Name: What is the Trouble With Tourism?
Start: 2025-12-13T01:30:00.000Z
Location: Osbourne Hotel

**Note to Attendees: *Please consider making a $5 donation to contribute to the running costs of this Meetup.***

Popular culture is everywhere—guiding our tastes, shaping our language, and defining what's considered “normal.” But as David Foster Wallace once observed, *“There’s some great stuff on television, but a lot of it is just candy for the mind.”* So how much of what we consume is expanding our understanding of the world, and how much is quietly dulling our curiosity and autonomy? Is popular culture simply reflecting who we are—or is it actively shaping who we’re allowed to be?

At our next Gold Coast library meetup, we’ll examine the influence of popular culture and ask whether it enriches society or erodes it.

**The questions we’ll debate at this session are:**

1. Has popular culture become a substitute for serious thought and meaningful debate?
2. Is pop culture reinforcing conformity by turning dissenting views into social liabilities?
3. Are we mistaking representation in media for real social progress?

For those who want to keep the conversation going, we’ll head to **lunch at SOPO**, a relaxed venue just a three-minute walk from the library, after the discussion.

**PLEASE NOTE:**
– This is intended to be a good-natured but robust discussion. Please be respectful and prepared to have your ideas challenged. If you are easily offended, this event may not be for you.

Brisbane & Gold Coast Free Thinkers Meetup

Samuel Medley

Kelvin

Ryan Watson

John Williamson

R E Bolton

Sophie 

Rachel Hunter

Sam Ah Wing

Lisa

Haruko

Angela

Ollie

Pan L

Sylvia

Lynn

Alisha Joy Lowe

What Is the Problem With Popular Culture?

Southport Library

***Note to Attendees: Please consider making a $5 donation to contribute to the running costs of this Meetup.***

Tourism is often praised as a path to discovery — a way to broaden horizons and connect with new cultures. Yet as Paul Theroux quipped, *“Tourists don’t know where they’ve been, travellers don’t know where they’re going.”* Beneath the romance of travel lies a harder question: what happens when visiting a place begins to change it?

As destinations adapt to outsiders, authenticity can slip, cultures can be packaged for consumption, and communities may end up performing curated versions of themselves. The search for the “exotic” can freeze living cultures in place, or reduce them to spectacles designed to satisfy visitor expectations.

At our next meetup, we’ll explore whether tourism, for all its benefits, may also carry hidden costs. The questions we will address are as follows:

1. Does tourism preserve culture — or slowly corrupt it?
2. Is the desire for the “exotic” a form of curiosity, or a subtle kind of exploitation?
3. Is there a meaningful difference between a *traveller* and a *tourist* — or is the distinction just ego?

This event will be held at **The Osbourne Hotel in Fortitude Valley**. After the discussion, we’ll stay on for a meal and a drink together — a chance to continue the conversation in a more relaxed setting and support the venue.

**PLEASE NOTE:**
– This is intended to be a good-natured but robust discussion. Please be respectful and prepared to have your ideas challenged. If you are easily offended, this event may not be for you.

Greg Gaffney

Greg

Sean Webb

What is the Trouble With Tourism? 

Osbourne Hotel

Gold Coast Free Thinkers Meetup

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Gold Coast Free Thinkers Meetup

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