I'm a cynic. That's no big secret to many of you. What may be a secret is that I am also a human with emotions that occasionally watches (and tears up about) everything from adorable dogs to disease-ridden children to marriage proposals. Jesus Christ, the marriage proposals. If I had a nickel for every dude that made a bombastic and meticulously planned marriage proposal video, I would have enough nickels to throw at the next douche that tries. They were sort of cute at first, I'll admit. Seeing the genuine surprise and happiness (and the occasional awkward let down) was satisfying and beautiful and all that lovely shit. But it's getting to the point where I feel like I live in a perpetual phone commercial full of people in flash mobs and skywriters all vying to find the quirkiest and most crowd pleasing method of proposing to their girlfriend. Not only is it obnoxious (we, the people, do not care about your proposal) but it MUST be uncomfortable for the person you're proposing to. What if she wants to say no? Now that you've gathered the army of extras in your romcom movie life, she's sort of obligated to say yes. But, I digress.
The most recent marriage hostage situation comes to us in the form of a guy that filmed himself over the course of four years lip syncing "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)," a song that his future wife and murderer will pinpoint to her psychiatrist as the breaking point of her sanity. In addition to lip syncing a song no one has ever asked to hear twice, he did so while filming himself in a variety of different countries, which is both the only cool part of the whole ordeal, and the crux of the problem. Never mind the fact that he began his marriage proposal on his first date (one of many red flags for the Future Mrs. YouHaven'tCalledInFiveMinutesWhereAreYou). The problem I have with this video is a problem I have with many videos like it. It looks like an American who went to a bunch of different countries so that he could use them as a backdrop to his super cool interesting life #blessed #worldtraveler.
Similar to the White Girl Leaning Next to African Child Whose Name She Can't Pronounce, this variety of trust fund kid traipses around the globe with the apparent intention of making a viral video that will garner him his fifteen minutes of fame. Now, I doubt that this dude went to the Great Wall of China just to film a segment of him singing 500 miles and then immediately turned around and went back to his hotel room. In fact, I am sure he got quite a bit of touristy action in while he was in all of these countries. And why shouldn't he? It's sort of ridiculous for me to expect that every person who visits another country ONLY explore the sides of it that aren't geared towards outsiders and people with fanny packs. But what bothers me is that this sort of activity (the videos, the selfies, and the three hours of minimal volunteer work before the Village Photoshoot Hour) promotes traveling for the sake of trendiness and attention. To me (and I make this clear on purpose), these actions seem to originate from a place of self-righteousness and self-fulfillment. The idea of travel is now to examine other cultures for the purpose of returning with something that will make you cooler and give you conversation material.
Yes, my thought is underdeveloped and yes, there are many exceptions to this opinion. I believe there are Americans who visit other cultures with the intention of learning about them and expanding their global mind. But I think there are far more who visit these countries as part of a checklist and a "hipness quota" that will allow them to socially trump people at cocktail parties down the road. I believe proposal dude is one of these people. Granted, I only have around six minutes of insight into his life, but his nauseating display leads me to think this way. Maybe I'm entirely wrong and he went to these foreign countries with the desire to immerse himself in another culture and attempt to come to an understanding of the world around him. But maybe he did it because he wanted to impress and propose to his girlfriend of one day. The latter seems more likely.
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