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If Digital Nomad Culture Feels Douchey, There’s an Alternative
Exhausted? Unfulfilled? Constipated?
I get mislabeled as many things, some of which can be repeated in mixed company, but the one that annoys me the most is “Digital Nomad”. I get why people would think that’s what I am. I live in Europe and my entire income stream is generated either onto or out from the internet. I pay weird taxes and work in my pajamas. My office is whatever seating is currently in a sunbeam and yes, I’ve been known to drink on the job. However, I am about as far from a nomad as a person could possibly get. In fact, I’m oak-tree dug in and I worked my ass off to get here. So, when someone confuses me for a laptop jockey, I do get my knickers in a twist.
And before we get started, this is clearly written with #notalldigitalnomads in mind, so don’t make it weird.
I’ve seen the Digital Nomad (let’s use DN like the cool kids) crowd here in Italy, though most of them have not discovered the part where I live because it’s neither Rome nor the Amalfi Coast. When they do show up in my area, they are usually trying really hard to make it look like it’s normal to linger in a cafe for six hours over a tiny cup of coffee that takes .036 seconds to drink. They travel in pairs or small groups, always seem to be dressed like they are on the lamb from an ashram in Goa, and talk REALLY LOUD on the phone in English while pacing the piazzas. They don’t blend in because they are not trying to blend in.
I belong to everywhere and nowhere, dude. I Zoom where the wind and my Tevas will take me.
Sure.
The problem with the DM culture is the “nomad” part. By definition, you don’t want to be a part of something concrete and enduring. You want to wiggle about in pursuit of something, which if we are to understand, is some poorly defined wanderlust that involves both bucking the system and also getting paid by it. Then you complain when the others in your peer group of vagabonds are equally disinterested in creating a relationship with you. What, exactly, did you expect–a secret handshake? A fellowship of wifi pirates? A union of hostel apologists? You also complain that the countries you are passing through on your way to Elysium aren’t showering you in hospitality and…
