When I geotag, I generally geotag locations but mostly in more vague ways -- Novi Sad, Serbian; Lake Como, Italy. I can't recall the last time I geotagged something super specific that might be a secret.
And tagging/geotagging basically seems ruined anyway. I used to go to Instagram to look at places we're going to live next and to get an idea of what there might be to see. But now it's pointless because as you pointed out, it's mostly butts.
Seriously, go search #novisad on Instagram. It's almost all spam. So I don't even bother anymore.
It's so hard not to feel little more than people ruin everything.
Love all the points touched by this essay. I think calling attention to whatever it is that pleases one is great to share as a concept (in this case photo) and thus inspire others to be motivated by the post to discover what that might mean to them. Who knows they might actually stumble into your town and recognize your photos or they may be in Europe admiring a different trail, a different peak, but still finding their joy.
Now I understand why you don't share the location. It makes perfect sense. Some of my past geographical locations are now overpopulated and going back brings much sadness and reflection of memories from another day. So, kudos for explaining this.
I understand the privacy, but I won't be upset if you share a view or two once in a while :)
I don't geotag. I admit I didn't really know it was a "thing" but I long ago turned off most location services on my phone and I've never turned it on for a camera. When I post to eBird I don't "record my track" because honestly, I don't want people being able to figure out exactly where I'm walking by myself every morning with a reasonably expensive camera. Sometimes people will ask where I take my sunrise shots and I will tell them the name of the park and I post to eBird in a generic park location - so I am sharing information about that place, just without the exact details. Maybe it's born out of having had a stalker in the 90s which was scary AF, or being a GenXer who spent plenty of time with the instruction not to tell anyone I was home alone.
In the birding world there are people I call "chasers" and these people really don't like it that I don't post exact details of where I saw a bird. They want to "get it" for their year list or whatever not because they love the place or the birds but because it's a trophy hunt. The ones that get annoyed with me not posting the exact location are always those people. Occasionally someone will ask me about an unusual bird and if I know who they are and they are asking offline I may tell them. This is one of those gray areas. In part it's to protect the bird, especially if it's a truly rare bird that might stick around a while (think Snowy Owl, which I have never yet seen but would be one of those I would hesitate to even report to eBird until it was gone). The other reason is selfish. I have had the experience of posting something and then having my usual peace and quiet every morning for the next week disturbed by people who just want to see the bird through binoculars and don't give a rats ass about peace, quiet and beauty. This is where my friend tells me I'm too protective and curmudgeonly. And. It's the only peace and quiet I get in my day before my day is filled with people needing things from me at work. Like I said, it's a gray area.
(Where I am is a public park. If they want to they can easily figure out the lay of the land. There are maps online and it's not that big. It's also not the safest neighborhood, I would never go there alone at night. And I do post something like a gull that's out flying around in the water vs a perched bird like a snowy.)
I geotag every single location I go to as Quandary Peak.
Really glad you tackled this topic. When I was a kid, my favorite cartoon was Rocket Power. In one of their episodes, the gang went to a surfing spot that was a cool destination for them, but home to the actual locals. They got a ton of pushback from those locals because they came in with zero respect for the place. Problem is: when you're geotagging, you don't know if the people who see your post have respect -- or don't.
I had this conversation with Eddie Taylor -- one of the members of the Full Circle Everest expedition, shortly before they became part of the first all-Black crew to summit the peak. He took the stance that newcomers will never develop reverence for the outdoors if they're gatekept and treated as outsiders. I see his point, but I think there will always be the group that just does not care what they trash.
I don't see a good solution here, other than maybe sharing about the places we love, offline. I think this balances things out, and also encourages people to seek each other out in the real world and build connections that aren't behind a screen.
Loved this post. I create precarious, ephemeral structures in the woods (meaning I am alone in the woods all the time) and will sometimes tag the location when I post to Insta, but only if I'm no longer in the woods. Although it's fun when someone finds what I built before it falls apart, I myself do NOT want to be found, ever.
This was the sentence that got me this week, “We don’t have to give everything to Instagram when what we’re really missing is giving things to each other.”
I sometimes geotag, sometimes don’t, because I agree that it kind of doesn’t matter.
I generally like sharing travel recs and sometimes technology makes that easier.
I always tell people where I am in a picture if they ask. I like to tag local businesses in case it gives them a boost. I like to make mini travel guides in Google Docs and have the links passed around to friends of friends (of friends).
Mostly, I think people will always share (and gatekeep) places they love, in both cases, because they love them.
Geotagging is just the latest iteration of how. Before it was travel blogs or TripAdvisor rankings or Frommer’s Guides. Some other form of sharing will replace it eventually, and trigger a whole other conversation about who gets to enjoy what.
