The Worst of Both Worlds
November 10, 2020 11:41 AM   Subscribe

The Digital Nomads Did Not Prepare for This (NYT). Erin Griffith on those who moved to exotic locales to work through the pandemic in style, but now face tax trouble, breakups and Covid guilt.

Archive.is link for those out of NYT articles.
posted by adrianhon (92 comments total) 26 users marked this as a favorite
 
FWIW, some of the DN folks that I most respect and follow online were surprised this wasn't parody, that's how bad they found it.
posted by lazaruslong at 11:50 AM on November 10, 2020 [7 favorites]


That said, I am 100% here for dunking on the article and this David Malka dingus in particular. I found his misuse of PTSD to be especially galling.
posted by lazaruslong at 11:52 AM on November 10, 2020 [24 favorites]


After reading the article, I have two thoughts:

1. This feels like generational trolling. Catnip for the "Damn those Millennials!" crowd. (FWIW, I'm 45 and Gen X).

2. I am having a hard time caring. They took the risk and now have run into problems. Maybe next time do some research before just going "YOLO!" and jumping ship.
posted by zooropa at 11:54 AM on November 10, 2020 [25 favorites]


I am somehow reminded of the modern parable about the businessman who is in a small fishing village and sees a fisherman relaxing on shore. "Why aren't you fishing?"

"I've already caught all the fish I need for the day."

"So why not get more?"

"Why would I do that?"

"Because then you could sell them," the businessman said. "And then invest that money in a bigger boat and maybe a deckhand, someone to help you catch even more, and then you can sell those fish for even more money, and then in time you could buy a whole fleet and be selling across your whole country!"

"....And then what would I do?" the fisherman said.

"Then you could retire and relax."

"....What the hell do you think I'm doing now?"
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:55 AM on November 10, 2020 [125 favorites]


When I hear "short term rental" or "vacation property management" in these types of articles I immediately assume the person is running a semi-illegal AirB&B scam and stop feeling sorry for them.

I mean if I'm wrong I'll take it back but nothing I read is proving me wrong yet?
posted by caution live frogs at 11:58 AM on November 10, 2020 [70 favorites]


I am 100% OK with it being extremely difficult for people to aimlessly wander around the country in the middle of a pandemic.
posted by madajb at 12:01 PM on November 10, 2020 [58 favorites]


caution live frogs, I have the same problem.
posted by redyaky at 12:04 PM on November 10, 2020


When I hear "short term rental" or "vacation property management" in these types of articles I immediately assume the person is running a semi-illegal AirB&B scam and stop feeling sorry for them.

That, and/or a lot of family money. The NYT is really keen on "human stories" about how, say, plain ol' Joe decided to quit his job and live on a farm. But they leave out how Joe inherited the farm along with a million bucks from a great aunt.
posted by zardoz at 12:11 PM on November 10, 2020 [64 favorites]


There's no place like home.
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 12:12 PM on November 10, 2020 [1 favorite]


During one curbside conference call in Eugene, Ore., a nearby man with a weed whacker began roaring his motor. Ms. Adair-Smith told him that she was trying to salvage her career. He didn’t care.

The unspoken thing here is that that weed whacking is that guys fucking career so why would he give one hot fuck about some rich asshat who is trying to "salvage their career" by using free WiFi at McDonald's.

I want to buy that guy that didn't care a nice lunch.
posted by deadaluspark at 12:13 PM on November 10, 2020 [79 favorites]


I want to buy that guy that didn't care a nice lunch.

I’m idly wondering if you’d feel differently if the motor in question was in a pickup truck.
posted by mhoye at 12:16 PM on November 10, 2020 [4 favorites]


I would, because a pickup truck idling in a spot at McDonald's isn't necessarily being used for work, whereas someone doing landscaping at McDonald's is undoubtedly working.

Someone revving their engine in a truck is just being an asshat. Someone doing the job they're being paid to do, at the time they're paid to do it, is just doing their fucking job.

Part of the reason he didn't care is because the people paying him care a lot more about him finishing his work on time than they do about some rich asshat using their free WiFi and trying to "salvage their career." He would absolutely get in trouble for stopping work for some rando.
posted by deadaluspark at 12:18 PM on November 10, 2020 [72 favorites]


Hello, it’s one of your friendly resident mefi nurses! I spent the first part of the pandemic working at a residential facility where my patients got more and more restless and angry at each other with covid stay at home restrictions, culminating in a day when one chased another with a kitchen knife at close range. Have you ever barricaded yourself in a side room when someone with a large knife is right outside the door? It’s real fun. That program was also very tiny and in a house with no room to socially distance, and it is only by the grace of [insert deity of choice] that no resident or staff member got covid.

When I got an offer for an administrative job with a huge pay bump that I can do mostly from home, that was immediate freedom. You better fucking believe I took it, and you’d better believe I want a vacation now more than anything. But working with agitated people in a potential covid Petri dish made me realize what a luxury and a privilege it is to be home. Why would I travel now in the middle of a pandemic when I have this incredible gift that so many in my field do not? Why am I supposed to feel bad for people being just a little stir crazy when others in my profession are dying at alarming rates?

