Steph:
Where was the first place that you lived overseas?

Summer:
Uh, Germany. I have only lived in the one other place.

Steph:
So it was 2015 that you moved to Germany, correct?

Summer:
That's right. Mm-hmm.

Steph:
In the before time, what kind of social media stuff were you, or social media or internet stuff were you doing online before you went to Germany?

Summer:
Well, I've been online for quite some time. Let's see, I'm 34 now and I was probably what, 11 or 12 maybe when I started. Poking around on the internet. So I've been around a long time.

Steph:
What was the first thing that got you online?

Summer:
I don't even remember how it came about. I think, I mean, I remember we had dial-up internet and for some reason I was really into like goldfish or something at the time. And so I remember just like tooling around the internet, like researching goldfish stuff. I don't know why.

Steph:
Oh, that's so cute. Did you have goldfish?

Summer:
No, I didn't even have a goldfish. That's the weird thing. I guess I must have wanted one.

Steph:
This is digging back a little while, but did you find any super fun information about goldfish that you still remember?

Summer:
There was some forum, you know, like Goldfish Pet Owners Forum, something like that. I vaguely remember. But what really kind of ramped up my internet experience is that I was also showing dogs at that age, I guess. I was, you know, really interested in that. So that's kind of what got me into it. I found a chat room on MIRC and I don't know, it was hashtag show dogs and there was just a small group of us that would sign on all the time and we got to know each other really well back then. Spoke for years and I'm actually still connected with a couple of them on Facebook. We don't correspond directly anymore, but I'm still, you know, I know they still exist.

Steph:
You said MIRC, what is that?

Summer:
It was some kind of just like chat program back in the day. It's, it's been long gone. I think it started out as just IRC and then it was mIRC and I don't know exactly what those differences were, but it's, it's old. Fair enough.

Steph:
So it was just a chat room.

Summer:
Yeah, just a chat room. You, you would find topics by like hashtags, so they were almost hashtagging before it was cool. Wow.

Steph:
I missed that step somehow. I was going to say my first chat room, I think, was in 2003 when I lived in, when I moved to Taiwan. And it was sort of like a new-to-Taiwan kind of chat room called T-Lit. It was like a website for expats, and they also had a really populated chat room. But I think I actually was on chat rooms previously when I lived in Los Angeles for like dating purposes, but that was generally not the same people. It was like meet and date or meet and block kind of thing. Right. So yeah, usually more of the latter.

Summer:
Yeah.

Steph:
Chat rooms when you were 11. Okay.

Summer:
Wait. Well, yeah, maybe. I mean, my memory is scrambled, but it was like around then when I was getting into it and then, you know, so like from 13, 14 on, uh, I think this would've still been within the dog showing realm. And then at some point, let's see, then that would've been high school after that. The next step for me would've been cars. I, I was really into cars. And so, um, That, that was, I don't even know how that happened, but I started looking around for my first car when I was 15 and I just got really into it. I just was very interested in this. My first car was a 1993 Ford Probe GT, and I found an online forum all about those cars. It was probetalk.com. I was very involved in that forum. And so, uh, that actually was probably like the, I guess the tipping point for my online life because I actually met my first boyfriend, I guess you could say, on that forum. At the time I was living in Oregon, he lived in South Carolina, and things ended up getting, I was not 15 at this time, okay? This is a couple years later, so nothing creepy, nothing creepy. Um, but long story short, uh, we did meet in person and things, you know, got serious, and I did end up moving to South Carolina because of this internet forum. About cars.

Steph:
So how long were you guys connected online before you moved to where he was?

Summer:
You know, a year and a half, maybe 2 years that we would interact on the forum and kind of like chat privately. And then he came to Oregon to visit and then he ended up moving to Oregon. I think he was there for about a year and then we went to South Carolina after that. Yeah, I guess I probably knew him in total maybe about 2 years. Yeah, I, I, it was about that, I think, uh, before I was—

Steph:
Yeah, that's, that's a really healthy amount of time to get to know someone.

Summer:
Well, wow.

Steph:
Okay. So, so far we've got a lot of group chatting online. Uh, when did you venture over into like what people think of social media-wise today, like the Facebook and the Twitter and the Instagram and that kind of stuff?

Summer:
I think the first part of that would probably be AOL Instant Messenger. That was pretty big and you would leave. You know, like the, the passive-aggressive away messages depending on who you were upset with, or it was just some ridiculous, um, that was probably the first social media and then Facebook probably came after that. Um, I did join Facebook still back when you had to have a university address in order to sign up. Yeah, it's been a while.

Steph:
Was the AOL experience, that was still chat room? Cause I know they had email and some other stuff, right?

Summer:
I didn't use AOL for anything other than the instant messenger. Email would've been through, I think, Yahoo at the time. And, um, yeah, Internet Explorer or something for the browser. So yeah, I was just using AOL for instant messenger and that was really just to connect with specific people. I was not looking for random friends or anything at that time. This was just to connect with people I already knew and would interact with. On a regular basis.

Steph:
Oh, that's kind of a switch then, cuz the other two bits were the chat rooms and forum. Those were with people that you didn't necessarily know in person, is that right?

Summer:
Yeah, that's right. Mm-hmm.

Steph:
But so when you moved over to AOL, the instant messaging stuff was with people that you knew in IRL.

Summer:
Yep, exactly. Mm-hmm.

Steph:
And then with Facebook, because it was connected to a university experience, were you connected with people you knew in real life, just online, or both?

Summer:
That was mostly people in real life. I think I, I never really loved Facebook a lot. I still don't care for it, you know, many years later. Uh, so it was kind of just one of those things. I think I signed up because everybody else was, you know, it just, it was one of those things like, oh, you're not on Facebook, why not? Um, but at the time that was the big platform, you know, Twitter wasn't really a thing. And, um, so that was kind of where you had to be. I guess, other than like MySpace or something.

Steph:
I remember MySpace.

Summer:
Yeah.

Steph:
It's like stroll down memory lane. There's too much and not enough to say about MySpace. Like I liked the idea of MySpace and it just never seemed to really get there.

Summer:
I agree.

Steph:
I'm trying to remember back to the beginning of Facebook. Do you remember what you were mostly doing on there? Where you could see like people posting messages.

Summer:
Yeah. And I guess you could say something like Summer is eating a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch or whatever people did then.

Steph:
Oh yeah. And they still do now, I imagine.

Summer:
Yeah.

Steph:
I've been off Facebook for a while, so I'm not fully aware of the current features.

Summer:
Yeah. My use of it now is completely different from what it was then. I use Facebook now exclusively for just groups, writing groups, freelancer, digital nomad, expat groups. I do not use it for you know, keeping in touch with anyone or to see what anyone's up to.

Steph:
Okay. I need your advice. There's a bunch of groups that I want to get in contact with that are on Facebook, but every time, and I've been on and off Facebook, actually I've been off for about 6 or 7 years now, but prior to that I was on and off and on and off and on and off. And I just, it was like, okay, I gotta just commit to one of them. So I committed to being off, but now I know there's the groups on there and I want to go in and participate with the groups, but I don't wanna be in the timeline. I don't wanna see what everybody ate for lunch, like you're talking about. I just, I don't want that. I want personal connections for personal connections, but I want the groups. How do you keep yourself off of that other side of it?