Even as an avid pre-travel researcher, I wonder if that path to discovery will ever feel as good as just stumbling upon it yourself.
I liked this, and I also agree that at the end of the day, Instagram is mainly about butts. I remember when I was trying to figure out where I wanted to move and I looked at the geo-tag for Tucson and it was just a sea of scantily clad sorority sisters, extremely impractically dressed hikers doing questionable things at overlooks and also margaritas and I was like idk if these are my people?! but truly, if you look up almost any city or town the top photos are going to be similar and it doesn't really speak to the essence of a place, but the nature of the algorithm...and also of human's desire for butts.
I wish I had a more thoughtful POV on geo-tagging. I do it sometimes and don't others. I do feel like my experience needing S&R on a hike that was not especially remote nor necessarily dangerous and therefore why I was stupidly ill-prepared for it, was a bit of a wake-up call. It is not that important to me to seek out adventure at the expense of my or others' safety. There are several hikes I've done that I also felt were dangerously overcrowded and I never shared or tagged those because it just felt inconsistent with my values at the time to do so (and luckily in those cases I now see them issuing passes by permit to quell traffic, which is good). I think that a good rule of thumb is if you do share a photo from a hike/vista, share the whole story, the line of people you waited in to get it, etc. So many people go these places seeking peace and connection to nature and ultimately, that is something you can find truly in your own backyard.
KELTON! This is a follow up to a comment I made in early July and you told me to report back…I AM OBSESSED WITH DANCECHURCH!!!!!!!!!! I love love love love love it. I hope to take an in person class sometime but I’m okay with the on demand subscription for now. Thank you SO much for the suggestion!
I don’t geotag much, except when I make funny ones. Mostly because I am lazy. I laughed out loud when I read your observation about Geotagging butts. So true.
Social is such a weird space for me. I feel I can get sucked into the experience feeling more real than it is. Sometimes I wonder if geotagging is just there to make something “feel” more real, even though a minute video or a set of slides is not as real as a walk on the grass/ dirt, outside ones door— that’s me talking to myself after perusing all the pretty pictures on the screens for more time than I will admit.
I love this newsletter. All the parts. On Saturdays, I sometimes forget and scroll through my endless blue dots of email looking for yours… and then I realize it’s tomorrow, Sunday. Just that little moment of expectation and long makes my weekend longer.
Again, thanks for sharing this journey. Your writing encourages mine. ❤️
When I geotag, I generally geotag locations but mostly in more vague ways -- Novi Sad, Serbian; Lake Como, Italy. I can't recall the last time I geotagged something super specific that might be a secret.
And tagging/geotagging basically seems ruined anyway. I used to go to Instagram to look at places we're going to live next and to get an idea of what there might be to see. But now it's pointless because as you pointed out, it's mostly butts.
Seriously, go search #novisad on Instagram. It's almost all spam. So I don't even bother anymore.
It's so hard not to feel little more than people ruin everything.
Love all the points touched by this essay. I think calling attention to whatever it is that pleases one is great to share as a concept (in this case photo) and thus inspire others to be motivated by the post to discover what that might mean to them. Who knows they might actually stumble into your town and recognize your photos or they may be in Europe admiring a different trail, a different peak, but still finding their joy.
Well done.
Nope. Never have I ever.
But that's probably because I'm an old lady.
Now I understand why you don't share the location. It makes perfect sense. Some of my past geographical locations are now overpopulated and going back brings much sadness and reflection of memories from another day. So, kudos for explaining this.
I understand the privacy, but I won't be upset if you share a view or two once in a while :)
I don't geotag. I admit I didn't really know it was a "thing" but I long ago turned off most location services on my phone and I've never turned it on for a camera. When I post to eBird I don't "record my track" because honestly, I don't want people being able to figure out exactly where I'm walking by myself every morning with a reasonably expensive camera. Sometimes people will ask where I take my sunrise shots and I will tell them the name of the park and I post to eBird in a generic park location - so I am sharing information about that place, just without the exact details. Maybe it's born out of having had a stalker in the 90s which was scary AF, or being a GenXer who spent plenty of time with the instruction not to tell anyone I was home alone.
In the birding world there are people I call "chasers" and these people really don't like it that I don't post exact details of where I saw a bird. They want to "get it" for their year list or whatever not because they love the place or the birds but because it's a trophy hunt. The ones that get annoyed with me not posting the exact location are always those people. Occasionally someone will ask me about an unusual bird and if I know who they are and they are asking offline I may tell them. This is one of those gray areas. In part it's to protect the bird, especially if it's a truly rare bird that might stick around a while (think Snowy Owl, which I have never yet seen but would be one of those I would hesitate to even report to eBird until it was gone). The other reason is selfish. I have had the experience of posting something and then having my usual peace and quiet every morning for the next week disturbed by people who just want to see the bird through binoculars and don't give a rats ass about peace, quiet and beauty. This is where my friend tells me I'm too protective and curmudgeonly. And. It's the only peace and quiet I get in my day before my day is filled with people needing things from me at work. Like I said, it's a gray area.