Maybe I’m just on edge from following politics today, but I can’t even hate read this and laugh because I’m so mad. All these people heading out at the first moment of boredom and then complaining about the beach while having no idea what risks people who aren’t venture capitalists and slumlords take every damn day.
posted by I am a Sock, I am an Island at 12:31 PM on November 10, 2020 [120 favorites]


Right now there are a bunch of Toronto Life writers reading this and saying "You think this is hate-read clickbait? Let me show you how it's done!" Cut to: Toronto Twitter blowing up over an article about a couple who abandoned their artisanal cupcake business [their parents gave them seed money for] when the pandemic hit, "bought" their "fixer-upper" dream home in Parkdale [with money from their parents] because they were seeking stability and couldn't go clubbing anymore anyway, and are having "trouble" with the mortgage [that their parents are mostly paying for] because their new line of work - a therapy referral service for overwhelmed influencers - isn't as lucrative as they hoped. It ends with an offhand remark about how they are both hoping to retire by 38.
posted by The Card Cheat at 12:35 PM on November 10, 2020 [88 favorites]


I got about three paragraphs in and realised: oh, these are the kind of people who think they are entitled to entry to other countries, even during a pandemic.

I'm Canadian, and thus very lucky I don't need a visa to visit many other countries (unlike most people from the Global South). But I still wouldn't go for longer than a few weeks to live and work without really being sure about what my status would be. Maybe being Canadian makes you a bit more sensitive - we grow up reading books and watching movies about people who sound like us just picking up and moving to California, but we also know that we cannot legally do that (and living on a beach in BC is much damper).
posted by jb at 12:35 PM on November 10, 2020 [7 favorites]


Toronto Life writers reading this and saying "You think this is hate-read clickbait? Let me show you how it's done!"

Toronto Life has elevated these articles to a high art form. Imagine the New York Style section, only that's the entire publication.
posted by jb at 12:38 PM on November 10, 2020 [10 favorites]


Poor, poor, poor rich people, says the New York Times. (STFU, says I)
posted by tiny frying pan at 12:45 PM on November 10, 2020 [3 favorites]


The Card Cheat, I look forward to watching that episode of House Hunters.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 12:48 PM on November 10, 2020 [3 favorites]


NYT has three, often-intersecting types of profiles/interviewees:

- "Person on the street" who complains about leftists and antifa and AOC who is actually literally a GOP operative (candidate, works for a PAC, works for the party itself, etc)
- Trump voters/fascists
- People with privileges beyond the wildest dreams of most of the population who moan about their difficult lives

It's a trash newspaper run by fake liberals and progressives who fancy themselves intellectual and open-minded because they give a platform to fascists and idiots. Fuck the NYT.
posted by Anonymous at 12:50 PM on November 10, 2020


I'd say those are the main READERS of the NYT as well.
posted by tiny frying pan at 12:52 PM on November 10, 2020 [10 favorites]


the Covid Carpe Diem set

How did this get through editing without being changed to “Carpe Covid”?
posted by bashing rocks together at 12:54 PM on November 10, 2020 [9 favorites]


No matter where you go, there you are. You are your own excess baggage from which there is no escape...
posted by jim in austin at 12:56 PM on November 10, 2020 [11 favorites]


I get the point of the Fisherman parable, but...idk.

I don't know what my 'purpose' is in life. I'm not sure I even have one, or need one. That said, I absolutely know that if I do have a purpose, work ain't it.

I don't like work. I especially don't like work under Capitalism. I don't like that my worth as a person is tied to value I create by my labor for the owner class's benefit.

So I would really like to be able to opt-out of the whole thing. But I don't live in a society that has decided that it has enough wealth to take care of the basic needs of the citizenry, so I have to work in order to enjoy food and shelter and healthcare.

So I'm setup in a system where retirement is the absence of work, and is a privilege that is only accessible with serious money in the bank. Thanks to our busted-ass system here in the US, I can't rely on the money I have been paying into social security to be there for me when I get older.

I don't want to start a fishing conglomerate, but the idea of working hard now so I can afford to retire at some point while I still have the health needed to enjoy leisure activities is, if not exciting, at least a realistic option. So yeah, idk.
posted by lazaruslong at 12:58 PM on November 10, 2020 [15 favorites]


I lost my respect for the New York Times when they cheerled the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2002-3.
posted by heatherlogan at 1:01 PM on November 10, 2020 [8 favorites]


How did this get through editing without being changed to “Carpe Covid”?