Summer:
It just don't connect with people that way. I don't add friends on Facebook anymore unless I'm adding someone to be included in a group or something like that. But you know, you can friend someone, but then they also have a follow unfollow, so you can remain friends with someone, but you can unfollow them and you will not see them in your feed at all, which is fantastic. That is what I have done. With probably 95% of the people that I'm friends with. I don't care about the daily life. So this has been the way that I've made Facebook manageable for myself now, because I just can't tolerate the, you know, it's a lot of multi-level marketing. It's a lot of, uh, you know, people posting pictures of their kids and other things that I'm just not interested in. So unfollow, get rid of all that. And now the only things that I see when I do go on Facebook are posts from the various groups that I'm in, and those are groups that I've chosen to be a part of.

Steph:
I didn't realize you could do that, because the last time I remember being on Facebook, like, if you were in a group, then every, all those people were in your feed, and I was just, I was having a really hard time, yeah, separating those two out. That is inspirational. Thank you. Because I didn't realize when I rejoined Instagram this year that they are part of the Facebook group. So my whole 'I hate Facebook' was kind of pointless at that point because I'm like, well, I'm on Instagram now, so Nah.

Summer:
I know. I, I had the same realization. Yeah.

Steph:
It was, it was not a pleasant moment cuz I was actually starting to like Instagram a lot. Yeah, I know. Right. And I was like, ah, yeah. I mean, it's changed so much with, with tiny videos. It's just, I, I really like just scrolling through and, and getting a moment of happiness and moving on with my day. Facebook always felt like I would fall in and then be like, wait, what just happened?

Summer:
And, and what was the point? Yeah.

Steph:
What was the point? And why do I know these things about those people that I barely know? It was just a weird level of intimacy. And yet not. Facebook, and then what was after Facebook? I guess Twitter.

Summer:
Twitter, probably. Uh, I know that I joined in 2009 because my profile says so. So I've been on Twitter for, I guess, coming up on 10 years next year.

Steph:
People have an extreme reaction to Twitter. They either really like it and find tons of people that they wanna follow, or they really hate it and just kind of don't delete their profile, but they're on there anyway.

Summer:
Uh, I've always liked it. And my use of it has gone through just tweeting random things that didn't mean anything to anyone, to curating a feed, much like with Facebook, you know, following specific people who are interested in the same things and going from there. I am happy on Twitter today. At this point, I'm mostly following travel expat people, uh, or, you know, local Germany expats. So, um, it's a pretty, pretty solid feed. It's mostly what I'm interested in doing. Of course, you still get the noise with the news and other ridiculous things, but that's it's easy enough to scroll past. Twitter, I think, is, it's entertainment. I don't really go there for, you know, any, any hard-hitting news or to really share any super exciting details or anything like that. It's, it's mostly just for entertainment purposes. And if I learn something along the way or meet some cool people, that's fine too.

Steph:
So you were quite an active online person before you moved to Germany.

Summer:
Yeah, definitely. Um, for sure. I, I've, I've always been someone who's interested in, in many different things and has multiple curiosities. So my use of the internet evolves with my interests. And I think for anyone, especially who started using the internet when they were young, the use changes with maturity as well. So, uh, you know, when you're young, you know, you're a teenager, you're, you're gonna say and do different things online than you are when you're in your mid-30s or, you know, that for sure affects it. Around this time, yeah, 2000, 9, something like that. 8, 9. That may have been when I was into running. I was kind of a runner, like not really, cuz I only ran one half marathon, but I was involved enough in that community following runners and had a little running blog. And, um, you know, so yeah, that's, that's mostly what I was using it for at that time. That's what I was interested in. And so those were the experiences that I sought out and then that just As with anything else, the ebb and flow of interests. That's what I find online.

Steph:
Okay. So between Twitter in 2009 and moving to Germany in 2015, were there any other social media or in internet or even websites that you went to heavily? Like what was there anything, was there any place online that you spent a lot of time?

Summer:
Instagram came around at some point. I honestly do not remember when I joined Instagram. Uh, I don't think I used it very heavily to begin with. I suppose I could scroll back, but it wasn't anything profound for me. I've only started taking Instagram like kind of seriously over the last, you know, 2 or 3 years. So yeah, to connect with people online, I, I kind of stay in the same realm. So I guess this has been Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. I never could get into Snapchat, you know, all these other programs that would just come and go. I just, it's kind of exhausting to get to know a new social media platform. And unless it's something I'm really into and really want to, I don't have the motivation to get involved and build up new followers or follow the same people and then see their same thing that I've already seen in 3 other places. You know, at a certain point enough is enough.

Steph:
Yeah, no, I getcha. I getcha. I went, I went, I went, I attended, I watched, I participated in an online podcast conference a few months ago. I don't even know what to say. It's online, but it feels real.

Summer:
Blah blah blah.

Steph:
And a lot of folks and I wanted to get together and do like a group, a podcaster's group. And so we ended up doing one on WhatsApp, which I've never used before. And I, I had a resistance to it because apparently I, I've downloaded it, tried it, didn't like it in like a day, and deleted it years ago. But I was like, ah, people are motivating me, I want to keep in contact with them. If this is where it needs to happen, that's where it needs to happen. But the functionality of WhatsApp kind of sucks compared to other apps. I really don't like it. It's based on a phone number, which is so weird when you're exchanging, like when you're finding someone, you have to ask for their phone number. Eh, what, what, who does that now? And it just, it, there are things that it can't do. Like I said, we started the group and I'm unfortunately the moderator, which is unfortunate for them because I'm not that organized anymore, but you can't screen people. You can't have them ding you when somebody wants to join and then, you know, vet them out and then let them in. Like you just can send them the invite. So I couldn't post the invitation just randomly online. Or actually, I did, and then we got all of the spam and all of the sexy posts and stuff, and I'm like, oh, that's so not what's happening.

Summer:
I know.

Steph:
So I just shut down that account and start another one. But there's just some weird, weird features that other social media programs seem to develop early on that WhatsApp for some reason hasn't.

Summer:
Uh, WhatsApp is interesting to me because I hadn't used it at all until I moved to Germany, but WhatsApp is how people communicate here. No one just texts via SMS. So I don't even think of WhatsApp as social media though, because it's just really a messaging platform, I think. I mean, like you said, you have to have the phone number, so you're basically a contact in my phone. And instead of just directly texting each other on our phone, we're texting through WhatsApp.

Steph:
Yeah, that makes sense. The only thing that throws me is that the conversation for the group looks like more like a social media.

Summer:
It does. Yeah, it does.

Steph:
Texting. Yeah. It's, it's sort of that weird kind of in between. Yeah. And it is attached to a phone number, so it's used a lot in, uh, in Germany. Is that like the go-to app there? It is.

Summer:
Yeah. Yeah. If you ask for someone's number, you're really asking them for their WhatsApp.

Steph:
Oh, that's so awkward. I'm sorry.

