Hawaii Is NOT What It Seems (Even If It Looks Like It)

so I've been thinking a lot about this idea that maybe things aren't what they seem like in Hawaii and this works on multiple levels but primarily I want to talk about what you see online and even what you see in real life there's gonna be a one take thing I just been thinking about this for a while and so I just wanted to put this out there and see if anybody else either has thought about this or thinking about this or sees this as well I am in a Zippy's parking lot right now I I got a thing I got to go to but I just wanted to talk about this in the time that I have before the event starts and really just share what I just realized and maybe again other people have realized this as well but that things aren't what they always seem and first we can look to something like social media where we see this very curated and very like tropical and it's very beautiful right it's tranquil it's all the things the waterfalls the the Drone shots the you know beautiful beaches and they are all there but if you've ever lived in Hawaii and if you grew up here you know that's not really how it is to live here and it's just so interesting that we see that online we see all this stuff and we know that it's not real maybe the people even watching it know that it's not real and if you tell them that oh yeah that's not really like that they will of course say oh of course I I know that I know that but they still buy into that narrative and sometimes they don't want to be told because maybe it comes across as oh you think I'm an idiot and it's like no we're we're not saying that I don't think anyone's calling anybody that but there is this image that Hawaii does have and it's really not like that for a lot of people and and as I look on social media as I look on even like news not local news but like national news or they're more like advertisements I'm like wow yeah that's a really nice image of Hawaii but it's not the Hawaii that is is here you know and and sometimes I can get a little bit frustrating or discouraging and locals are often complaining that oh it's these these tourists or these influencers that come in and they show all the secret places and they they they talk it up and they glamorize Hawaii right they they pull all the best things appropriate the culture right and maybe but I also think that locals contribute to that as well and we're also the ones who put up this image of the foods that we eat the places that we go the perfect pictures that we take you know seven eight nine times we gotta take the perfect pictures and sometimes it's kind of like very interesting way to portray ourselves as well if we're upset that people come here and and make it into a highlight reel yet we also do that too so this all kind of started I guess when my wife was out shopping at Al Moana and she bumped into someone and they were shopping at I guess a luxury brand store and I was like okay why was she shopping in there you know but um anyway she was just browsing but she noticed that this woman was shopping for uh luxury bags that were like ten thousand dollars and in a lot of ways maybe it made her feel like a little maybe insecure or like doubtful or like how come she can buy that and I was like trying to explain like and just because someone looks at a ten thousand dollar bag doesn't mean that they can actually afford it you know and um she was looking for like wallets and and small things too and I'm like oh expensive too but just because people portray that doesn't necessarily mean that's always the case you know whether it's the cars they drive the bags and the things that they have it's not like that and maybe it's like that in other places as well but I think here in Hawaii because it's so small people really tend to care about those types of things that image that you put forth and I just be careful when you see that and I even have to do that for myself that I try to not fall into that trap and at the same time don't portray my life in some glamor way I mean we're very blessed you know we have a place I have two wonderful kids wonderful wife oh great job but I don't feel like I need to glamorize that any more than needs be what I share on my YouTube channel is a very small part of my life it's it's what I choose to share and even what I choose to share is often edited except for this video it's just going to be one take but if you've watched my channel before you know that it's it's it's edited and there's a script and and notes and things so even then it's not it's not just 100 like oh I just thought of all these things and as I'm thinking about these things I have to remind myself of that we have this spider in our living room right now because I don't know I guess we had a lot of bugs I don't know but there's a lot of bugs in Hawaii and this spider is in the corner and we've gotten a lot of flies like you know like the the normal house flies and they come in through the the door and the windows and drives me crazy because they're buzzing around so you know we'll go and smack them and um we started putting the the smashed flies the dead flies into the spider's web uh who's just standing in the corner and really is not gonna catch anything there because it's just like off into the corner and um you know we started putting like three four flat you know flies into this guy's uh I assume guys sorry the spiders web and it the spider most thought oh my gosh I'm I'm amazing I'm the best spider ever look how many flies I'm catching and little does the spider know that no we actually just dropping the the Flies for them and when we stopped doing that or whenever we get to that point where there's no flies right then the fly is wondering oh what what's what's going on and and that got me thinking about how sometimes I think the successes or the highlights or the wonderful things that a lot of people here have maybe not allowed but some people here have may not necessarily be due to themselves and that's totally okay maybe a gift from a a parent or grandparent or just some really advantageous circumstance and that's absolutely okay to have those things I feel like I I'm also blessed too I was able to go to the mainland for college and group in a you know great a good solid family with you know big family and all that so I had advantages too but I think it's important to note those things and and so remember that that's that's often not shown in the things that we see online that just because people have certain things or live a certain way or show what they show online that's not always necessarily to their own personal credit and again there's nothing wrong with that but I think it's important to remember that so when you yourself are viewing that you don't feel bad about yourself like what's wrong with me and again I know that if we talk about that people are like I know I know and it's just social media it's all fake anyway but you keep seeing enough fake images you start believing into that narrative and again looking at it from a bigger perspective more macro perspective with Hawaii if you keep seeing these images and these this lifestyle this eat out lifestyle this consumer lifestyle this beach apparently no one works lifestyle you start to buy into that and that becomes the main driving narrative and I think that's why a lot of people look to coming to Hawaii which is totally fine they want to come visit that's fine if they come if they want to come move here that's fine I've always had that position as local like you want to come move to Hawaii sure no I have no problem with that but then you get here and then you see how life really is and it's it's hard right and it's it's not what it seems to be like online and that's part of what I think this channel is trying to do or what I'm trying to do with this YouTube channel is to to help explain that to people who maybe they see different things oh the guy from Zippy's is here um who see different things who don't get a chance to talk to anybody about how life is really like here in Hawaii and I think that's very important and one of the things that I'm trying to do to the best of my ability is not to glamorize my life it doesn't mean my life is bad or horrible okay I don't want to get the wrong impression but it isn't always like that and even though The Narrative of Hawaii on social media online even marketing as a state as the tourism industry is supposed to be towards this like paradise land for me I'm I'm trying to to speak a different narrative about more about what it's like you know every day and and some people appreciate that some people don't understand that um but it's something that I've I've tried to do and um I'm very thankful for other people who follow this channel uh I just passed 30 000 subscribers which again that may seem like a lot but if you if you know the reality of YouTube and all that then you understand that how the views work and if your creator you know with analytics it's not what it appears right but the people that do watch I really appreciate it and the people that are discovering this channel each and every day I hope that they see what I'm I'm trying to do what I'm trying to talk about and also to maybe just see some content that isn't So Glamorous isn't so touched up isn't so epic drone shot and jumping off a waterfalls and swimming with dolphins and jumping out of a plane there is that here but it's not always that and when you come in and live here or if you grew up here you know that you know that and it's that culture that I want to talk about and capture it's that culture that everyday culture that I grew up with that a lot of people grew up with that we all live with every single day that's the culture that I wish we could share more of in Hawaii because there's like native Hawaiian culture which is very important and then there's the tourism industry image culture temporary tourists and and the whole thing and then there's what it's really like to live here in Hawaii and that's what I want to capture with this channel so uh and I I think yeah I gotta get going but um just want to share this uh one take hopefully uh people can relate and it's not just me who thinks these things so thanks for watching and hello hello [Music]

Channel: Hello From Hawaii

Views: 11,579

Keywords: living in hawaii, Life in hawaii, what is it like in Hawaii, Moving to hawaii, hello from hawaii, hawaii, oahu, honolulu, hawaii life, life on hawaii, hawaiian life

Id: qrCnzcFiTQo

Length: 11min 28sec (688 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 27 2023