"Seize the virus"??
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:13 PM on November 10, 2020 [3 favorites]


I think that’s my state’s new official motto
posted by Huffy Puffy at 1:17 PM on November 10, 2020 [12 favorites]


DON'T CLICK THE HATE READ
posted by latkes at 1:18 PM on November 10, 2020 [8 favorites]


barf. I could not finish this.
posted by supermedusa at 1:34 PM on November 10, 2020 [1 favorite]


a therapy referral service for overwhelmed influencers

Parody: she's dead, Jim.
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:41 PM on November 10, 2020 [4 favorites]


lazaruslong, you maybe haven't grasped that the rest of us ALSO are pissed off that we have to work too, and that this article is about people who maybe could afford to chill out a little bit and stay home instead of doing covid road trips or tying to be digital nomads. It costs money to be a nomad - possibly more than staying home would cost - and these are people who thought they could solve their problems by throwing money at them and then finding out the picture wasn't quite so rosy.

I'm equating them with being the businessman, not the fisherman. We're the fisherman, who works only as much as he needs to work in order to make sure his needs are met - and then, he stops. He's not on a cruise around the Carribbean, but he's also not tearing his hair out over the fishing fleet either.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:41 PM on November 10, 2020 [7 favorites]


The Card Cheat: Cut to: Toronto Twitter blowing up over an article about a couple who abandoned their artisanal cupcake business [their parents gave them seed money for]...

To maintain Canada's healthy levels of social mobility, you need some people falling down the ladder, too. After they blow all their parents' money doing what they thought they might love, they'll still have Canada's public healthcare to rely on and Canada's decent public schools to send their own children to.
posted by clawsoon at 1:46 PM on November 10, 2020 [5 favorites]


I think you're me, lazaruslong. Not long ago I had an informal meeting with a new manager and my department head, and when I was asked what my professional goals were I said "Not getting Covid and dying." When the manager said "Okay, but what about a little father out than that?" I replied "Retirement." We all chuckled and then moved on to talk about actual work projects, but at no point was I actually kidding.
posted by The Card Cheat at 1:52 PM on November 10, 2020 [37 favorites]


I am glad I read this piece because of this section:
Lots of American travelers try to use a tax rule that carves out exemptions for Americans living abroad. But it requires being out of the country 330 full days of the year, not counting travel. Messing it up brings severe penalties.

“It’s the intermittent fasting of taxes,” said Alexander Stylianoudis, the general counsel at WiFi Tribe, a group that helps facilitate travel for 900 digital nomads. “Everyone talks about it, and everyone does it wrong.” The number of mistakes he has seen since the pandemic has multiplied, Mr. Stylianoudis said.
I have been vaguely aware of this set of exemptions for years, but this is the first time I've actually learned some specifics about these rules, and I enjoyed the fanciful analogy.
posted by brainwane at 2:13 PM on November 10, 2020 [7 favorites]


a Wi-Fi hot spot whose name was the equivalent of a middle finger directed at all Californians.
Any guesses what the hotspot's name was?
posted by clawsoon at 2:16 PM on November 10, 2020 [2 favorites]


"Avocados are gross"
posted by The Tensor at 2:17 PM on November 10, 2020 [8 favorites]


I'm a little bit surprised by the snark here. Going digital nomad means you move out of towns with insanely high rent, and severe homelessness problems, and go to areas where employment is the problem and your presence improves things. It's a pretty responsible thing to do vis a vis gentrification et cetera.

Now yes, Covid throws a real spanner at the idea, and so a journalist should be able to find quite a few nomads whose response to the situation ie less than good, but still, the snark here is surprising.
posted by ocschwar at 2:19 PM on November 10, 2020 [6 favorites]


A few weeks ago, I had an idle thought of wondering what had become of all the digital nomads. I've been working for myself for a few years, and when I first started, I had some thoughts of doing the digital nomad thing, so looked into it a bit. But I have a dog and I actually like where I live, so never pursued it.

Anyway, when I first saw this article, I was like "oh cool, someone else wondered what happened to all those digital nomads when they had to come home because of COVID." Imagine my surprise when I realized it was actually about people who took COVID as an opportunity to ... travel? I mean, I get the people who fled NYC to more rural areas (and I also get the people who were mad about it, but I can't quite fault people who didn't want to stew in their 400 square foot apartments for months on end) but the idiocy and arrogance of actually traveling to another country during this for kicks is astounding. It's hard to see this as anything but a hate read designed for clicks.

Oh and I bet most of those fuckers didn't even bother to vote from abroad.
posted by lunasol at 2:20 PM on November 10, 2020 [11 favorites]


Now yes, Covid throws a real spanner at the idea,

This is the only problem I personally have with these folks/this article. It's easy to point and laugh at the perceived privilege of digital nomads, but there have been a lot of good articles about how many of them are actually more like economic migrants than privileged kids Grand Touring across Europe. However, starting this "lifestyle" during a pandemic is a really bad idea.
posted by lunasol at 2:23 PM on November 10, 2020 [7 favorites]


In August, Ms. Jacobs Stanton gave away most of her possessions, bought a Tesla and prepared to hit the open road with Taco, her golden retriever. “I had this image of a glorious, beautiful American landscape and mom-and-pop, Main Street U.S.A.,” she said.
"Then I realized that the neoliberal institutions I was part of had destroyed Main Street U.S.A. and made everyone still living there angry."
posted by clawsoon at 2:28 PM on November 10, 2020 [55 favorites]


and go to areas where employment is the problem and your presence improves things

I feel like there’s several assumptions in this statement that need unpacking/explaining.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 2:33 PM on November 10, 2020 [26 favorites]


METAFILTER: It ends with an offhand remark about how they are both hoping to retire by 38.
posted by philip-random at 2:44 PM on November 10, 2020 [5 favorites]


lazaruslong, you maybe haven't grasped that the rest of us ALSO are pissed off that we have to work too, and that this article is about people who maybe could afford to chill out a little bit and stay home instead of doing covid road trips or tying to be digital nomads. It costs money to be a nomad - possibly more than staying home would cost - and these are people who thought they could solve their problems by throwing money at them and then finding out the picture wasn't quite so rosy.