Summer:
It, it took me a while to get used to, uh, it's, uh, cuz in the States, you know, you just message, you text someone, you just text their number. And it's just to text, you know, like that's all it is. But, but here, yeah, I don't know if it's because of the phone companies used to, or maybe they still do charge differently if you send between companies, I don't know. But everybody's on WhatsApp, so I got on it as well. And then I actually ended up liking it a little bit more because I was able to tell friends in the States, hey, if you still want to text, you can download WhatsApp and it won't cost either one of us you know, the international fees to send texts.

Steph:
Similarly, I have WeChat's the one, the main one in China, and I have a few friends from back home on that and we can do like video calls and voice calls and voice messages and things like that. So it's been really, really good. But oh man, WhatsApp, I don't know. Does it get easier to use with time and frequency?

Summer:
Yeah, I'm used to it now. Uh, it's, it's really the only option to, to text people here other than communicating maybe on Facebook Messenger, which I hate. Uh, so I would rather just WhatsApp.

Steph:
Well, that answers one of the questions then. When you moved to Germany, you started using WhatsApp. What, what other either social media or online things did you do differently?

Summer:
Probably just how I was using it in terms of what I was looking for. After I moved, of course, I was more interested in connecting with other expats. Not really to meet people necessarily. I've always been a pretty introverted person and I'm comfortable on my own. I don't feel a need to immediately go out and make a ton of friends in a new place, but I like the expat experience, you know, which is one of the reasons why I like your podcast so much is because you are talking about just that general experience of, of being an expat and what that means. And I find that fascinating even though I don't really have anything profound to add to the conversation.

Steph:
3 years. I bet you do. And we're gonna go into that. Sorry, keep going.

Summer:
We'll see about that. On Twitter, you know, I follow, I said, you know, more, more travel people, expats, um, certainly around Germany. I'm more interested in meeting people face to face now, I guess, that I've met on social media. I did go to a Twitter meetup here in Germany, uh, a couple months ago, and that was fun. And that's probably not something I would've bothered with. In the States?

Steph:
Meetups.com is bizarrely popular in Shanghai and I can't figure out why. Like, I looked at it once when I was in the US and just went, ah, I have Craigslist, I don't need this. But it's really, really popular and it's, it's got this weird thing, not weird, but good thing where it's like a lot of locals and a lot of foreigners go to it. A lot of expats go to it. So it's like a nice mix and it's, thank God for my language level, in English generally. So there's like tons and tons and tons of different kinds of clubs and meetups and discussions things and they're all in English and it's just bizarre, but it's beautiful. Do you find that the, the meetups and stuff that you went to through, through, through Twitter, was that a mix of Germans and foreigners or mostly expats?

Summer:
In this particular case, it was mostly expats and then maybe their local partners that they met here or came here with. Yeah, we mostly connected because we all noticed, oh, okay, you're a, you know, from Canada or the US or UK or something like that. You're an English-speaking expat in Germany is that's, you know, basically how all that came to be.

Steph:
So you mentioned Oregon. Are you from Oregon? Were you like born and raised there?

Summer:
Oh yeah, I kind of did skip over that myself. Yeah, I'm from Oregon and then I lived in South Carolina for about 13 years before I came to Germany.

Steph:
And why Germany?

Summer:
My husband is from Sweden. He's from Stockholm, Sweden, and he has worked for a company here in Germany for quite some time now, uh, more than 10 years. The way that we met, actually, he came to the States to study he wanted to do that before he got too old. He pretty much went straight into career after school and whatnot. I was working also a regular job and it happened to be in the same industry. Uh, in this case it's sign manufacturing, so illuminated signage and branding, things like that. So we were working in the same building because the company he's with here in Germany is kind of a partner company, uh, with the one in South Carolina that I was working for. Uh, we had a lot in common in the fact that we were both pursuing our bachelor's degrees at an older age. And we were both non-traditional students being older, having, you know, worked and then deciding, okay, it's time to go back to school and continue working. So we both had that full-time work, full-time school stress and, you know, the things that go along with that. Yeah. And we just, we really hit it off sense of humor-wise. We had a lot of common interests. And so one thing led to another. I traveled back and forth with him between here in Nuremberg, Germany, where we live now, and Stockholm, Sweden. Uh, we would usually come over twice a year for a couple of weeks and just go to both places. So I knew I loved it here. It always felt more like home to me over here than it did in the States. It's hard to explain to people who don't understand that as a concept. So, you know, when you say that, people are like, well, really?

Steph:
How is that possible? Wait, how un-American are you? What's wrong with you?

Summer:
Yeah, exactly. Right. So, well, what about, what about your family? What about everything that's familiar? But I mean, how do you explain that when you are somewhere else that actually that feels more familiar and at home?

Steph:
Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Like I, I used to assume that if somebody went, went to the extent to live and work overseas for an extended period of time, that they didn't either like or necessarily fit in or want to be in their passport country. And yes, in doing these interviews, I accidentally made that assumption one too many times and hit a few people that didn't fall into that. So now I actually have to ask people.

Summer:
Oh wow.

Steph:
And you've saved me the trouble of asking this time, but the first time it happened, I just kind of went, wait, if you like back home, it's easier to live in your home country, why are you here?

Summer:
What?

Steph:
Why are you going through all of this? Am I the only one that's having this more difficult emotional experience? Sometimes when I'm overseas, like, what? Okay. So both you and your husband are expats in Germany. Or after 3 years, do you guys consider yourselves immigrants now? Are you there permanently?

Summer:
Well, he had actually lived here in Nuremberg for 6 years before he went to the States. So when we moved in 2015, it was coming back to Nuremberg for him. It, it's, it's hard to put that label on there. Um, you know, the expat versus immigrant, and I like your term of the geopat. I have no intention of going back to the States. Like my dream honestly is to hold an EU passport one day, and so I don't plan to. I don't want to do anything to ruin that for myself by going back. We've also bought an apartment here that will be finished, uh, not even until 2020. So, you know, we have long-term plans to be here. So yeah, I mean, I guess maybe immigrant is a better term at that point. I don't know when you plan to be permanent. I don't, I don't know. How do you define that?

Steph:
Honestly, I just, I use the expat term just to catch as many people who are familiar with that term. Although to be fair, I requested a review on one of my podcasts last week and one of the first comments he said, and I have to be careful now in having Americans review my podcast, 'cause a lot of people just don't know life outside the US. And his first comment was, what is an expat? Is it a veteran? And I was like, oh, internet, Google. It's probably gonna be the first definition to pop up. Like the most common definition pops up first. I'm like, really? That's where you're put. That's where your questions are. And being in this world, it's like, you know this word, you know this term, you know the things that are attached to it. So it was just like, oh gosh, never mind. So from your first year in Germany to now approaching your third, your third anniversary, do you do things online differently from the first year to this year?