(Where I am is a public park. If they want to they can easily figure out the lay of the land. There are maps online and it's not that big. It's also not the safest neighborhood, I would never go there alone at night. And I do post something like a gull that's out flying around in the water vs a perched bird like a snowy.)
I geotag every single location I go to as Quandary Peak.
Really glad you tackled this topic. When I was a kid, my favorite cartoon was Rocket Power. In one of their episodes, the gang went to a surfing spot that was a cool destination for them, but home to the actual locals. They got a ton of pushback from those locals because they came in with zero respect for the place. Problem is: when you're geotagging, you don't know if the people who see your post have respect -- or don't.
I had this conversation with Eddie Taylor -- one of the members of the Full Circle Everest expedition, shortly before they became part of the first all-Black crew to summit the peak. He took the stance that newcomers will never develop reverence for the outdoors if they're gatekept and treated as outsiders. I see his point, but I think there will always be the group that just does not care what they trash.
I don't see a good solution here, other than maybe sharing about the places we love, offline. I think this balances things out, and also encourages people to seek each other out in the real world and build connections that aren't behind a screen.
Loved this post. I create precarious, ephemeral structures in the woods (meaning I am alone in the woods all the time) and will sometimes tag the location when I post to Insta, but only if I'm no longer in the woods. Although it's fun when someone finds what I built before it falls apart, I myself do NOT want to be found, ever.
This was the sentence that got me this week, “We don’t have to give everything to Instagram when what we’re really missing is giving things to each other.”
I sometimes geotag, sometimes don’t, because I agree that it kind of doesn’t matter.
I generally like sharing travel recs and sometimes technology makes that easier.
I always tell people where I am in a picture if they ask. I like to tag local businesses in case it gives them a boost. I like to make mini travel guides in Google Docs and have the links passed around to friends of friends (of friends).
Mostly, I think people will always share (and gatekeep) places they love, in both cases, because they love them.
Geotagging is just the latest iteration of how. Before it was travel blogs or TripAdvisor rankings or Frommer’s Guides. Some other form of sharing will replace it eventually, and trigger a whole other conversation about who gets to enjoy what.
Even as an avid pre-travel researcher, I wonder if that path to discovery will ever feel as good as just stumbling upon it yourself.
I liked this, and I also agree that at the end of the day, Instagram is mainly about butts. I remember when I was trying to figure out where I wanted to move and I looked at the geo-tag for Tucson and it was just a sea of scantily clad sorority sisters, extremely impractically dressed hikers doing questionable things at overlooks and also margaritas and I was like idk if these are my people?! but truly, if you look up almost any city or town the top photos are going to be similar and it doesn't really speak to the essence of a place, but the nature of the algorithm...and also of human's desire for butts.
I wish I had a more thoughtful POV on geo-tagging. I do it sometimes and don't others. I do feel like my experience needing S&R on a hike that was not especially remote nor necessarily dangerous and therefore why I was stupidly ill-prepared for it, was a bit of a wake-up call. It is not that important to me to seek out adventure at the expense of my or others' safety. There are several hikes I've done that I also felt were dangerously overcrowded and I never shared or tagged those because it just felt inconsistent with my values at the time to do so (and luckily in those cases I now see them issuing passes by permit to quell traffic, which is good). I think that a good rule of thumb is if you do share a photo from a hike/vista, share the whole story, the line of people you waited in to get it, etc. So many people go these places seeking peace and connection to nature and ultimately, that is something you can find truly in your own backyard.
KELTON! This is a follow up to a comment I made in early July and you told me to report back…I AM OBSESSED WITH DANCECHURCH!!!!!!!!!! I love love love love love it. I hope to take an in person class sometime but I’m okay with the on demand subscription for now. Thank you SO much for the suggestion!
I don’t geotag much, except when I make funny ones. Mostly because I am lazy. I laughed out loud when I read your observation about Geotagging butts. So true.
Social is such a weird space for me. I feel I can get sucked into the experience feeling more real than it is. Sometimes I wonder if geotagging is just there to make something “feel” more real, even though a minute video or a set of slides is not as real as a walk on the grass/ dirt, outside ones door— that’s me talking to myself after perusing all the pretty pictures on the screens for more time than I will admit.
I love this newsletter. All the parts. On Saturdays, I sometimes forget and scroll through my endless blue dots of email looking for yours… and then I realize it’s tomorrow, Sunday. Just that little moment of expectation and long makes my weekend longer.
Again, thanks for sharing this journey. Your writing encourages mine. ❤️