Travel once promised the discovery of the thrill of stepping into a new landscape, hearing unfamiliar sounds, or trying delicious food that we had never tasted. However, in the twenty-first century, such a sense of difference is very rare. A traveller who arrives in Tokyo, London, or Dubai can now locate the same coffee chains, the same clothes shops, and the same aesthetics shaping streets across continents. What used to be the pleasure of being unique in a city has been the blanket of knowing. This is a trend that is commonly hailed as global culture, yet that is not the real truth. In many ways, globalization has not merely made the world a smaller place, but it has, in fact, homogenized the world. Culture, which was a product of place and history, is now a product to be viewed and consumed. The myth of global culture is that it brings us together; the truth is, it flattens our sense of what is different. Each city starts to resemble the other, not because we have come to know each other better, but because the world has come to know how to sell similarity.
The Aesthetic of Sameness
Walk down the main streets of most major cities today, and you will find yourself in a déjà vu of architecture, fashion, and design. The cities that used to be characterized by centuries of local history are now competing to look modern and global. The local forms are substituted by the minimalist cafes with neutral interiors, the same brands of boutiques, and black and white apartment complexes. The aesthetic, which is mostly social media-motivated, has turned into a language of desire in the world. Cities are no longer representing themselves but what they wish to be. This is the quest of a common aesthetic that flattens identity. A cafe in Seoul may appear the same as one in Berlin or Mumbai. Travel photography supports this illusion: the latte art, the same angles of the corner, the same view of the roof. Homogenization of space reassures travellers that they are not in a foreign land, yet it also robs them of the experience that made travelling transformative, which is the experience of difference. Our so-called global taste can be nothing but the destruction of the cultural handwriting, which has been substituted with the digital algorithm of trends.
The Role of Social Media and Influencer Culture
This global sameness has been sped up by social media, especially Instagram, which transforms places into images that can be consumed. Influencers and travellers curate the world through a narrow lens of beauty, luxury, and aesthetic coherence. The result is a cycle of imitation: travellers go to places that have already been proven to be Instagram-worthy, and the cities are creating spaces that will attract such travellers. What once defined travel as exploration has now been reduced to replication; travellers go to recreate images rather than experiences. Cultural sites will be lost under flashy cafes or neon streets that are good for taking pictures. Even the classic symbols are being re-packaged to be social media-friendly: old markets are being made over into new ones, folk cultures are being performed to be consumed digitally, and cultural authenticity is being performed. Diversity only lives in this digital economy of attention provided that it can be filtered, packaged, and posted. The culture of visibility that is global substitutes the lived culture of meaning, and cities are not developed to serve people but to create content.
Consumerism and the Global Marketplace
The global marketplace cannot be separated from the myth of global culture. As multinational corporations expand across continents, consumer habits follow identical patterns. The urban living in Buenos Aires and Bangkok is now characterized by the same brands, products, and experiences. The malls, the airports, and the restaurants are meant to be homely such that the global citizens never feel lost, but it is this homeliness that kills the spirit of traveling. Brand recognition is what was formerly discovered. Tourists, instead of experiencing local craftsmanship or local food, tend to revert to the familiar: the same chains of burger shops, coffee shops, and clothing outlets. The culture of convenience contributes to a greater illusion of connectedness, in which sameness is confused with equality. However, global consumerism does not democratize culture, but commodifies it. What is left of its cultural imagination when all cities are selling the same experiences? The market has been taught to masquerade consumption as engagement, and travellers unwittingly sell the abundance of diversity to the warmth of the familiar.
The Disappearing Sense of Place
The biggest victim of global culture, perhaps, is the sense of place itself, the indefinable ambiance that makes a city a soul. Older travel writing used to treat cities as personalities; Paris was elegant and melancholic, Delhi chaotic and vibrant, Venice poetic and decaying. Cities are nowadays more likely to be characterized by ratings and hashtags. The sensuality that once characterized travel, the dialects, the sounds of the streets, the unique rhythms of everyday life are drowned in the common groan of modernity. Place loss is not just an architectural but also an emotional loss. Human beings run, remain shorter, and watch less. Tourists take pictures without having to walk the streets. The local identities live on in the form of heritage districts, which are areas that have been preserved due to their historic value, and which are encircled by glass towers of modernity. Ironically, we are becoming more connected and therefore losing the ability to really arrive. Travel is no longer discovered and becomes movement without meaning when all the destinations are familiar.
The concept of a global culture used to sound idealistic back in the days when it was a global culture of a world that was united despite the boundaries, and the world was celebrating the unity of humanity. However, in reality, it has frequently resulted in a world of sameness instead of diversity and visibility instead of authenticity. With each city becoming a student of the other, the diversity of variety is lost in a mass homogeneity of urban existence. Yet all is not lost. Under the veils of globalization, some elements of local identity can still be found in the languages spoken in low tones in the markets, in the street food that has not been branded, and in the festivals that are resistant to change. It is a task of travellers as well as societies to seek out the voices of place that nonetheless murmur under the smooth surface of global sameness. It is not about destinations that one can collect, but the difference that one can experience that is true travel. The global culture myth informs us that the world has become a single world. The fact is that we should seek further to find where it yet dares to be many.