Luxurious LifeStyle – Twitter thread about American girl transferring to Bali goes viral and sparks debate
An American girl has sparked heated debate on social media after a thread about her transfer to Bali went viral.
It appears she may have picked the fallacious platform to gush about her new house. Whereas her 20-tweet thread may have labored as an Instagram caption about making goals come true, over on Twitter individuals had different ideas.
The girl in query has since locked her account, however right here’s a abstract of the thread: after spending most of 2019 out of labor, she and her girlfriend determined to check out Bali for six months, the place she turned a self-employed graphic designer and managed to dwell in a “treehouse” for simply $400, in comparison with a $1,300 LA studio they had been in earlier than. They’ve now been there for a yr, and she or he says that they’re dwelling an “elevated lifestyle” and that Bali was “the perfect medicine” for her bodily and emotional well being.
She lists the advantages of dwelling in Bali as: security, low price of dwelling, luxurious life-style, queer-friendly, and goes on to share her optimistic expertise as a Black girl with the Black group there. To shut out, she hyperlinks to her book Our Bali Life is Yours which helps different individuals to attain the identical dream. It’s at the moment on the market for $30.
The backlash was instant, with hundreds of replies and quote-tweets, a lot of which had been highlighting the affect that comparatively rich American migrants have on native communities and gentrification.
Some tried to recommend these points had been the equal to anti-immigration sentiment within the US, however others highlighted that this ignores the truth of the completely different energy dynamics at play.
Her feedback about dwelling in luxurious had been additionally labelled tone-deaf, on condition that Indonesia is Southeast Asia’s most populous nation and its largest financial system, but round 1 / 4 of the inhabitants lives simply above the poverty line, with virtually 10 per cent dwelling in poverty.
People who find themselves from Indonesia themselves additionally highlighted how completely different life is within the nation for these with out the author’s American privilege, and the potential injury of encouraging extra Individuals to maneuver there.
Others took the chance to level out the historic and ongoing violence and oppression which exists in Indonesia, however which she didn’t contact upon in any respect in her thread.
The Papua Battle particularly has led to accusations in opposition to the Indonesian authorities of human rights violations together with torture, extrajudicial killings and politically motivated arrests.
Based on a 2019 report from Amnesty, “the government failed to protect human rights defenders, and restricted the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association.”
Whereas Bali is thought to be extra progressive, particularly on LGBTQ+ points, Indonesian regulation nonetheless discriminates in opposition to individuals for his or her sexual orientation and fails to guard them from hate crimes and homophobic assaults.
Regardless of many individuals branding the thread out-of-touch, there have been additionally many who defended the author, saying it shouldn’t be the accountability of a Black queer girl to repair systemic points affecting the nation.
Earlier than locking her account, the consumer posted one final tweet which appeared to acknowledge the backlash, saying: “The conversations being had here are valid. Though they aren’t the conversations I was having today. They’ve been seen and heard. Just sharing my story with people.”
In the meantime, “Bali” continues to pattern on Twitter as individuals furiously debate who’s proper and who’s fallacious on this complicated state of affairs.
