Maddie Lymburner & Logan Paul: Hollow Tourism.

Cape Town South Africa I noticed that
you don't talk to any of the local inhabitants in any of the places you visit or live did you have any relationships with any African people in Africa I didn't see a single black person not even in the background I have never wanted my YouTube channel to resemble an academic lecture I want to give it to you raw I want to add whether it's my daughter watching this or - whether it's something else that I'm really going for here I'm not trying to reproduce what you get the business meeting or an academic lecture no you shouldn't curse all the time you shouldn't be out of control you shouldn't be insulting to people all the time but there's a time and a place for those things - and that's all part of the rough-and-tumble life so many of you guys have recommended this place and I'm super excited to try it and we are also here with my friend Jurgen he messaged me on Instagram yesterday he was like oh my gosh I can't believe I'm going to Florida next week like I have to meet you guys I was like yes like let's go to lunch [Music] you [Music] please consider taking an interest in local languages politics history and culture in Bali or anywhere else maybe start by at least reading the local newspaper in English if you read historical nonfiction or even historical fiction you'll see that one of the most striking differences between the world before the internet was invented and the world after is that in the past the great mass of humanity really had no idea how wealthy people lived it's routine to see in medieval and even Renaissance literature from all over the world the sentiment that the poor suffer less because they do not even know what luxuries they're missing out on they cannot even imagine the foods the wealthy eat the beds they sleep on so on and so forth there was a time when it was routine for even people's household servants to sleep directly on the kitchen floor while they the Masters the house owners were sleeping in a featherbed and of course with the invention of the photograph with the invention of silent black-and-white cinema for the first time the poor could lay eyes on the lives of aristocrats the lives of wealthy millionaires the lives of captains of industry and we now live in an era when especially through YouTube and Instagram the packaged appearance of wealth and luxury is something that both allows the wealthy to normalize their own lives of self-indulgence and allows the poor the middle class to vicariously experience something of this kind of aimless wealth if you look at a figure like Bruce Wayne Bruce Wayne really is the villain in Batman Batman can beat up the Joker Batman can put the penguin in prison Batman can chase down poor people in alleyways who are trying to snatch a purse trying to steal money to buy a loaf of bread but the one enemy Batman can never defeat is Bruce Wayne Bruce Wayne is the true villain of Batman just as much as in the Superman comics it's the multi-millionaire Lex Luthor but you know the image of idle wealth represented by the Bruce Wayne character and even the image of predatory millionaire businessman presented by Lex Luthor really is much more positive than what I see with people like Matt Elam Berner today um Bruce Wayne he was always going to a charity ball he's always doing charity events a woman kind or another um yeah the humanitarian element even of Bruce Wayne's life was really a significant recurring trope it really is strangely on the nose it strangely takes this symbolic problem and makes it self evidently ridiculously real that when you watch the YouTube videos of Matt Elam Berner in Africa there were no Africans there were no black people anywhere not even in the backgrounds of her videos she goes to the beach but she doesn't go to a beach where you know that you were in Africa and of course for the most part what those videos are showing you is a life of luxury that is to a surreal extent cut off from the social and political reality of what Africa is today and I am sure she does the same with Thailand or any other country she visits just now she's arrived in Bali Indonesia and you know I left a comment on her video I made a suggestion I said look you know when I'm watching your videos filmed in Africa I can't even tell that they're in Africa did you have any relationships with any African people with black people in Africa did you have any conversations with them did you talk to them you know I could add here did you maybe read a newspaper did you have any contact with the unfolding history of Africa did you go to a museum and see even art objects from the distant past or did you did you have any contact with history as it now unfolds in Africa today you know now that you've arrived in Indonesia will you consider making the effort to have some kind of positive contact with the culture the language the history even if that were just reading the local newspaper all these countries will at least one or two newspapers in English even Indonesia Oh believe me you know maybe not a newspaper specifically for Bali but for Indonesia as a whole sure um it was interesting for me to see across the internet a widespread complaint a widespread lament that Logan Paul went to Japan and didn't have any meaningful contact with the culture now what was what was surprising or mind-blowing me about this is just that it's Logan Paul Logan Paul is a comedian he's an ex vegan comedian he was vegan for only a couple months and his style of comedy is is very lowbrow if there is one person on earth I would not expect to have a meaningful connection with Japanese culture when he goes on vacation in Japan it would be Logan Paul but it's also true that Logan Paul is very much in this mirrored box situation where people look at him as a symbol either of a lifestyle they aspire to have a life that is not just of wealth but of completely aimless self-indulgence once they have that wealth and they also use it to affirm their own values their own life having no ambition to make the world a better place no ambition to help others no ambition to learn no ambition for self-improvement no ambition to be a better person oneself even you know this ambition lust life of self-indulgence at the highest level of luxury available to you at your salary at your income or given your inheritance it's true Logan Paul also represents that and someone like Matt Elam Berner I don't think she set out meaning to represent that I think she probably just got into a series of steps one after the other with I think her goal was to have very low body fat and very high muscle mass and she saw some really expensive PDFs you can pay $39.99 let me just check here let me get my numbers straight you can pay a lot of money for a book that is not even on paper so I'm sorry thirty-five dollars and fifty cents is her ebook $35.50 Canadian I used to work in the publishing industry in publishing the publisher would be considered like a very generous publisher be considered a prince if you gave the author 10% of the ticket price so 10% of the price when the book left the warehouse when it left the publisher so most authors of real books on paper are getting less than 10% of the value of the price and the cover you're not even if you pay 3554 for her to send you this PDF send you this ebook it's a lot of money in Pine that's her business strategy that's what she wanted to do but I think what she ended up doing step by step you know probably just partly because of the format of a website like Instagram what kind of behavior is rewarded what gets you popularity attention you know she's become another one of the true villains of 21st century capitalism she's become another Bruce Wayne and unlike Bruce Wayne I don't think that when she turns the lights out and turns off the camera that she turns into Batman I don't think she turns into somebody with a social conscience trying to make the world a better place and I'm making this video ultimately because I hope she will I hope you will too whoever you are watching this