I'm equating them with being the businessman, not the fisherman. We're the fisherman, who works only as much as he needs to work in order to make sure his needs are met - and then, he stops. He's not on a cruise around the Carribbean, but he's also not tearing his hair out over the fishing fleet either.



I grasp what the article is about, and I grasp that other people are also pissed off that they have to work. I also grasp the point of the businessman / fisherman metaphor, and I grasp that the metaphor was deployed with the DNs in the article being the businessman correlates, and us plebs the fisherman correlates. I am pretty good at grasping things.

My comment was intended to convey that for me, the metaphor breaks down because the fisherman's solution is inadequate: it presumes that one works forever.

Yes, one can stop for the day and chill when you've caught enough to eat. That's great. But then you have to fish the next day. And the next. And the next. Until you die.

That's the part I don't particularly like. I'd much rather reach a point in life where I don't have to fish ever again. In the absence of a compassionate social contract, fishing more than I technically need now in order to reach a point where I never have to fish again seems to be my only choice.

Somewhat ironically, part of the appeal of global travel is the chance to find a society that is organized in a way that agrees with one's worldview, if one isn't getting that at home. Alas, COVID.
posted by lazaruslong at 2:47 PM on November 10, 2020 [12 favorites]


In the absence of a compassionate social contract, fishing more than I technically need now in order to reach a point where I never have to fish again seems to be my only choice.

I mean, I think those of us who relate to the fisherman do so because most of us don't even have that choice. I could fish 24/7 for 20 years and still never be able to retire. So I may as well quit fishing so damn hard, because I'm never gonna get to stop, and when I finally inevitably get this stupid fucking virus and die, at least I'll have some memories that don't involve fishing.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 2:55 PM on November 10, 2020 [38 favorites]


Going digital nomad means you move out of towns with insanely high rent, and severe homelessness problems, and go to areas where employment is the problem and your presence improves things.

As a digital nomad, I have to say...WTF? While we would like for that to happen, that's not how it works.

I hate-read this article like many other people. Being a digital nomad has tradeoffs! It gets lonely! You're often looking out the window at someplace you'd like to experience while you're working! Many of the things these people are complaining about are part of everyday DN life, they're just made a bit worse by the pandemic.
posted by rednikki at 3:05 PM on November 10, 2020 [4 favorites]


"NYT has three, often-intersecting types of profiles/interviewees:"

You missed the undecided voter who is a registered republican and has maxed out his donations to the republican candidate, and is married to a high ranking republican consultant and also has the same first name and last initial as the random on the street undecided voter interview from six weeks earlier.
posted by mikek at 3:20 PM on November 10, 2020 [21 favorites]


Going digital nomad means you move out of towns with insanely high rent, and severe homelessness problems, and go to areas where employment is the problem and your presence improves things.

Except the people in this article were staying in resorts and planning trips to Amsterdam. Not granting the gift of their presence to a hardscrabble down-on-its-luck rural town. I think there are stories people like to tell about digital nomads and then there are realities.
posted by Anonymous at 3:22 PM on November 10, 2020


You missed the undecided voter who is a registered republican and has maxed out his donations to the republican candidate, and is married to a high ranking republican consultant and also has the same first name and last initial as the random on the street undecided voter interview from six weeks earlier.

Oh, I loop them in under "GOP operative".
posted by Anonymous at 3:23 PM on November 10, 2020


All I can say is, I laughed out loud at the fact that this is an honest-to-god photo caption in the New York Times:

"After six months in Costa Rica, Austin Mao returned to the United States, where he has fewer opportunities to chop open coconuts knocked out of trees by monkeys."

Can confirm that, at least here in Detroit, the incidence of coconuts knocked out of trees by monkeys is in fact very low.
posted by tom_r at 3:44 PM on November 10, 2020 [20 favorites]


Nobody else want to comment on the business consultant who tried to claim political asylum in Portugal?
posted by MattWPBS at 4:04 PM on November 10, 2020 [8 favorites]


Um, it sounds like he successfully claimed political asylum in Portugal. Which, honestly, I'm not sure I'm even upset about.
posted by The Tensor at 4:31 PM on November 10, 2020 [9 favorites]


In March, Ryan McCumber, a business consultant, was stuck in Portugal. He had been traveling in Europe, and a comedy of errors and the sudden continentwide lockdown stranded him in a beach town in the Algarve with just four days of clothes while his dog and the rest of his luggage remained in Warsaw, a previous stop.