Summer:
That's a hard question because it's hard to, to know if I'm doing anything differently because of. The whole expat thing, or if it's just changes in interests and, you know, the things that I want to pursue, I guess, is, so, I mean, most of what I do online is centered around travel or food and cooking somehow. That's what I'm interested in. And so that's that. And then the whole, you know, expat experiences, so So, and those were not interests that you had before coming to Germany? No, they definitely were. I've always been interested in travel and food, and so those things, yes, were always prominent. But now travel feels more accessible to me just because of where I am. It is easier to get around when you're in Europe. The whole time I was in the States, you know, whenever I would go back from having been here in Europe, either Sweden or Germany, you know, I just felt sick about it really. I did not wanna go home. It was a terrible feeling. And so when I was there, I was constantly living for tomorrow, essentially living for that next trip. And so that would consume my thoughts kind of. And so yes, before I moved to Germany, I was constantly looking at travel things and travel planning and all of this. And, but now it's a different, it's a different shift because I have a more comfortable sense of place here. You know, I feel more at home and at ease, but I also feel more mobile here. The other big switch is that I am working remotely here and in the States I in an office. So in general, I feel freer here. And I think because of that, there's like a, a shift that happens almost to where, I don't know, just feel more like a part of the travel community, even if I'm not constantly on the road.

Steph:
Yeah, it does. It does. There's, there's something beautiful about free time. It's not just about the time, but it also frees up your headspace to do things differently, think differently, relax, and yeah, absorb stuff. I can't speak for all Americans or all anybody that lives in the US, but I feel like it's a lot of crazy-making. It's a lot of hurry up and emergencies and oh my gosh, and just like this very hectic kind of thing, which is crazy to say while I'm sitting in Shanghai, because this is super fast-paced, buzzy, kind of like innovative people shoving each other out of the way to get to the front of the line kind of place right now. But I still feel like it's way more relaxed than being in the US and feeling like I was constantly drowning.

Summer:
Yes, no, I completely understand that. I think maybe that has to replace a sense of where you're more comfortable. I mean, maybe Shanghai is technically a more fast-paced city than in many places in the US, yes, but if that's where you feel more comfortable and more at home, it's going to feel still, there's like a zen quality to it that's just different, and you accept it and almost thrive in that environment versus Oh, you just—

Steph:
I lost my train of thought, but pass part of it on to me cuz I just had this, this really crazy thought. Okay. I, I'm obsessed. No, I really like the travel writer Pico Iyer. Have you read any of his stuff?

Summer:
No. Did you have him on a podcast?

Steph:
I probably highlighted him in one of the episodes like early, early on cuz I tend to talk about him way too much. His parents are from India. He grew up in coastal California and the UK. And lives in Japan intentionally now with his partner, possibly his wife. I don't remember their relationship. And he says he really likes living in Japan because he knows he will never be considered a local. And so he has the mental space to be him without the expectation, the cultural expectations of being everything that you're supposed to be as there. And I really wonder as an expat or immigrant, if we always have that space to be to be more different than the locals do because we're never, even if we're expected to learn languages or conform to some degree, we're always going to be different because we're not from there.

Summer:
That's a very good thought. Yeah, I think that probably does play into it. You, you do have that extra just space to be yourself. Yeah, that's, that's really interesting.

Steph:
Yeah, no, he's brilliant. He's absolutely brilliant. I tend to like listening to him in his speeches and interviews more than his books, although his books are really good. Like Global Soul is one of of the books that I, where I finally realized there's more to, like, the, the emotional and mental side of travel is super duper intense. And it's, he kind of like started to spell it out for me instead of me just kind of going, this feels very different than the rest of my life. It was like, oh, it really is. There's someone who's writing about it explicitly. So yeah, I love him, but he's still in travel category 99% of the time because he does do travel pieces, but his longer works are very expat immigrant oriented and very deep dirty emotional and they're beautiful. Well, I'm also wondering if being online and our online persona gives us that ability to exist in a different way.

Summer:
I think so. Yes, because you can curate what you are doing. You, you can choose what to look at. You can choose what to engage with. You can choose what you want to create and then publish online. And the nice thing about the internet too is that it gives us all a platform. If you want to be involved with something, you just have to do it. It's that simple. You know, you want to be a travel writer, then start writing about travel, you know, whatever it is. And that's, that's great. There's a lot of competition. Yes. But the space is there. So if you just get out there and do it.

Steph:
Now you've mentioned writing a few times and I wanna dig into that. What do you write?

Summer:
Well, not enough really. I, I tend to talk about my intentions to write a lot more than I do actually write. But, um, yeah, I have a blog, um, eatsomethinggosomewhere.com, and it's, it's very small. I mean, I, I'm very much still trying to grow it and get enough content on there to make it worthwhile. But yeah, I like to write about food and travel and thoughts. I think I tweeted at you once that I want to write something about this kind of conversation. I have yet to do that. I've always enjoyed writing, and it's, it's kind of the one thing that I'm okay at doing. And if I actually sit down and I can put my thoughts together, then it's something that I enjoy.

Steph:
And how long have you been doing that?

Summer:
Not very long. I've had this since, I think my subscription renews in May, so about a year and a half it's been there. Do I actively engage with it all the time? No, it's there and I will go through these phases where I'm really into it and I really want to, you know, like spend time on it and make it look nice and get some nice content. And then I will just kind of abandon it for, you know, a few months at a time.

Steph:
And I don't particularly like that about myself, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Yeah. I don't, I mean, creativity comes and goes in waves, doesn't it?

Summer:
It really does. I know they say that you should do whatever it is that you're trying to get better at every day. You should, if you wanna write, you should write every day. That's really hard for me to do. If I'm not in the mood to do it, then, you know, I just—

Steph:
One of the best things I've ever heard is ironically from Elizabeth Gilbert of Eat, Pray, Love fame, who is brilliant at talking about creativity. I don't know if you've read any of her books. Her books on creativity. And she, in her last book, she talks about creativity coming in seasons and allowing herself the time to do the burst of creativity. And then when it runs out, to let it and wait for the spark to come back again. I've heard the similar things of write every day or work on something every day, study every day, do everything, you have to do it every day. And it's like, ah.

Summer:
Yeah. It doesn't work necessarily.

Steph:
That feels like burnout to me. Yeah.

Summer:
Yeah, it does. And if it's supposed to be something that you you enjoy or something that brings you, you know, this, I don't know, kind of escape from your, I don't know, to a certain degree. Yes. A passion project is, should be this thing that's a little bit special and that you kind of retreat into from time to time. So it's, that's kind of a difficult thing to find that balance sometimes between, okay, if I want to be a professional writer and make the majority of my income from that, then yes. Okay. I do need to write more often, but then, you know, if I I also want this creative side. It's hard to switch gears sometimes and say, okay, now I'm done with the work. I'm going to be creative. It doesn't work like that.

Steph:
No, it's so intensely tricky. I don't think I'll ever figure it out. I just hope that my day jobs keep being minimal so I can do the stuff in my free time.

Summer:
Yeah, exactly.

Steph:
That's, that's, that's the biggest hope that I have is that I can continue to do stuff Engagement-wise on Eat Something, Go Somewhere, who have you heard from yet? Who do you want to hear from? Where do you want, like, what's the ideal scenario in that project?

Summer:
I mean, ideal scenario would be to segue into a, you know, sustainable food and travel blog where I am going on regular press trips and traveling around, you know, getting paid for these things. That would be great. So far engagement is from Um, you know, the people who follow me on Twitter, Instagram, you know, people who I know personally who think it's cool that I write. So not a whole lot of outside audience at this point.

Steph:
It'll happen when it happens. It'll happen.

