https://twitter.com/kristentootie/status/1350454674701185026?s=19
Screen cap of tweets: https://hexbear.net/pictrs/image/OuuXjwvBgE.jpg
Hot take: I dont think here the problem is her living in that fancy treehouse, but as usual, the problem is the system that has made it impossible for people to not be able to live where they want and having to pay a huge part of your income for rent.
When she moved to Bali and got that apartment, she became someone who is perpetuating that exact system in Bali. She made herself part of the problem, and she did so willingly.
How dare a black person escape America.
How dare she not stay in the USA and get murdered by a cop.
Yea this doesn’t bother me one but. Good for her. I’m a little envious. We don’t have global communism, why should I be upset she isn’t living like we do?
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What about the groups of people, like for example Balinese locals, that don't include yourself?
This is how immigration works. People move around the world looking to make better lives for themselves. What about the people who already live there? Do you sympathize with Americans who feel threatened by Mexican immigrants? I hope not. This whole thing is very silly to get upset about.
Do you sympathize with Americans who feel threatened by Mexican immigrants?
Lol OK buddy, go back to reddit.
Is this a bit?
What's disingenuous is pretending that a single picture of a random happy petty bourgeois is evidence that systemic problems don't exist, or evidence of anything at all, really.
no locals have opined
I'm gonna bet this isn't true at all. But like, what happens to rent prices in places like Bali when relatively wealthy westerners arrive is known. And I strongly doubt most Balinese want higher rents.
this ain’t it, to me,
Did you see the part where she's encouraging and trying to help people make this move, right now, despite the pandemic?
I'll level with ya that her use of the phrase "elevate my lifestyle" sparks rage. Influencer-speak for "I wanted more luxurious housing and better insta backgrounds."
She could have spent her money at local businesses in her home, she didn't have to go abroad to do that.
and probably doesn’t deserve dragging the poor lib until she locks her Twitter.
Once again, she is encouraging people to do what she did, during an active pandemic. And on top of that, she's selling her ebook about it; that entire Twitter thread serves as a long form ad.
She absolutely deserves, at a minimum, to be dragged until she locks her Twitter.
She added this before making her account private:
Hey y'all! The conversations being had here are VALID. Though they aren't the conversations I was having today. They've been seen & heard. Just sharing my story with my peoples, stay safe.
"I see you, I hear you" has rapidly become a tool for deflecting criticism and reversing who's the bad guy.
It's the woke liberal equivalent of "yeah yeah yeah, whatever you say moron"
Imagine asking 30 dollars for a fucking e book. And if the way her tweets are written are anything to go by, it's likely just pages of self congratulatory humblebragging.
Also how do you burn through your savings while at the same time not having worked a single day because the universe didn't let you smh at least mention your parents.
This seems more like immigration than colonization, I mean it's not like she opened a sweatshop or built a coal mine.
Also not paying taxes to the US while spending her American client's money in Indonesia is good.
It's international gentrification.
Literally no different than some PMC ghoul moving into a historically black neighborhood and bragging about how cheap the rent is and how they totally have black friends now.
True....but that’s not really a bad thing except for the system itself that creates these incentives.
It wouldn't be a problem if the housing prices wouldn't skyrocket and if they weren't demolishing public/affordable housing to replace them with luxury condos.
It's bad when gentrification drives prices up and pushes the original inhabitants of that place out with higher rents and cost of living.
These "digital nomad" types also tend to seriously underreport their income to local governments for taxation purposes, so they put a strain on local medical systems, infrastructure, etc without giving back in any way except just buying shit.
This is a reactionary take. Its true that gentrification is bad, for the reasons you've stated. But the solution isn't for individuals to boycott it and not move to mixed neighborhoods that otherwise would save money and be better fit for them.
And blaming them for not paying enough taxes is just silly. The underpaid taxes that are causing strains in our system are not the 20-somethings with gigs here and there. You know who it is.
But the solution isn’t for individuals to boycott it and not move to mixed neighborhoods that otherwise would save money and be better fit for them.
The solution to a bad thing is not to stop doing the bad thing. Definitely not a reactionary take.
pretty much this except, doesn't she have to pay taxes to the US anyway? I thought all US citizens do
More importantly, how much tax is she paying to Indonesia, the place she's using the infrastructure and benefiting from Healthcare and other services?
Yeah I'm gonna guess she's not reporting her graphic design income that almost certainly all comes from overseas.
If she doesn't report the income as subject to tax by Indonesia, then she can't claim the FEITE and her income will be subject to taxation in America as long as she maintains American citizenship, regardless of how long she is out of the country.
If you spend 330+ days/year in other countries (time at sea doesn't count, so sailors get fucked), income that is subject to taxes in other countries is exempt from US taxes, it's called the Foreign Earned Income Tax Exclusion.
If she's working for a US company (like a work from home deal) I would assume she would have to pay US Tax. If you're an expat and working in a foreign nation for a foreign company you would have to pay US tax if you make more than like 130,000 USD. I could be wrong im no tax accountant.
says she's a self-employed graphic designer, but also says she is taking a stab at "entrepreneurship"
not sure if she is referring to the same thing in both instances
i remember when it was just called "grifting" and was allowed to be fun.
it’s not like she opened a sweatshop or built a coal mine.
Taking bourgeois wealth away from its source is like Panama Papers praxis
The problem is that you're displacing the original communities and prices of everything skyrocket. Making the poor poorer.
Anyone who describes themselves as a "digital nomad" gets gulag after the revolution.
That's for vanliving people who only own a laptop and two pairs of trousers
Or the digitized consciousness of a comrade, traveling from server to server to escape fascist sysadmins.
Yes, the fact that my mom (less online than my dad, who is NOT online) knew the phrase Digital Nomad is a huge problem/red flag
old growth forests: cut
monoculture baby trees: planted
This reminds me of the debacle on r/lostgeneration a couple of years ago where someone made a long and detailed post instructing fellow millennials to follow in their footsteps by living with their parents, saving every cent possible by absolutely decimating their health with cup noodles, and then retiring in SouthEast Asia at 35. It didn’t go over well, even with that basket of libs.
