- A Canadian traveller criticized foreign vloggers for racist, selective coverage of India
- She highlighted vloggers focus on India's poorest areas to gain views through shock value
- The traveller shared positive experiences of India's hospitality and diverse landscapes
A video of a Canadian traveller slamming foreign content creators' "racist" and selective coverage of India has gone viral on social media. In the video, she accused vloggers of exclusively filming India's poorest and most chaotic areas to generate more views and engagement through "shock value." She argued that reducing a vast, diverse country to a single crowded street is "unfair and disgusting," noting that influencers rarely do this for other Asian nations like Vietnam.
Sharing her own positive experiences in Delhi and Rishikesh, she highlighted India's top-notch hospitality, luxury hotels, and varied landscapes - mountains, deserts, rainforests. She explained that these one-sided portrayals feed into global racial biases and negative stereotypes against Indian people.
"A Canadian woman pointed out how many foreign vloggers come to India and film only the poorest, most crowded areas like Old Delhi for views. In other countries, they focus on scenic beauty, but in India, poverty and chaos bring more clicks," the video was captioned on X.
Watch the video here:
The video, which urged creators to provide a more balanced view, sparked widespread online debate regarding "poverty tourism" and ethical photography.
One user wrote, "Hate against India generates attention, and the troubling part is that it's not only outsiders fueling it; there are also willing brown sepoys, both within the country and abroad, who eagerly contribute to it."
Another commented, "Unless people are united, stand up for the cause of the nation, and support each other when faced with challenges, such practices will go on. An outsider can only show the bad part when the insiders are fighting within for some other, mostly irrelevant, cause."
"She spit out the fact. How Western media/foreigners play a one-sided narrative to defame India. They are simply jealous," a third user stated.