Summer:
That's right. It will. It will. Yeah. If you get too hung up on, on the numbers, it just, it kills it, I think. You know, if you're constantly looking at posts or videos or your blog posts, you know, you just kind of have to do your work and put it out there. And then, like you said, it'll happen when it I think so.

Steph:
But I also don't expect to ever make any real income from any of my creative projects. I've had so many just kind of flop over the years that I've just, I was like, ah, I've made $5 this year. Yeah, that's never gonna work full-time.

Summer:
Yeah, I know. But the dream is always up there. Like you're like, whoa.

Steph:
The dream is there. I mean, don't get me wrong. If like Slate contacted me at any point and said, hey, we'd really like to bring you into the fold, I'd be like, hey, Malcolm Gladwell just left where he was and started his own podcast group. Group, and I feel like I connect with him. If he contacted me, I'd be like, Malcolm, let's talk. Subtle hint, subtle hint.

Summer:
Maybe he's listening now. You don't know.

Steph:
I don't know that I am a group podcasting person, that I could be a part of a team, but I could, I could work on these things.

Summer:
Give it a try.

Steph:
I'd try anything. Sure, sure, sure. So online stuff, we have what social media you, you veered towards, and when you moved to Germany, we have the blog that you started working on about Oh, let's see if it's, if it started a year and a half ago, it was after the first year.

Summer:
Yeah. See, I wanted actually to start this before I even moved and then to kind of chronicle the whole transition. But then I found that there wasn't really much to say about it because for me it wasn't a big change. It wasn't a big shock to come over here. You had an episode with, um, a woman named Jo, I think, from Life in Breaths a while back. And you guys were talking a little bit about this, I think. And one thing that she said that stuck out to me was that there comes a point where if if you're constantly looking for the differences between your passport country and where you're living, it almost slows your integration. I can't remember exactly what she said, but it came down to where she, I think, was getting tired of comparing her new country with where she had moved from. That made a lot of sense to me too, not because there were such big differences. I mean, you know, culturally Germany is not that different from the US. Sure, you can't use a credit card in a lot of places, It's not that wildly different here. So I didn't really feel that there was an adjustment period and I was so excited and happy to be here that it just, it felt like a treat to be here. And so I didn't think that I really had very much to write about on the blog as far as some guide to settling in as an expat or, you know, here's my, my big adventure. It didn't feel like that really. It just felt, it felt right to me. It felt like this is where I should be. So what do you say about that without coming across as pretentious or like you're above culture shock or something like that? And that's not it. It was just, I, I found myself with a lack of things to say about it because it just felt like this is where I should have been anyway. Okay.

Steph:
I'm geographically jealous. I still haven't found my place yet. Well, okay, let's put this to the test. Have you traveled to any place that kind of put you off kilter?

Summer:
That did feel like a big cultural difference, but not in a bad way really. I mean, I loved Shanghai. I was there last year. I'm about to go to Hong Kong in a couple weeks for the third time, and I love it over there because it is so different. I feel more at ease actually in, in an environment like that where I'm trying to figure things out and there's new sensory experiences all around. Like to me that's exciting and I have never I guess, been in a place like that long-term enough to where I could tell you if that would get exhausting or not. I don't know. Generally when I travel somewhere, I do have to come back before I feel ready to. I'm not someone who's like, oh, it's good to be home. I'm always like, ah, it's too bad the trip's over because I still wanna go explore this and like experience that. No, I, I like being out in the world and I like experiencing new, new things. Is Nuremberg the last place I will ever live? I mean, I hope not. I love it here, but there's there's so much more out in the world that, that I want to see, and I would like to, like to give that a try.

Steph:
So your exploratory nature with the internet and your exploratory nature geographically seem to be, both seem to be pretty damn high.

Summer:
Yes, yes, that's fair to say.

Steph:
Maybe you might be one of those people who just doesn't really get extreme culture shock, and also very jealous because I do. I like being confused and trying to figure things out culturally, and I do feel the most alive when I'm in a new culture and trying to figure out how to maneuver, but I also get pretty intense culture shock when it is that different. And it comes and goes in waves for me. It's definitely not all the time. The honeymoon period is beautiful and then the walls are real.

Summer:
I'm sure any place has that. I mean, even if it just comes down to, you know, the paperwork at the immigration office, you know, that's one of those walls that, you know, a lot of us hit and we're just like, ah, why does it have to be like this? Yeah. Long-term, you know, that's not something that's going to drive I would hope most people, that wouldn't be something that drives them out. But yeah, I cannot think of a scenario where I've been involved where I just thought I need to get out of this place. Of course, I've only lived in Germany outside of my passport country, but even in traveling, I haven't really felt, oh, this is so uncomfortably different that I don't want to be here. It's more like, wow, I need to spend more time here and like dig in. Yeah. I tend to adapt pretty quickly to things. And so maybe, maybe that's why I'm not really a person of extremes in terms of emotions. So it takes It takes a lot for me to get really upset in either direction. You know, I'm pretty, pretty mellow going and, and I think that helps too.

Steph:
Yeah. I'm probably not. I want to think I am and I can logic my way through it now that I'm like super old, but I just know my natural nature is to, is to feel things intensely and then process them for a long time.

Summer:
That's nice too, though, I think. Ah, no, no, no, no.

Steph:
It is what it is. I mean, you can't change.

Summer:
No, you really can't.

Steph:
How is your German? Are you functional in German?

Summer:
Uh, I can get around. I mean, I couldn't have a conversation like this, unfortunately. Uh, my German should be further along than it is. Fortunately, language does not come easily to me. It is something that I struggle with.

Steph:
I understand that. I understand that.

Summer:
It's tough.

Steph:
Do you do anything in German online?

Summer:
Some Instagram captions. Captions or some tweets here and there, uh, I will in German. It would take me a very long time to say, write a blog post fully in German. It'd probably be a larger editing task for my husband than he would be interested in undertaking. Yeah. Captions and tweets, you know, short things like that. Yeah. Gotcha.

Steph:
Do you read anything in German online? Yeah.

Summer:
I will also read some articles, um, news articles, or just if, if someone links something ridiculous in on Twitter that happens to be in German, I'll take a look at it. Okay.

Steph:
Then you're being very modest about your language. If you can read articles, your language is pretty damn good.

Summer:
Well, it depends on the level and the content and how much time I have. I cannot just open up any newspaper and read a political article and say, okay, yeah, I have the gist of that.

Steph:
Oh, fair enough. I mean, every industry and everything has its own specific language. From how you used like Facebook and Twitter and Instagram in the US to how you used it in Germany, do you find that you're posting the same kind of information or has that changed?

Summer:
Yeah, that's definitely changed. I really don't post at all on Facebook unless I'm, you know, asking a question in a group or responding to an opportunity in a group or something like that. But I do not share on Facebook, you know, like, oh, can't wait for this weekend going out with some friends. Oh no, those days are long gone. Twitter would be the place that I do kind of like the, the brain dump tweets where I just, you know, see something interesting and I'll tweet about it, or a thought comes to mind, that's fine. But I'm not really so interested in sharing the details of my life. I just don't really, not, not because I'm some super private person, I just don't necessarily think it's that interesting. And I also tend to not like being the center of attention, so I'm not I'm not really interested in putting something out there on Facebook for, you know, friends and family to comment on and ask more questions about. And yeah, in that sense, I don't really share a lot of just daily things or big news or something. I'm mostly just going there to engage with like-minded people about interests rather than putting out information about myself.