I want to know what happened to the dog.
posted by turbid dahlia at 4:35 PM on November 10, 2020 [15 favorites]


eh, if you ever want advice on how to do something like this, askme answered a bunch of questions for someone wanting to "move" to ecuador during these interesting time.
posted by i used to be someone else at 4:36 PM on November 10, 2020 [2 favorites]


A case study in why we (and some of us more than others) don't deserve dogs.
posted by mce at 4:37 PM on November 10, 2020 [8 favorites]


I was asked what my professional goals were I said "Not getting Covid and dying." When the manager said "Okay, but what about a little father out than that?" I replied "Retirement." We all chuckled and then moved on to talk about actual work projects, but at no point was I actually kidding.

Hee hee. Nobody asks me what my goals are because my job is dead end, but I would say "not getting Covid and dying" and "not getting fired." I honestly don't think retirement will still exist as an option in 20 years at the rate things are going.

“All we could do is sit by the pool or go to the gym,”

You poor baby, I say from my apartment with no pool or gym.

"name was the equivalent of a middle finger directed at all Californians."


I would guess "Fuck You Californians." We're used to it.

a nearby man with a weed whacker began roaring his motor. Ms. Adair-Smith told him that she was trying to salvage her career. He didn’t care.

Unshocked.

" With his visa already expired, Mr. McCumber went to the immigration bureau and asked for political asylum.
“I said, ‘Trump’s a dictator, my city is burning, and people are dying,’” he said, citing the president, protests against police violence and the virus. “They made a joke that I was the first person since the Vietnam War from America to ask for that.”
The government workers laughed, he said, and then approved an extension through the end of October. "


Hey, that worked.....

It is a reminder of the steep risks taken by the Covid Carpe Diem set. The reason this once-a-generation moment exists is the same reason most of us can’t go into the office or take a real vacation or eat inside a restaurant. Traveling risks sickness. Seizing the day risks sickness.

Duh.
posted by jenfullmoon at 4:38 PM on November 10, 2020 [2 favorites]


Misunderstood you, lazaruslong - my apologies.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:02 PM on November 10, 2020 [2 favorites]


no worries! fish for all! :)
posted by lazaruslong at 5:38 PM on November 10, 2020 [1 favorite]


Thing about the fisherman metaphor: it presumes that the immediate costs of living can be covered by fishing, plus it harks back to a lifestyle in which fewer fishermen got old, and lived with their daughters (or in the poorhouse) if they did. Modern fishermen are scrambling to cover costs, if, in fact, there are enough fish to go out for at all.
posted by Countess Elena at 6:03 PM on November 10, 2020 [4 favorites]


Who in the hell knows that their job needs reliable zoom and is shocked that relying on campground and fast food wifi was gonna be a bad time?!?
posted by nakedmolerats at 6:13 PM on November 10, 2020 [11 favorites]


I barked with astonished laughter at this: presence improves things and pretty responsible thing to do vis a vis gentrification.

How exactly does "presence improves things" work? How does mooching WI-FI from fast food joints contribute to the economy? People were told to shelter in place because less populated areas do not want travellers importing COVID-19 and stressing a healthcare system that doesn't have budgetary excess, unexpected burden on social services and utilities, etc. Do people with "presence" bring new jobs with them wherever they go? I mean beyond housecleaning service for expensive digs or adding a server to the evening shift.

And that "gentrification" thing? From another POV that is "pushing rents higher so locals cannot find housing". Pray tell, do explain to me the context around "responsible".

Like the article's example of them getting upset about the weedwacker, these digital nomads are shining a light on their world view: everything is all about them, planning is unnecessary (what do you mean the EU borders are closed?), and shocked surprised that posting on social media has consequences.

The first two people I called when I started taking long-term gigs abroad were my accountant and my attorney. Any response less than that guarantees headaches and wasted time.
posted by lemon_icing at 6:24 PM on November 10, 2020 [14 favorites]


Eventually, the couple took a 28-hour, two-layover trip to Amsterdam, where Mr. Malka was indeed turned away at customs. They retreated to London, where they promptly broke up.

He has been there since. “Cold, raining, depressing,” he said. “Those are the first three adjectives that come to mind.”
#muntz
It turns out there are drawbacks the trend stories and Instagram posts didn’t share.
ORLY
posted by flabdablet at 6:31 PM on November 10, 2020 [2 favorites]


Modern fishermen are scrambling to cover costs, if, in fact, there are enough fish to go out for at all

...largely, it has to be said, due to the efforts of modern businessmen.
posted by flabdablet at 6:36 PM on November 10, 2020 [3 favorites]


Can confirm that, at least here in Detroit, the incidence of coconuts knocked out of trees by monkeys is in fact very low

How are you on shark attacks?
posted by flabdablet at 6:41 PM on November 10, 2020 [1 favorite]


I'm a little bit surprised by the snark here. Going digital nomad means you move out of towns with insanely high rent, and severe homelessness problems, and go to areas where employment is the problem and your presence improves things. It's a pretty responsible thing to do vis a vis gentrification et cetera.

