“Authentic” Culinary Experience in YouTube Travel(V)log: Eating the “Other”

Abstract

YouTube travel vlogs have been transformed into a medium of sharing experiences in visiting countries around the world while tasting the local food as a part of seeking the authentic thrills. In this paper, a YouTube video from 4 European, American and Australian couple Travel(V)loggers broadcasting the vloggers’ experiences in tasting Indonesian food is analyzed. The main issue of the analysis is how young “White” or “First World” couple travelers are depicting the “Third World” countries. However, in the practice of representation in these vlogs there is an ambivalence because what is being presented is not independent of cultural ideologies within which the vloggers are situated. In other words, their own social, cultural and political context affecting what they consider as familiar taste in food. This article highlights how this symbolic gesture of eating the “other” further problematize the hierarchical dichotomy of “self” and “other” particularly as they travel to Indonesia