Steph:
Have you ever deleted a post after putting it out into the world?

Summer:
Yes. Not so much recently because I'm not putting them out there, but yeah, I mean, I think many of us have posted some stupid status update on Facebook that we maybe have been drinking a little bit and then, you know, later realize that, okay, maybe that's not necessary or something like that. I'll still delete a tweet from time to time. Not that it's embarrassing or anything, but just sometimes I'll, you know, like, ah, that's not really adding any kind of value, or I've figured out whatever it was that I was tweeting about since then. And if, if I haven't gotten engagement on it, sometimes I'll delete it, but it's not really out of any kind of protective nature anymore.

Steph:
Is there anything that you decided early on or as you went that you would never post online?

Summer:
Uh, I don't really post about my relationship just because there's another person involved and if he's not gonna get a say in that. So I don't, I mean, I don't hide the fact, you know, that I have a husband, but I would never go to Facebook and say, uh, oh, Johan just came home today and he had a great day at work doing you know, that I wouldn't do. So yeah, I don't really share those kinds of details. So if I post something online about myself, it's usually, it is about myself or a gen, in a general we sense, you know, like we traveled to such and such.

Steph:
If we are to generalize about expats or expats or immigrants or people that live in a country that's not their passport country, let's say people that move as adults to a country that's not their passport country, do you think that they Do you use the internet or social media differently than people that stayed in their passport countries?

Summer:
Yes, I think so. Then maybe we are wrong to make this assumption, but in general, I also think if you choose to move to another country, whether it's for work or personal interest, then you do have a certain curiosity about you and a certain propensity for adventure or something like that. So I do think that you will use the internet differently. Someone who who in my mind stays in their passport country all the time, maybe doesn't travel a lot, content with their home life, that's probably the person who's going to keep up with their family a little bit more, maybe a little more involved with extended family, friends that they've had for many, many years. They kind of have a social circle that they're comfortable with. And again, maybe that's me generalizing too much, but that's in my mind what I think. Go.

Steph:
So there's, there's something in the, in the unplugging from our own culture that gives us the ability to do these things time-wise and headspace-wise, maybe.

Summer:
Yeah, yeah, you have that headspace, the time. I mean, I guess a lot of expats do leave for jobs that are maybe more demanding if they're working in an office, but, you know, someone like English teachers or, you know, someone like me who's, you know, partially teaching and partially working online, you know, I do have time to reflect on things and pursue certain interests. And then the people that I choose to engage with or try to engage with are different than, you know, I'm not just, I didn't move over here to, you know, keeping day-to-day contact with the people that I left, you know, with the friends that I left behind in South Carolina. You know, I didn't move on to this phase of my life to stay stuck behind focusing on those You know, and I don't mean that to sound as harsh as maybe it does, but you know, when you do move and you're experiencing new things, you, you do have a gap between your previous, you know, circle and the people that you're involved with now, or the people you want to be involved with.

Steph:
Yeah, no, this is bringing up so much stuff for me. Um, I've been mostly living overseas since 2003, but there's been tiny bits of period, usually during graduate school experiences where I've been in the US. And there'll be people somewhere on my social media who I knew in the US who were still in different states, thousands of miles away from me when I was in the US, but me moving back to the US, they suddenly got more active with me on social media. I'm like, but I'm still virtual, whether I'm in a different country or I'm in a different part of the US, I'm still virtual. But for some reason, being back in the US, they felt the need to then be aware of what I was doing. And was, I don't mean to diss them because I love the, I love the people that I'm friends with, but it was just confusing. Cause I'm like, but I'm still virtually, we're still not seeing each other on a regular basis. Why is there more attention now that I'm in the same country?

Summer:
Yeah, I get that. And I experienced the same just on visits or even talking about, you know, maybe having to go back for a visit or something. I don't know if it's that US mentality, you know, like it's so big. Why would you need to leave? You know, and then people who don't get out so much, you know, they think, oh, well, you're back. I don't know. I guess they feel like you're more attainable if you are in the States, even if you are in California and they're in New York, you know, you're still so far away. It's not like you're going to see them or engage with them any differently.

Steph:
And to be fair, it's mostly been the people who are not my immediate friends. Those guys will contact me no matter where I am. It's usually the people on the periphery who I haven't, yeah, seen for a while. But it's just, it's always confused me. I'm like, you could have sent that email or that tweet when I was way over there.

Summer:
I really think some people in the States in particular, they, they do have a hard time processing that life outside of the States isn't really that much different, you know, like we still have internet and we still have, you know, resources, you know, I mean, even just being here in Germany, I have a friend, if I'm WhatsApping with her about, I don't know, lamenting some missing aspect of my wardrobe or something, just talking about clothes, and she'll say, oh, well, why don't you, you know, go look on J.Crew's website or something? And I say, well, I don't want to pay international shipping. And then, you know, but she's like making this suggestion as though there aren't retail stores here, you know, like I can't find an equivalent of that sort of store in Germany. And like, that's, no, my problem is not a lack of options. The problem is just that, you know, shopping sucks.

Steph:
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that happened to me in a different way recently with news. Somebody asked me recently, you know, because I was the token American in the room and they're like, well, what do you think about this? Some, you know, have heavily politicized topic. And I'm like, I don't, it wasn't heavily, it was, it was a part of education. And I was like, I don't, I can't keep abreast with everything in the US and everything in my passport or my visa country. I have to basically pick. And right now I'm heavily immersed in trying to learn the language of where I am, and so I'm slipping on some of the things back home. And that's a very specific educational question in a part of education I've never even worked in. And I was like, I don't know that. And then we've got like educational stuff in the US, you know, this is state by state. So I'm like, this is a really crazy And why am I responsible for knowing both countries at the same time? It's hard, but why don't you just shop in your passport country and then have it shipped over instead of just going down the street?

Summer:
Yeah. I mean, it's so much easier. Like at least it's something I know. I know there's, there's a disconnect sometimes, but it happens too in, in the visa country. Like there was a recent Twitter thread, a bunch of us German expats were talking about this. Germans love facts. And one of the facts that they love to ask is what's the population of any city that you've ever been to? Into. That's not information that I am very interested in necessarily, so I don't know.

Steph:
When I lived in Los Angeles, I think it was 11 or 13 million. San Francisco is like 900,000, and the place where I grew up was really tiny. It was like 40,000, but I only know this because people keep asking me these things because I've been the token American overseas for a while. So do you have like a cheat sheet somewhere now when they ask you? You're like, well, it's this much now.

Summer:
Yeah, yeah, I, I just, I just reach for my phone and start Googling when they start asking me because It's inevitably going to happen. And I have this one particular student, and he's a grown man. He's a couple of years out from retirement, but he still seems to think that because I'm a native English speaker, that I know everything about every English-speaking country in the world. Populations, history, driving distance, food preferences. And it's almost endearing with how outlandish some of his questions are. I mean, I have no way of knowing all of this information.