None of the people featured in the article is going to those places though. They are instead hitting up their favourite or bucket list vacation hot spot.

Who in the hell knows that their job needs reliable zoom and is shocked that relying on campground and fast food wifi was gonna be a bad time?!?

May I introduce you to the Tech Bro?
posted by Mitheral at 6:43 PM on November 10, 2020 [4 favorites]


It turns out there are drawbacks the trend stories and Instagram posts didn’t share.

I've read all 140 characters of information available on the subject and consider myself an expert.
posted by The Tensor at 7:57 PM on November 10, 2020 [2 favorites]


How are you on shark attacks?

Although I have not personally seen any sharks on the streets of Detroit, I cannot confirm their non-existence. To be on the safe side, I recommend we all stay inside for a while.
posted by tom_r at 9:40 PM on November 10, 2020 [3 favorites]


I'm a little bit surprised by the snark here.

I think there's at least 3 factors here.

1. Envy - I think almost everyone reading this has at some point thought, "if only I (or my household) could get to New Zealand (or other location where covid is more under control than it is in their locality) I could have an almost normal life again." Hearing about people that took the leap and got at least partially there pushes people's buttons.

Quarantine is especially brutal for non-introverts that live alone.

2. Anger - A lot of people are sacrificing this year. I'm in the class that I could be one of the people in the article but chose not to because traveling here and there is irresponsible and the money I could be blowing through to live in a Mexican resort or whatever is better put towards progressive politicians and food banks. Seeing someone who's made the greedy decision to advance their interests when so many others are making better decisions or don't have the privilege of doing so is going to provoke anger. Which leads into..

3. Clickbait - user eyeballs and user engagement is the closest thing to profit for online media these days, so I'm sure that the stories that were chosen to tell in the article were selected to provoke as much rage, err, engagement as possible. I guarantee that there are stories that could be told of people very similar to the ones in this story that aren't nearly so navel gazey that were left to the side because it wouldn't get as many clicks or angry comments,
posted by Candleman at 9:46 PM on November 10, 2020 [24 favorites]


I know it's a NYT piece, but I was hoping it might include more non-US perspectives on the tax / visa complications than it did.

In Vietnam, the borders have been effectively closed to non-citizens since February or March. There are a lot of people who are residents but not citizens, and many of them happened to be out of the country when the borders closed, so they have been unable to return, and currently waiting it out in third countries.

Lots of people have been able to continue working remotely of course, but I am curious what happens to those who find themselves stuck for 6+ months - e.g. if they risk becoming tax residents where they're stuck, esp. if they aren't technically permitted to be working there. (My impression is that there may be quite a few digital nomads now in that position in SE Asia)
posted by a very present absence at 2:16 AM on November 11, 2020 [3 favorites]


I think there's at least 3 factors here

In addition to those you identified, I can personally attest to

4. Massive enjoyment of schadenfreude at the expense of the kind of well-groomed, self-satisfied, wilfully ignorant, entitled nuff-nuff who has spent their entire time on earth making things just that tiny bit worse for everybody whose orbit they intersect.

We've all met these people. We recognize them instinctively on sight. And it's just joyous to see them get a bit of the well-deserved comeuppance they've apparently been successfully dodging up to this point.

The Just World is such a beautiful illusion. Watching it appear to operate in real life is just viscerally satisfying.
posted by flabdablet at 3:24 AM on November 11, 2020 [14 favorites]


Lots of people have been able to continue working remotely of course, but I am curious what happens to those who find themselves stuck for 6+ months - e.g. if they risk becoming tax residents where they're stuck, esp. if they aren't technically permitted to be working there. (My impression is that there may be quite a few digital nomads now in that position in SE Asia)

I'm in the UK, work for a large multi-national with locations across Europe, and we had an alert from our HR in July about people who were working remotely in a different country to normal. There's social security implications if you're in one of the EU countries for 30 working days, and tax implications if you're working there for 183 days. That's for someone with the right to work.
posted by MattWPBS at 3:35 AM on November 11, 2020 [1 favorite]


Who in the hell knows that their job needs reliable zoom and is shocked that relying on campground and fast food wifi was gonna be a bad time?!?

I see people struggling with home internet during meetings all the time; I would not expect that free parking lot wifi would be nearly adequate for actual business purposes.

I completely, totally understand the impulse to be pretty much anywhere else right now. And it is galling to have the most freedom many have ever had in terms of working remotely, and be stuck in your own house/apartment all the time. But if you are going to go live the digital nomad life, you need to be smarter about it than the people profiled in this article.

That, and/or a lot of family money. The NYT is really keen on "human stories" about how, say, plain ol' Joe decided to quit his job and live on a farm. But they leave out how Joe inherited the farm along with a million bucks from a great aunt.

