The largest age group of Facebook users are 25-34 year-olds.
Hashtag #travel generates more than 776 million results on Instagram.
There are around 2 billion users on Instagram and over 1.5 billion on TikTok.
Comedian Eric Feldman went viral when he posted a video of still photos of himself dressed as a middle-aged woman holidaying in Rome. In the 40-second slideshow were awkward selfies, blurry pics, and the Beach Boys’ soundtrack Kokomo. Feldman was imitating on Instagram the gawky sentimentalism of photosthat Boomer mothers upload to Facebook. Eleven million views suggested he did the job well.
Eray Beyi, another comedian, did something similar. As “aunties taking pictures on a day out in London”, Beyi ventured to Harrods in nine poses. His eyes look dead at the camera. His hands are awkward. There is always a benevolent smile. One commenter plays the game: “Looks lovely Linda Did you see a show x”.
While both posts are blatant satire, they land with audiences because what Feldman and Beyi spoofed is iconic: The Boomer mum on holiday posting on social media. Just as a “photo dump” on Instagram with an untethered narrative has become a calling card of Gen Z.
Travel memories - once flipped through a dusty photo album one weekend after family lunch at your great-aunt’s - are now swiped and scrolled through on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok, with all its emojis, hashtags, and the battle for more likes.
What’s also different is that for the first time in history, eight generations are alive at once, and seven of them (bar Gen Beta, who have just entered the world) engage with social media differently from one another to record and share past adventures, or seek inspiration for new ones. Around 66% of Gen Z rely on social media for travel inspiration, according to a 2025 survey by Data Axle.
Millennials tend to share their travels with branded earnestness; a carousel of photos they believe is a true reflection of the trip - while demonstrating the burning desire to perfect, crop, position that meal and pose. It gives max normcore, minimalist chic.
Then there’s Gen Z with their irony and ambiguity. The IDGAF (I don’t give a f***) low-budget aesthetic restraint - except, ironically, it’s highly curated and intentional. It’s the meme-based aloofness - the artsy blurs, the no-text (or a random XL font size) on Instagram Stories, the no-context captions.
Instead of a picturesque photo of the Eiffel Tower, a 25-year-old is going to post a cat on the sidewalk, a field, a cookie shop, and a necklace with an inside joke for the caption while they are in Paris. There’ll be bad lighting and bad crops. They may not even add a location tag.
Baby Boomers and those older, on the other hand, essentially imitate the traditional photo aesthetic Feldman and Beyi parodied, but also likely exhaust the use of stickers, filters, cheesy sayings (“the food was great, but the company was even better!!”) that would give their younger counterparts the ick.
Gen X’s travel content is the personification of the photo album. Usually short captions, unfiltered pics or at least nothing that risks crossing into tacky territory. They were there and they want to share it with you, but not for you.
As for Gen Alpha, their aesthetic is still developing and mostly shaped by parents, rather than themselves. However, some traits are beginning to take shape - like maximalist visuals (think loud, bright) and spammy short-attention videos (aka brainrot).
We’re seeing distinct patterns with each generation - but generations are not tribes with fixed tastes. Dr Rosemary Overell, a senior lecturer in Media, Film & Communication at the University of Otago, suggests instead that they are a result of a fluid cultural framework: “‘Generational’ distinctions are social constructions, largely developed by advertising and marketing personnel,” she says.
Overell believes the main distinguishing factor between groups of people is class, “and I think that remains visible on social media”, she says.
“Of course, class is expressed variably depending on age-group – or we might say – generations.”
That’s not surprising - the foundations of tourism are steeped in privilege. Many historians argue that the origins of modern tourism are rooted in the 17th and 18th centuries, when aristocratic Englishmen travelled to a few European cities in a debaucherous fashion as part of a Grand Tour.
In 1776, English writer Samuel Johnson remarked: “A man who has not been in Italy, is always conscious of an inferiority, from his not having seen what it is expected a man should see”.
Today, travel is still a relative luxury. When you compare a trip to Bluff with one to Bali or Europe, the “cultural value” of these trips reveals something about the class of the traveller, notes Overell.
Dr Rosemary Overell is a senior lecturer in Media, Film and Communication at the University of Otago.
So what does this have to do with travel posts on social media? In a word: identity. When photos were placed in photo albums, they were personal keepsakes to preserve memories. Now, in the online realm, they are taken to be shaped, shared - and say something about you.
“It’s not that people want to scream ‘I am so very bourgeois’ when sharing a snap of eating an olive in Rome – but naturally they want to share themselves, which – naturally – aligns with a class position"
The professor adds there is also the luxury of “well-heeled ‘slumming’” while travelling, which is somewhat trendy:
“By this I mean the trend of travelling to less ‘sophisticated’ locations ironically or in the mode of almost a colonial ‘explorer’,” Overell says, citing British popstar Charli XCX’s song Everything is Romantic as an example.
“She travels to a lesser-visited ... European country to find its exotic kitschiness cool.”
“As a middle-class British woman, she has the positional luxury of being ironic about such kitsch – even seeing it as romantic. A working-class local travelling to say, Belgrade or Tbilisi would view the visit quite differently and, likely, mediate it differently on their socials," explains Overell.
Still, how these travel stories are mediated varies - and it’s getting shorter and shorter. The desire for authenticity might be the reason behind it.
“For Zoomers particularly, there is an emphasis on the ephemeral – the quick-look-or-you-will-miss-it of [Instagram] Stories, rather than posting on the grid," says Overell.
“You have to be ‘in their Stories’ to glimpse the edge of a champagne flute in Marseilles or corner of a charcuterie board in Lisbon. Making such stories even more authentic is the hook of ‘where is SHE?’” Overell says. She believes Gen Z are less likely to tag their location, aiming for a more “general cosmopolitan ‘travelling’ mobility”, rather than giving specific details of where they are.
“To post vulgarly and specifically where one is, is déclassé [parsed as ‘Boomer’ or ‘Millennial’]. Again, we return to the dynamics of class, folded into the ‘aesthetics’ of generations," Overell says.
These trends don’t play out in a vacuum - they affect how people travel. Travel social media posts are a huge source of information. We can see this in the creation of “Instagrammable” places, Overell points out, like Singapore’s Changi Airport or certain art exhibitions.
What’s more is that the content can even position itself to influence behaviour. “Ordinary people - content-creators, yes, but just everyday travellers – have become the disseminators and models of ‘correct’ traveller behaviour," says Overell, who cites videos on TikTok that shame people for what they deem “incorrect” tourist behaviour.
“Those doing the damning and filming sneaky clips on their phones then posting to socials also gain further clout in their position as ‘real’ and ‘authentic’ travellers by knowing what such shameful people have done wrong.”
Posting a pic of your next Fiji holiday - back turned to the camera, facing a turquoise sea at your 4-star resort - may seem meaningless. It’s not.
That’s not a bad thing - the need to share is human. We crave connection, validation, opinions. While elements are curated or even superficial, your posts may be less about memory and more about identity and privilege.