Steph:
Oh, even bigger than that. In, in China, there's a very big China, the rest of the world. As a foreigner, we're the rest of the world. I have people asking me at different points, what does the West think of this? And I'm like, wow, I can tell you my opinion, but as someone who's lived outside my home country for about 15 years, I'm not representative of even my own country. However, I cannot speak for the entire West. I was like, because there's many different cultures in that. That. And they'll literally like bug-eye on me and go, what, the West isn't all the same? And I'm like, huh, okay, let's break this down. You know how Beijing's different from Shanghai? And they're like, oh, it's really different. I'm like, yeah, that's the same country. And I'll have to kind of break it down. I'll go, so there's lots of countries in Western Europe which you're thinking of, and then there's the West in North America. And I'll have to break it down, but it's just such a mindset. And after being here for a while, like, even the expats get in the habit of saying, oh, foreigners do this, And I'm like, no, we have to backtrack. We have to stop saying that. Cause it's just, it's so different. And then I'll hear some podcasts from the US and I'll think, oh God, they're doing it where they're like the US and everybody else. And I'm like, what?

Summer:
No. Yeah, I know. It's terrible. It's a habit that everyone needs to break. I don't see it stopping. It's just, that's especially in the US. It's getting worse. It's that mindset. Yeah, it's getting worse. Exactly. It's always us against them. And I don't know, I don't know what the solution is.

Steph:
I, I hopefully a short period of time to go through it because there's so many countries going through their isolationist crap right now and I don't necessarily want to live through this, but here we are.

Summer:
Yep.

Steph:
So here's the scenario: if someone writes an autobiography versus someone that just tweets about their life, it feels like a very different creature, but I can't figure out why.

Summer:
Do you think they're very different things in terms of writing an entire book about your life and just tweeting small snippets?

Steph:
Yeah, but let's pretend tend like it ends up being the same length with kind of the same information.

Summer:
I see. Well, I think tweets are going to be more focused. You have less space. I mean, literally be limited to the character count. But yeah, I mean, Twitter is a place I think where people do tweet just random ridiculous nonsense, but then it's also for sharing very specific information or details. And, and so I think it, it really can go either I mean, Twitter can be such an extreme.

Steph:
A previous guest brought it up and I've been thinking it's gone into the rotation cuz I can't figure it out cuz on some level we are writing autobiographical stuff. It's just very in the moment without a lot of reflection. It's just like picture or comment and then post.

Summer:
That's true.

Steph:
Like I was thinking, how would it be different if we had like, when do you wanna post this in 15 minutes? 15 days, 15 years, like if we had sort of like a time thingy with our posts, would we write them differently then?

Summer:
I think we would. And I think we would end up posting a lot less. I mean, I think if you type a tweet and then you, you instead of sending it, you just leave it there and you walk away for 30 minutes and come back to your phone. I, I think a lot of the time you're just gonna be like, eh, what's the point? You know, that like that moment in your mind has passed and, and I don't know, it's kind of like when you're about to buy something at a store and you think, eh, oh, wait, and a lot of times you don't go back for it. Right.

Steph:
That's a really good analogy.

Summer:
Yeah.

Steph:
It's like the stuff at the counter that you don't really want, but you're like, I guess I need one of those. Like I need that pack of gum even though I've got two in my bag already. That's just right there. I think we're both saying a lot of stuff we put on social media is not really important.

Summer:
Yeah. And that's hard to, to, that's hard to swallow too, because then what's the point of any of it?

Steph:
Right.

Summer:
Right.

Steph:
Because I feel like I've gotten a lot of connections, a lot of information, and a lot of expression out on social media. But I agree with what I think we just came to, which is there's still a lot of it that's total bullshit that I don't need to ever have seen and that people don't need to have seen of my stuff.

Summer:
Right. That also adds depth and, or I mean, maybe the opposite of depth, but I think it adds layers of context to the online experience. So if every single thing you're posting online is meaningful, reflective material, I think that would get stale pretty quickly. And you would not be someone that maybe people would look to for, I don't know, not entertainment, not that we should be trying to entertain one another, but you have certain people that you find that you like seeing come up in your feed. Maybe you don't even realize it, but then you see them in that timeline and you think, "Oh yeah, okay, I'm glad this person posted that." So I think I think it adds to the, you know, perception of who we are just as a general person. And actually, one thing that you had mentioned on a previous episode, I think, was that, um, I think you were talking about how Instagram is so curated and people post only the highlights of their, their days, and, you know, things are perfectly arranged and perfectly lit and everything is great. And, and because of that, people in our passport countries will think that we're constantly living this vacation you know? And so I think you had mentioned that you were trying to make more of an effort to just post, you know, every day, you know, whatever, you know, nothing special, just like, hey, this is my day to bring that reality to it. And I think that's important too.

Steph:
The fine challenge. Stevie mentioned that in a previous episode, and I've been sucking at the fine challenge. What I found that I was doing is I was posting sad, honest stuff instead of just fine stuff. And I was like, well, wait, okay, that's not the happy glittery stuff, but that's also an emotional extreme. So I'm sucking at the fine challenge because his, his thing, if I remember correctly, was, yeah, if we just posted, yeah, everything's okay, nothing's really happening, like, nobody would like it. Nobody would, people would stop following you. Like, they would just be like, okay, nothing's happening, why are you doing this? I, but I can't do it. I can't post fine pictures because how do you, like, how do I justify posting if there's nothing to post, right?

Summer:
Yeah, it's not, yeah, I know. If you can't even find value in your material, you know, how is anyone else? And, you know, people are applauded for posting real shots, you know, like, oh, no makeup, or here's my messy room that's right next to the perfectly curated shot that you just saw in you know, 2 photos ago. And yeah, that's nice. That's a glimpse into the reality, but it's still that extreme. It's not the fine, it's that extreme. Yeah. I mean, maybe fine is boring. I guess it is.

Steph:
I would probably unfollow someone if they only posted, I'm fine, nothing's happening, I'm fine.

Summer:
I'd be like, well, why am I following them? Why am I following you? Yeah, exactly.

Steph:
Yeah.

Summer:
I think bizarre. I guess maybe like my happy medium for that, if I were to say that I post and just like fine things is the difference between an Instagram post and an Instagram story. I will story things on Instagram that maybe I do want to share, but they're not quite, you know, maybe photos that aren't quite high enough quality to bother with posting on, onto the actual feed or short clips that aren't really, you know, they're fine, but they're, you know, they're fine. They're not great. They're not gonna go into my feed because that's not what I want people to see at first, but I still want to share. Share it. You know, I'm okay with posting not great things on my Instagram story because those are going to disappear after a while, but I still want to share that content.

Steph:
See, I'm not fully literate in the difference between the two. I assumed that the posts made up stories, but you're saying they're two different—

Summer:
They're two different things. Yeah. You can add to your story and whatever is there, it's, it's gonna disappear in 24 hours.

Steph:
Oh, it's kind of like the Snapchat thing only—

Summer:
Well, yeah, it is, but less lame. Oh. Okay.

Steph:
Yeah.

