“I want to be the minority” – Green Day.
Sunday’s Inspiration: Challenge the Majority. Majority Doesn’t Mean Right.
Do you know what I thought about recently when I reflected on my life for the briefest of seconds? The whole “majority is right” brown substance. One thing I have rarely done in life is follow the majority. I’ve always tried to do my own thing and gone against “the flow” (whatever the flow is, I don’t like it). I’ve been Green Day’s minority most of the time. I’m not a believer in majority rules. Because it doesn’t rule. It just means more people “believe that they believe something”. Challenge the majority, stand out from the crowd. I hate all this excrement about if something is popular or more major, then it is the best. Testicles to that, I’m doing my own thing. Put your candy back in the box, lazy babies.
“There are things stronger than parliamentary majorities” – Andrew Bonar Law.
Backpacking in China: Top 5 Restaurants is not DickMonalds
Just because I don’t follow the majority of backpackers and travel blogs and write about the popular sights, doesn’t give me any less credibility. Some people believe that to “really travel”, I should be going to Thailand, working from my laptop with 176,000 other newly formed “dig it all” nomads, eating in DickMonalds, having the most outrageously cool Thai food and stroking tigers. All this is done from this ice cool Wi-Fi base with our “super cool lifestyles” that think everyone’s else’s life is shit. But the majority got it wrong. Everyone is equal, I’m no better or worse than you because I didn’t follow the majority and become one of the coolest crowd ever that lives in Bangkok, Chiang Mai (yes, I had to Google this place too) New York or Bali. You might not even know where this photo was took…
My type of unglorified skyscraper…
Glorifying sh*t over-rated buildings like the Eiffel Tower and making Rome, Berlin, Barcelona, Paris and Prague my top 5 European cities would be the cool thing to do, wouldn’t it? But why? That’s the majority. That’s why. People seem to think that if more people are doing it, it makes it right. But it doesn’t. Top 5 European cities in my head now?
Belfast, Northern Ireland
Debrecen, Hungary
Poznan, Poland
Chisinau, Moldova
Podgorica, Montenegro
(and my list will change day on day)
Ice skating in Hungary. Not even f*cking Budapest.
And yes this is a bit of a rant at places like Thailand and Bali as they somehow became “super popular” and “super cool” and I will never work out why. Thailand was my 68th country to visit and I had high expectations because of the hype. At the time it came third bottom on my tourist list, with only Venezuela and Latvia faring worse.
Selling football fanzines in Belfast, Northern Ireland (27th May 2016)
So move over majority and step in the under-rated minorities. My top 5 countries are currently these:
Minority v. Majority:
– I’d rather work in a pub than in an office. Done both, loved the pub lifestyle more.
– I went backpacking in Iraq. Most people head to Thailand.
– Selfie in a lonely field in Tasmania. Selfie at Empire State Building.
– I don’t bullshit to please others. Most people do.
– I didn’t get a degree to further my career. Bollocks to that.
– AFC Bournemouth 2-1 Manchester United
– Spain 0-1 Northern Ireland
So ignore the majority, it’s just over commercialised, over hyped garbage. The popular crowd got lazy and followed the popular crowd to stay cool and to stay rock’n’roll.
The Beatles lasted 9 years. The Rolling Stones still release records…
And again, I’m not right and you’re not wrong. This is just my opinion and I’ll continue to follow the minority, even though some of my minorities have suddenly become popular…
“You can’t argue with popularity. Well you could, but you’d be wrong.” – Robbie Williams
Why is nobody else here? They followed the majority to somewhere else.
Well said Jonny. Recently I have found that people expect you visit those “tourist places”and they just cannot wrap their heads around my wanting to visit a beach when the sun is not shining much, write about graffiti instead of a museum etc-etc. I find it quite frustrating, but usually say blow ’em, in my head, and go to some place that at first seems silly – and find a gem.
Ted recently posted…Povoa de Varzim
Hi Ted, thanks for the comment. These days when I meet fellow travellers that follow the common routes of popular clans, I find them lazy and non-creative. They just follow an easy path and then backpack it like a legend. In sod’s law they also become the most heroic travellers and travel writers of all time, 80% od travel blogs have articles on Thailand, USA and France. The underdog sits quietly alone here and takes it all in…safe travels. I love being the unknown and shit 20%! Jonny
I agree with you to a certain degree Jonny, there are definitely places that are considered cool and the be-all and end all for travelers, a lot of people I’ve talked too seem to consider South East Asia to be the ultimate backpacking destination – I haven’t been to any country like Vietnam yet, but I don’t think I’m missing out, theres just other things I wanted to do first like travelling to Antarctica, Jordan and Greenland.
On the flip side though, there are places that some people might consider to be overly touristy or commercialized that I have visited and have thoroughly enjoyed – I loved Rome because I love ancient history and architecture, and I loved New York because I found the hustle and bustle to be fascinating and again the cool architecture.
In my eyes it should come down to personal preference – If you want to travel somewhere then do it! Not because someone else told you too or says it’s cool, but because you genuinely want to go there.
Hi Paul, thanks for the comment, I think I veered too much into travel with this article. I kind of meant it to be just about going against the flow in life in general. So if someone says play rugby (like my school did), then I play football. If my friends go to Spain on holiday then I go to Belarus, if my mate drinks a certain beer, I pick the most obscure on the menu. I guess it keeps coming back to travel but I tried to steer away from that and just try to tell my story of going against the flow and being laughed at, yet in the end I had fun being different. Safe travels. Jonny
Funny how the majority feel like Southeast Asia is the place to go for their Gap Year. I have firmly believed that South America is where you really should go to get a taste of “real travel.” Such a beautiful, yet under appreciated continent of the world!
Ray recently posted…Backpacking Banff – Dinner at the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel
Hi Ray, good tips as ever. Yes South America is a much cooler region to go backpacking in than South East Asia. Safe travels. Jonny