"He showed me his own TikTok account, which he started last summer. The grid is full of videos showcasing the beauty of Kukes: clips of his friends walking through velvety green mountains, picking flowers and petting wild horses. 'I’m testing myself to see if TikTok can be used for a good thing,' he told me. 'The idea I had is to express something valuable, not something silly. I think this is something people actually need,' he said. During the spring festival, a national holiday in Albania when the whole country pours onto the streets to celebrate the end of winter, he posted a video showing young people in the town giving flowers to older residents. At first, his nephews were 'not impressed' by their uncle’s page. But then, the older boy clocked the total number of views on the spring festival video: 40,000 and counting."
५ सप्टेंबर, २०२३
"Billa is worried about his nephews, who are being exposed to luxury lifestyle videos from the U.K., which go against the values that he’s trying to teach them."
"They haven’t yet said they want to leave the country, but he’s afraid that they might start talking about it one day. 'They show me how they want a really expensive car, or tell me they want to be social media influencers. It’s really hard for me to know what to say to them,' he said.
Billa feels like he’s fighting against an algorithm, trying to show his nephews that the lifestyle that the videos promote isn’t real...."
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If the rest of the media isn't making the Albanians want to leave, why would TikTok be the straw that breaks the camel's back? This is missing the rest of the story: Albania isn't a nice place to live.
Hahaha…take that kids!
Uncle Billa is doing it right. On YouTube I follow an Irish farmer who walks among his cattle and sheep, showing the countryside and speaking with his lilt. Every now and then a herding dog works in the background, which is gold content. It is the most boring view imaginable, but it brings peace and a sense of place, a look at someone else's life.
How ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm
After they've seen Ricky Gourmet?
If those boys could create a western style income off of social media while still living in Albania, they would live like kings.
If the first world does not somehow provide the third world a first world standard of living, the entire third world will attempt to move to the first world.
They need to get back to the old ways and traditions of Hoxha. Armed guards at the borders to murder the emigrants. A celebratory execution of a priest or dissident. The pillboxes that dot the countryside have fallen into disrepair. In the old days, every neighborhood had a functioning machine gun nest, but the old ways have gone.
Kukës, I had to look that up. Note the umlaut.
"...the beauty of Kukës" must not be in the eye of the beholder, though the irony might be beautiful in a Wildean sort of way. Kukës is an Albanian town nestled in a valley between some rather dramatic Balkan peaks, but the habitation itself is rather tawdry with its crumbling Stalinesque apartment blocks (not being Stalin, Enver Hoxha built smaller scale monstrosities) each with a bright azure cistern bolted to its roof.
This post brings up a vexing question. Which is more stupid and useless, a social media influencer or someone influenced by a social media influencer?
The kids know what Albania is like. He's not going to change their minds by telling them to disbelieve their eyes. If he wants to break them of their desire to leave, he needs to show them what life in the UK is really like for kids from Albania.
Isn't Kukës the objective of the left? Small, poor and no industry? It's also "green" I hear. I wonder what the private care per passenger ratio is. Probabley very small. Seems like it should be idyllic to left elitists.
"All human forms seem glorified"
Petting wild horses sounds like a very bad idea. Picking flowers is an idea that will become bad if they attract any tourists at all.
I've been in Albania twice, back in the 90's. The first time, I was traveling in a camping van all over the country for two weeks, shortly after Hoxha died and it opened to the outside world. Believe me, there are beautiful places in the country.
But Kukes is not one of them. I well know because, the second time, I lived there for a month and "taught" other doctors in it's dreary hospital when I volunteered with a large international medical aid NGO during the Kosovo War (before I moved on into Kosovo for the next two months). How bad was the hospital? Well, the surgeons would toss back a couple shots of Raki each morning before going to work. There were exactly two wooden tongue depressors in the ER, which were dipped in alcohol between patients. That bad...
Kukes was grim then but its saving grace were the residents, who were lovely people. My favorite was my translator whose name was Elvis. I couldn't imagine how it could be a more depressing place but now I know - simply take half the people away. Albania and Kukes hold a special place in my heart and this story makes me quite sad.
"They haven’t yet said they want to leave the country"
Given a chance, and even if not, much of the Third World wants to leave. Until all inequalities have been evened out.
Which indirectly raises the question, why have we never seen a massive outflow of oppressed minorities from raaacccist Amerikkka?
Social media influencer is the white version of getting to the NBA and making it to the penthouse.
If the first world does not somehow provide the third world a first world standard of living
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the first world standard of living depends on stopping the third world having a first world standard of living
speaking of Albania >>
Today in history witnessed one of the most stalwart defenses against the Islamic spear-thrust into Europe — the Battle of Albulena in Albania in 1457.
Yes, Wa St Blogger, the leftists don't have to imagine the wonders of the "Green New Deal," they can go visit it, live in it, learn from it right now...in Albania.
Spoiled child syndrome.
the first world standard of living depends on stopping the third world having a first world standard of living
How?
Spent two months in Albania in 1999. Miserable place still trying to dig its way out of the wreckage of Enver Hohxa's rule 15 years earlier.
To be fair, all I saw was the immediate area around Tirana-Rinas Airport as part of the Army V Corps attempt to "play" in the air war between March and June of that year. Dirtiest I've ever been in my life...even my Army buddies (I was the senior USAF officer with the deployed Corps) were grossed out by the conditions.
Would love to go back though, just to see if things have improved...they must have; Albania then had no place to go but up.
Spent two months in Albania in 1999. Miserable place still trying to dig its way out of the wreckage of Enver Hohxa's rule 15 years earlier.
To be fair, all I saw was the immediate area around Tirana-Rinas Airport as part of the Army V Corps attempt to "play" in the air war between March and June of that year. Dirtiest I've ever been in my life...even my Army buddies (I was the senior USAF officer with the deployed Corps) were grossed out by the conditions.
Would love to go back though, just to see if things have improved...they must have; Albania then had no place to go but up.
How ya gonna keep them down on the farm after they've seen Paree?
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