This. I wish these profile pieces came with a "for full disclosure" box that would give those details: "Mr and Mrs Smith inherited $4m and their startup handcrafted tablecloth business was funded by grandma"
posted by Dip Flash at 5:52 AM on November 11, 2020 [10 favorites]


Going digital nomad means you move out of towns with insanely high rent, and severe homelessness problems, and go to areas where employment is the problem and your presence improves things. It's a pretty responsible thing to do vis a vis gentrification et cetera.

Yeah, no, I don't think that's how that works. I moved to a small, semirural town four years ago with my remote job, not quite in the severely depressed area but right on the border of it, and I am definitely digital but in no way a nomad. We bought a house, shop as locally as possible, my wife ran for local office and we live here now. That, I can make a case for being of use to the local economy. Blowing into a tourist town and abusing the McDonald's wifi and living off of an AirBnB income, not so much.
posted by restless_nomad at 6:27 AM on November 11, 2020 [16 favorites]


All I see here is poor planning and a sense of entitlement. I've been a digital nomad for 8 years and neither I nor the community at large thinks or behaves like this. People and articles like this give careful and respectful digital nomads a bad name. Plus it discourages people who actually do have the desire and situation to make this transition.

I'm currently working as a financial analyst. Most nomads are programmers or digital marketers though. I've never met an AirBnB shark, and I'm sure they're out there, but they are a minority.

And believe me, I really thought about hopping countries when this all started. But I wasnt comfortable inflicting my presence on a small town's limited medical infrastructure. Because as a nomad, you ARE infringing on locals.

Your presence does not in any improve the economy, what an infuriatingly conceited notion. I try (as do my colleagues) to keep my head down, use my own internet (no, you dont have to mooch, you can pay for cell data on a usb stick in many countries), and be as kind and generous as possible to everyone, especially if they are doing me a favor.
posted by ananci at 7:35 AM on November 11, 2020 [16 favorites]


"This. I wish these profile pieces came with a 'for full disclosure' box that would give those details: 'Mr and Mrs Smith inherited $4m and their startup handcrafted tablecloth business was funded by grandma'"

I believe that's implied by the NYT banner.
posted by kevinbelt at 7:47 AM on November 11, 2020 [2 favorites]


I am definitely digital but in no way a nomad
posted by restless_nomad at 9:27 on November 11


Hmmmm
posted by briank at 8:44 AM on November 11, 2020 [10 favorites]


All I see here is poor planning and a sense of entitlement.

Precisely. And with that sense of entitlement comes a plea to the rest of us for sympathy, because their pipe dreams did not pan out or go the way they expected.

And that is the source of the snark, I think - it's not the concept of "digital nomadism" as such, it's directed at the people who read one article about digital nomadism and thought "oh that sounds easy!" and didn't do the due diligence.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:48 AM on November 11, 2020 [3 favorites]


Hmmmm

Believe me, I know. :P
posted by restless_nomad at 9:01 AM on November 11, 2020 [3 favorites]


“I had this image of a glorious, beautiful American landscape and mom-and-pop, Main Street U.S.A.,” she said.

Christ, they boarded up Main Street thirty years ago when Walmart killed all the local retailers and the factory jobs moved away. These people live in a fantasy land. I mean, this is what Main Street USA looks like in 2020.
posted by octothorpe at 9:40 AM on November 11, 2020 [11 favorites]


Thirty years ago is right because my hometowns Main Street looked like that when Bush was sworn in in 2000.

I don't even want to know how bad it looks today.
posted by deadaluspark at 10:09 AM on November 11, 2020


Christ, they boarded up Main Street thirty years ago when Walmart killed all the local retailers and the factory jobs moved away. These people live in a fantasy land. I mean, this is what Main Street USA looks like in 2020.

WalMart was more a of a symptom than a cause - main street was boarded up earlier than 30 years ago in most places as small towns became suburbs without a major city attached, and people moved farther and farther from downtown. 1965 (55 years ago) would be my generic starting year, though the degridiation continued for 30+ years.
posted by The_Vegetables at 10:36 AM on November 11, 2020 [1 favorite]


Me, before reading this article: Welp, this is going to be a real pile-on.
Me, after reading this article, while diving in, elbow out, teeth bared: YAAARRRRGH
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:56 AM on November 11, 2020 [6 favorites]


We're past this not, but I genuinely though the point of the fisherman joke was that the fisherman genuinely liked fishing. He didn't care/need to profit off of it because it was the thing he loved doing, therefore he was spending his retirement relaxing and doing it.
posted by thivaia at 12:41 PM on November 11, 2020


For me, the point was that the businessman was a destructive, delusional, blinkered, short-sighted fool with no remaining shred of a grasp of the bleeding obvious.
posted by flabdablet at 1:02 PM on November 11, 2020


1. Context gets lost online. I see from the URL that this was in the NYT Business section, but it mostly reads like you know the next couple of pages will be covered with engagement and wedding photos.

