent for this feeling in the U.S. We had
| Japanese tourists in the late twentieth century that were
| known for taking pictures of everything, but they were
| respectful and were localized to tourist destinations.
| Migrants from Mexico and Central America that have moved here
| but haven't assimilated are not the same either, as they
| moved here for opportunity and don't have the time or
| resources to learn English, so it's quite understandable that
| many stick to themselves.
|
| As an American that has travelled overseas years ago, I
| understand that others in the world could do without us
| visiting. They just want to have their normal day to day
| without an American speaking American English and commenting
| on things like an American and tipping wait staff, asking for
| ice, expecting things that aren't provided, generally acting
| more entitled, etc.
|
| When I visited, I just didn't fit in, even though I wanted
| to. I was taught only a little bit (over multiple years) of a
| few other languages in school, but primarily Spanish, without
| any real immersion, which was useless. I didn't grow up
| traveling and interacting with people from other countries in
| Europe, and without that experience or ability to speak in
| the country's language, I wasn't prepared.
| Angostura wrote:
| > As an American that has travelled overseas years ago, I
| understand that others in the world could do without us
| visiting. They just want to have their normal day to day
| without an American speaking American English and
| commenting on things like an American and tipping wait
| staff, asking for ice, expecting things that aren't
| provided, generally acting more entitled, etc.
|
| It's perfectly possible to visit and be aware of local
| sensibilities. Plenty of Americans manage it and are
| perfectly charming visitors.
|
| You don't have to adopt all of culture's behaviours to not
| be obnoxious
| bettydraper wrote:
| In the mid-20th century, Americans with sufficient income
| or sponsorship from their employer would get Berlitz
| language classes before spending significant time in other
| countries.
|
| Though it was unrealistic for someone to do this just for a
| short trip, the following scene of Betty and Don Draper
| captures attempt at assimilation vs. not:
|
| https://youtu.be/JXnoPasZdkA
| dizhn wrote:
| I hope you aren't saying you traveled abroad years ago,
| didn't fit in and never did it again. Nothing broadens a
| person's mind more than traveling. Nobody cares if you
| speak with an American accent. You just need to be
| respectful. And in very touristy places they don't even
| care about that to be honest.
| ahoka wrote:
| "So would it be preferable if they stayed at home"
|
| After the impression American tourists gave me during my
| visit to Pisa last summer: Yes, please.
| ericmay wrote:
| If you think Americans are bad let me tell you about the
| XYZ tourists from ABC during my trip to XJK!
| varjag wrote:
| Come on, this is just contrarianism without substance. Or as we
| used to say in less pretentious times, "this thing is lame
| now".
| fancyfredbot wrote:
| Nah it's still kinda fun.
| keiferski wrote:
| Most of his rise to fame came from working in real kitchens,
| then exposing the underbelly of such places.
|
| He also really didn't spent much or any (?) time in the kinds
| of expensive places you'd need to be obscenely wealthy to
| afford.
| tayo42 wrote:
| Alot of his shows we're pretty doable finance wise for people
| to replicate. He did like 3 episodes about El bulli though
| NoboruWataya wrote:
| I do think a lot of what you are talking about can be traced
| back to Bourdain, but in fairness I don't think it was his
| intention, and indeed he was dead by the time it really took
| off. Instagram is at least as much to blame.
|
| A lot of it is people who like Bourdain's aesthetic and want to
| replicate it, but they don't know much about food, they've
| never worked in hospitality in their life and they're afraid to
| go to the sketchier parts of town.
|
| Like with so many things travel- and tourist-related, it's okay
| for one person to do it and tell us about it, but when a
| million people all try to do the same thing it causes problems.
| antonymoose wrote:
| > A lot of it is people who like Bourdain's aesthetic and
| want to replicate it, but they don't know much about food,
| they've never worked in hospitality in their life and they're
| afraid to go to the sketchier parts of town.
|
| I can kind of relate to the GP, I went back and rewatched a
| lot of Bourdain's shows recently and I felt a kind of
| revulsion I hadn't previously. I don't think it's necessarily
| fairly aimed at Bourdain himself but at the kind of person
| that has since latched onto his vibe and meme'd it to death
| on social media. Yet another iteration of the mall goth in a
| Misfits t-shirt that doesn't know who Glenn Danzig is, only
| this time Bourdain is a very clear icon behind the style to
| cringe at in hindsight.
| naian wrote:
| He was also a racist POS.
| anonnon wrote:
| He was a product of his era and environment. Frankly, finding
| a boomer Jew like him, who grew up in NYC in the 50s and 60s,
| who doesn't harbor a significant degree of suspicion and
| animus (along with covert envy) towards white people (and
| WASPs in particular), is the exception, not the norm, and he
| was especially vocal about it because he had a "tryhard"
| mentality and a desire to be seen as a radical, even as his
| wealth compounded.
| fancyfredbot wrote:
| I'd like to congratulate you on reaching such a level of
| empathy and understanding that not only do you dislike
| Bourdain, you find yourself unable to understand why anyone
| would think differently!
|
| There's a point worth making about poverty tourism here but I'm
| not sure the tourist should be our major concern.
| anonnon wrote:
| One of his most famous quips was:
|
| > Your body is not a temple, it's an amusement park. Enjoy the
| ride.
|
| Then he died alone, in a hotel room in France, supposedly by
| his own hand, with the belt of his silk bathrobe as the
| implement--despite being a heroin addict most of his life and
| thus ever cognizant of the possibility of a fatal overdose, and
| having friends, like Mark Lanegan, who died (painlessly) from a
| fatal overdose. But no, instead of OD'ing, he supposedly chose
| to "unalive" himself with his bathrobe. And he left no note.
| And he tweeted this out a month earlier:
| https://x.com/Bourdain/status/998954845146177536
| bonesss wrote:
| Bourdain didn't initiate the cultural practice of going on
| safari and congratulating one's self. The Michelin guide was
| founded in 1900.
|
| Bourdains travels also weren't the curated tourist jaunts
| you're describing. They often showing the grim and lesser known
| sides of conflicts and situations while presenting genuine
| local cuisines. It's what the unconcerned tourist aspire to,
| not what they do.
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