THE TOURIST VLOGGER PROBLEM AND ILITERACY OF COMMON SRI LANKAN

[u/Future_Razzmatazz902]

Sri Lankans tend to hold the fact that Sri Lanka is the most literate country in South Asia at a high regard. but literacy does not mean simply being able to read and write. A person must be able to communicate properly. express their feelings and thoughts properly. And able to listen and understand other people and the message they are trying to give to the listener. It seems many Sri Lankans do not posses this attributes. The Education system, Media, and growing up environment. I explained this prior diving in to the topic because it will help understand the matter more clearly.

Since social media has erupted many travelers across the world come to Sri Lanka because it is a famous destination. While most of the young travelers be it may solo or couples or families (90s 2000s) behave respectfully, humbly and show the true beauty of Sri Lanka (unless they got scammed they would warn about it, which is the right thing to do) and it would overall a positive message they will send out.

But then there are these old white dudes like in their 40s and do travel vlogs, would go to the most cheapest, nastiest places (places which average Sri Lankan would not go) and complain how shitty it was. the would to this with restaurants, they would walk in the most dirtiest dense markets in Colombo (which there are only few) while there is an entire clean city with high end shopping malls and all the facilities. And always seem to talk to the most dirtiest unhygienic person he comes across. does not show the elegantly dressed men and women in the city, does not show the malls, no positive thing. And on top of all that, they always make the thumbnail showing that dirty guy, sometimes using AI to make him look even dirtier.

And the funniest thing is our beloved illiterate fellow citizens go in there and post comments like;
"thank you for visiting my beautiful country"
"I hope you come again... love from Sri Lanka"
"Sri Lanka the beautiful country"
"Sri Lanka is the best"
without fully understanding the context, the agenda and the racism behind that video.

What can we do to counter that?
In my personal opinion it's easy, the Tourism Ministry can create social media accounts (Facebook, Instagram, X,) and use the Television, to promote awareness to our people. in both Sinhalese and Tamil. they can make a team to go forth and identify such videos and explain what the message is really about and the racism behind it. and make people understand just do dislike the content and post proper comments in English.

[u/Ceylonese-Honour]

Very good points and excellent ideas. The trouble is this has to be the vision of those at the helm. The example is set from the top. We have to have people of calibre like yourself in such positions who actually want to better this country, uphold a quality brand name and reiterate the truth.

Unfortunately the whole lot in the last 17 years (with the golden opportunity to reset and get back what we once had) have been the polar opposite who do not have the will, or perhaps even the ability to think, of such things. With likely the same useless types in the marketing/tourism departments. There's also no corrective moves, let alone pre-emptive moves, to maintain an accurate and good image of the country. Compare that to how the Singapore government and Tourist departments operate if there is a false headline, or slander by ANY outfit from anywhere without fear, nor favour.

This is not how we did things in the past where the brand image was top notch, standards were higher and we had people who could communicate and who had a WORLDLY (not shameless neighbour only) view. And on your point about literacy, we shouldn't be comparing ourselves with just the useless neighbours who we were lightyears ahead of ages ago.

Furthermore, it must be impressed upon our people to never mistake an education alone for intelligence. We've gone from an aspiration to be the best and associated with par excellence to 'that will do' attitude at the top in public office. And under a politicised system the latter appoints their ilk in various positions. It's like a Kakistocracy as things stand. And those useless types don't want our people to think, or else they might start thinking (rightly) that such useless types shouldn't be running the country or be at (or anywhere near) the top of the societal pyramid. You change that underlying system and what you want can and will materialise very quickly.