Culture Guides

Just about anywhere these days it seems is within reach of a package flight company. There are guides to every destination that hype up all the cute cultural ideosyncrasies whilst not failing to mention the location of the nearest Amex, McDonald’s or store to buy the latest Gucci designs.

Fashion worldwide is almost exclusively western now, with people abbandoning their traditional clothes to wear western trousers and shirts, there’s a common global celebrity vocabulary (Shakira, Mariah Crey, David Beckham) and even the fucking tv shows (big brother) spread like a virus with media collaboration.

The same products are on the shelves worldwide (Mars, Heinz, Sony) and if you can’t speak English then you’re unlikely to earn much money.

The airwaves, newspapers and tv channels across the planet are owned by the same 7 or 8 families, the same companies are employing people across the world on the same shit contracts (McDonald’s is the single largest employer in Brazil for instance) and there are only a handful of currencies that mean anything.

And every year a whole new generation of bright eyed travelers are off to discover what the world has to offer. Sadly, thanks to television the the economic policies of the West, the world is becoming increasingly the same.

Or have we just been drinking too much black coffee this morning?

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