You’re Still Cherry Picking When You Showcase the “Nice” Part of Africa, You Know?

I just saw a video saying that all the pretty places in the photo aren’t of some highly developed place but is in fact Zimbabwe. While I don’t deny such places exist, and that Africa isn’t all shittiness, these sort of things come across as cope.

In a lot of western media, Africa has been potrayed as an endless pit of poverty and despair where everyone lives in a mud hut. In response, people start showcasing the nice parts of Africa, showing incredibly luxurious places. While they make for good tourism material, you can’t just ignore the vast shittiness as an overcorrection. Even in terms of tourism, while there is a lot of beauty to see, it’s incredibly fucking expensive, especially compared to other destinations because of how poor the infrastructure is.

On the plus side, it isn’t as overtouristed which would diminish the beauty of these places. I just hope we can have a better narrative instead of coping whenever someone goes like “you live like this?”.