In the past, an expat was someone who moved to other parts of the world in Asia or elsewhere with an expat package, paid for by their foreign company or a local govt sponsoring them on a project. It usually came with housing, private school fees, and a hardship stipend (more money than they would make back home).

It’s hard to see this current slate of bad English teachers and tropical fruit influencers (an actual thing) as anything similar to that. (To be clear there are good English teachers. They tend to also come with a package)

It’s a weird thing. Yes, the world is changing and there is going to be a lot more migration.

At the same time, a person from these other countries simply can’t just up and go somewhere else.

These expats are also very upset when the local population no longer treats them as gods (there used to be far more ‘white worship’ a while ago). Now people are like, oh, poor white people are here to take our housing and they don’t have jobs beyond being YouTube influencers and teaching English badly

(The whole why expats not immigrants thing is also weird. You can’t exactly be an immigrant imho if you move to a country that will never give you permanent residency or citizenship)

I have to say it’s a giant WTF moment when you go to Bangkok and you see a young American or European person sitting with a begging bowl asking for locals to fund their travels. Literal begging bowl. Just utterly disrespectful and gross. Not even a rare sight.

I hope everyone who’s like ‘let’s all move to Portugal etc’ thinks about the impact of what they do

https://youtube.com/shorts/qfO-qA76Pf0?is=SvryaWQA029thhc3