Summer:
Not to be judgy, but yeah, I was a reluctant adopter of the Instagram story, but I, it does have its value and it's interesting to watch. And I think that's where you find more pieces of people's actual day is people will story, you know, something on their commute or if they see, you know, like, oh, the light in the park looks nice and you know, this is an okay photo, but it's it's not, you know, I don't really need to put it on my feed. It's not that great, but here it is. And so I kind of like that there's less pressure. And so I will post things on my story that aren't really, you know, super great, but you know, still want to put it out there. Ooh.

Steph:
Okay. Wait, you said less pressure. What's the pressure?

Summer:
That's, yeah, I guess that's a loaded word, but I'm pretty happy with my Instagram feed. Like if you go to my Instagram page. Most of what you see on there, I think it's okay, or else I wouldn't have posted it at that time. I, I do not, uh, organize my Instagram in such a way that I think, okay, is this photo gonna look good next to the, I don't do that, but I do enjoy having a feed that I do. Do people do that? Yes, they do. They do. It's apparent, apparently a big part of a strategy of growing your Instagram followers and engagement. And it's, it's a little too much for me.

Steph:
Apparently for me too.

Summer:
I like my Instagram to look nice mostly for myself because I like having something that I can scroll back through and, you know, be like, oh, that was a really nice trip, or, you know, that was a fun day, something like that. So I don't tend to post photos that I find to be more mediocre. I mean, I'm not saying that my photos are exceptional by any means. It's just to me how I perceive them, you know, if If it's not so great, maybe I'll put it on Twitter just as a photo. I won't tweet it, I'll just put it on Twitter or I'll put it in the Instagram story. So I guess going back to the concept of pressure, is it something I'm going to be proud of posting? And if it stays there for some time, am I going to like looking at it? Or is this something I'm gonna post now and then in a couple days be like, ah, that was kind of a shitty photo, maybe I shouldn't have posted it.

Steph:
Do you think there's more pressure on expats because they've got multiple audiences looking at their, like, are the people from different countries that they've connected with looking at their stuff?

Summer:
Yeah, I think that's probably a fair thing to say, yes, because we do to some extent have those people that think we are on this extended vacation and that our lives are this mystical journey every day of fairy tale lands and, you know, exotic adventure. And, and I think those people are probably looking to us to post the shots that are really quintessential of whatever location we're in, you know, they wanna see the really nice stuff. And then we have the people maybe that we know locally, so our local expat friends or our local, local friends. And you know, they have a different perception of that reality. So they know if you're taking a, a certain angle on this building to make it look a certain way, you know, they, they know where you're posting from. So you have that. So yeah, I do think there's different levels to it and I think that's why ultimately you need to post for yourself. Yourself before anything else. If you're happy with the content, then, you know, the people who are meant to be your audience, they will, they will come to you and they will stay with you.

Steph:
I mean, I do do some promotional stuff as announcements and whatnot, but for the most part, I've stopped. I've stopped taking notes on things that happened. I don't write blogs anymore, and I consider my posts and pictures to be kind of like the chronicle. If I ever go back and make anything bigger out of all of this, I figure, I hope that I can download all of that stuff and use that access my notes. And if I can't, then I'm seriously fucked. But that's what I want to do.

Summer:
Yeah, right.

Steph:
With it in the future. And if it attracts more people to the different projects I'm doing, that's cool too. But mostly, like you said, mostly it's my lazy note-taking. And it's a lot easier for me to take pictures than to find somewhere to write something down or jot it down in the right Google Sheet or whatever. Is there anything online, either social media or internet or anywhere, that you wish was available, but that isn't? Could be an app too.

Summer:
Yeah, I do spend some time thinking about this because I like to think that I will come up with this amazing idea that's gonna get me filthy rich. But yeah, it's hard to have an original idea these days. You know, I can't really say that I feel that there's anything lacking, at least that I'm aware of. Of course, you can't know what you don't know. Now, generally, if there's something that I'm looking for, I can find it, you know, whether it's information or a product or a service or something. And there's so much out there that's really cool that I just don't even know about. You know, there's all these podcasting apps and there's different social media tools and, um, blogging tools and there's so much out there that I, yeah, I don't, I don't even know where to begin with all of that, let alone want for more. Is there something that you think we should have that doesn't exist.

Steph:
My first reaction when someone brought that up in an interview was, I thought I wanted like scent or feel. Like, I, I always think I want to be at the beach and I want to like smell fresh air or flowers, and I want to feel the breeze. And then I remember where I am and that the scents that I often encounter in Shanghai, that can be nice, but it's a city and it's a very developing city. Even though there's giant high-rises that are beautiful and there's a very booming economy, there, there are structural problems and and there's a lot of streets that are like, okay, I'm gonna hold my breath as long as I can. And so do I want that in an Instagram post when somebody's shooting from one of these places?

Summer:
Yeah, not really. That's interesting.

Steph:
I rescinded my I want scent to go with photos thing because I just don't think that would really help a lot of times.

Summer:
I don't know how that would be possible. But I've thought that the scent thing would be cool, especially for food.

Steph:
For food, it would be amazing. Or would it? Because if I was looking through somebody's food thing and I smelled it instead of just seeing it, even if, even in a video form, it's gonna make it worse. I'd be more likely. Yeah. I'd be more likely to overeat because it smells damn good.

Summer:
Yep. That's true. Nevermind. Maybe it's best that we don't have scent, actually. I don't know.

Steph:
I don't know. It'll probably happen eventually. I mean, there's so many different things that keep getting added on to to the mix. Okay, final question, or what question is missing from this list? Which should I ask future guests?

Summer:
Yeah, I really like the concept of, are expats kind of what we assume them to be, you know, with like curious, adventurous person. So yeah, maybe something along those lines, like, do you consider yourself this type of person because you are an expat? Or—

Steph:
That's a really good point because you mentioned that that's come up a few times in this, in this chat, and I assume that, but I've never explicitly explicitly said that, but I do assume that if you, if people have left their home country, they have to have some sort of adventurous nature.

Summer:
Yeah, I assume the same. So maybe ask people directly, do you feel that way? Because I guess some expats are not happy about it. Maybe they're a spouse or, you know, a partner otherwise following someone. Maybe their job has assigned them somewhere where it was basically take this position or you're fired, you know? So I, I guess it it is possible to be an unhappy expat. So it would be interesting to get to the bottom of some of those too, actually. Maybe you should put out a call for unhappy expats and talk to them on their social media.

Steph:
I don't think I want to talk to unhappy expats. I mean, I don't know, do I? No, no, no, I prefer talking to the curious folks.

Summer:
Yep, it's more fun.

Steph:
That's probably a very skewed view though, because I do tend to want to talk to people who are exploratory and curious and, and think about these things. And that's probably not a full view of the expat experience, but, uh, tough.

Summer:
Yep.

Steph:
Because I mean, having this conversation with someone that doesn't like to have these thoughts, that it would be like a 2-minute podcast.

Summer:
That's true. Yeah. They're not gonna have anything to What do you do online? I work. Yeah.

Steph:
Have you ever used social media? No, I hate it.

Summer:
No. Yeah.

Steph:
End of conversation.

Summer:
Thank you for coming on the show. All right, we're done. Yeah.

Steph:
No, thank you. Shortest editing session ever. Free audio post-production by Alphonic.com.