2. This is all part of the progressive wing's plan to temporarily move excess voters from the coasts to low-population states long enough to legally vote there and swing enough of the senate and legislatures back to normalcy that the country can get back on track, right? Where do I sign up, and sorry if I revealed the secret.
posted by morspin at 1:23 PM on November 11, 2020


Who in the hell knows that their job needs reliable zoom and is shocked that relying on campground and fast food wifi was gonna be a bad time?!?

May I introduce you to the Tech Bro?


Wait until you hear what Evian costs.
posted by snuffleupagus at 2:06 PM on November 11, 2020 [2 favorites]


Well...

We considered something like this. Not only hearing that Barbados, I think it was, was doing a PR push to entice such digital nomads, a quickly discarded fantasy, but how about?

In October, we rent an RV, we go hit Arches via Yellowstone, then likely swing back through the Bay area to see our adult son, who we haven't seen in nearly two years I think. We have our own bathroom and living space, we will be out in areas we can distance, kids and spouse can do their school/work online...

The new puppy, and the fact that no one we've used before really wants to housesit in these times, or deal with the puppy havoc, was what nixed it, but, it was a close run thing. Would have failed spectacularly.
posted by Windopaene at 2:06 PM on November 11, 2020


The businessman's plan also depends on subjugating others in order to skim off the benefits of their labor. Also there is a bit of probable over exploitation of the resource.
posted by Mitheral at 2:27 PM on November 11, 2020 [1 favorite]



2. This is all part of the progressive wing's plan to temporarily move excess voters from the coasts to low-population states long enough to legally vote there and swing enough of the senate and legislatures back to normalcy that the country can get back on track, right?


Really takes too many people to do that, even in the low-population states. Progressives can't even pull it off in Maine, even though it's on the eastern seaboard and its largest city apparently only has 66k in population.
posted by The_Vegetables at 2:59 PM on November 11, 2020


Enh, this is already ticking me off. I know a bunch of DNs who quarantined and masked up in their travels, unlike a bunch of non-nomads in the US. And they did their homework before decamping to the next place.

"Stay home, work like a dog" ... sounds just like what the boss class wants.
posted by Sheydem-tants at 4:41 PM on November 11, 2020 [4 favorites]


This is not just a US issue. SE Asia is full of stranded Australian digital nomads. There are DNs stuck in Bali who have gone over there to work in a tropical paradise (instagramming their yoga poses from a rice paddy field) only to have the island get hit by the rona.

Their work dries up and they start running out of cash. That’s ok, right? Just go home. Whoops, Australia has locked down its borders. There are no flight out of Bali. They missed the window to get back into the country and their homeland is no longer accepting them. The Balinese government wants them gone and tell them that they’ve overstayed their welcome and have to leave, what’s more they’ll get fined $100 every day that they overstay or face imprisonments. At this point most of them have burnt through their cash ages ago. Even if they had the money, countries like Singapore won’t accept them. They can’t go but they’re not allowed to stay either.

The streets are empty, the hotels have been abandoned and the Balinese hospitals are full. Digital nomads stuck in Bali on visas are screwed right now. I can only imagine a lot of Asia is the same. Paradise lost. And if that’s the (comparatively) wealthy DNs, imagine how much harder hit the locals are without the tourist dollar.
posted by Jubey at 2:39 PM on November 12, 2020 [3 favorites]


FWIW, some of the DN folks that I most respect and follow online were surprised this wasn't parody, that's how bad they found it.

they thought it was too mean? it's not too mean. unless any of the quotes are outright manufactured, it's a great article. "parody" is not the only kind of joke in the world.
posted by queenofbithynia at 6:10 AM on November 13, 2020


Too mean? No. Sorry, I probably didn't express myself well.

Respectable DN folks are like:
"I at first thought it was parody. But it doesn't seem to be! I did an interview a few years ago about digital nomadism & wasn't included because I was 'not positive'. I said no discussion of DNs should exclude privilege and geoarbitrage & the impacts of those. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯"
So I got the sense that reading this article they hoped it was parody (the coconut tree quote is so absurd that I can't really fault them for being fooled at first) because the DNs mentioned are so incredibly awful, and the utter failure of the Times to contextualize the awfulness of these people in the larger story of DN colonialism and privilege made it seem at first pass like a non-serious fluff article bordering on a weak attempt at a joke.
"The issue with the article is not the accuracy of the stories in it, but the entitlement and privilege dripping throughout."
I would submit that the article is not great, because it functions only as a hate-click and, given a perfect opportunity to explore the actual important issues re: DN travel during a pandemic, entitlement, geoarbitrage and so on, failed to even examine the individual privilege of these dingbats much less grapple with larger systemic trends.
posted by lazaruslong at 7:09 AM on November 13, 2020 [1 favorite]


While it isn't international, so not entirely the same thing, I have friends whose coworkers are so excited to stay in Hawaii for a few months while their mainland-based jobs are entirely work-from-home; they're not truly "digital nomands," as it's temporary, but it's close. They don't seem to have considered at all that Hawaii does not need mainlanders there spreading COVID.
posted by The corpse in the library at 10:34 AM on November 13, 2020 [1 favorite]


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