Building Empathy, One Vlog at a Time!

The Unexpected Heroes Humanising Distant Lands.

In my imagination, a border check-post between Tajikistan and Afghanistan would have been a heavily guarded military post with masked men. But it turned out to be a lot more relaxed.

And if you're thinking I went there myself—no way, I didn't! A new-age Desi vlogger named Garima did. She recently visited the Taliban controlled territory of Afghanistan, as a solo female traveler.

She was even allowed to shoot her vlog from inside this border checkpost where you get your passport stamped. I found this incredibly surprising.

If you are anything like me, your perceptions of Afghanistan have largely been formed by News headlines. You know, bombings, terrorism and the troubles.

But in Garima’s vlogs, you see her exchange smiles in a market and buy some fruit. You see her being treated nicely.
You get to see the streets of Afghanistan and its people.

This is something you rarely see in traditional media.

Headlines miss humanity, vlogging embraces it

The world is largely composed of ordinary people. 
News only captures the unordinary.
Vlogging changes this.

This to me is one of the most powerful shifts currently happening in the world.

Until recently, it was simply impossible to see a place like Afghanistan through a medium as raw as these vlogs.

Once you have seen children playing in the streets, merchants trading in a market, you can only wish good for the people residing in this land. Despite all the ongoing problems. You begin to feel empathy, something that plain old news headlines often fail to evoke.

Vlogs hold immense potential for deepening our understanding—and perhaps even sparking affection—for distant lands.

And they are not the first medium to do so. Movies have already carved a path, demonstrating the cultural impact a form of media can have.

Movies have already been bridging distances, and hearts

For a moment, let me take you with me to Central Asia. Where I traveled to earlier this year.

After strolling for several kilometers in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, I found myself seated amidst a lively public space. 

A cheeky 3 year old kid came running to me and tried to say something in a language I did not understand.

His grandfather, who was nicely dressed in traditional wear and had a belly and a build that added to his calm demeanor, followed him, smiled warmly, and asked where I was from.

“India”, I said. 

His eyes lit up as he exclaimed, 

"INDIAA!! HINDOSTAAN!" (Hindustan is another name for India, albeit lesser-known.)

He called the rest of his family over and introduced them.

“India, India, see, he is from India!”

I felt so touched by this warmth. Warmth, that wasn't just a fluke; it was cultivated over years of watching Indian movies. Yeah, you read it right—Bollywood movies have got a fanbase here.

This was a moment where I deeply felt the power a medium can have to build bridges across distant lands.

And it's not just movies anymore.

Enter vlogging : the democratisation of storytelling

Cinema doesn't universally resonate across all geographies.

Some places are still only accessible when directly traveled to.
And when you do travel, it is even more real. It is not fiction.
You see the place and its people for what it is.

As I did in Central Asia.

The catch though is, that I can not travel everywhere by myself.
And this is where Vloggers come in!

During my travels in Central Asia, crossing into Afghanistan was a line I didn't cross—until I saw it through Garima's vlogs. These vlogs, so accessible and unfiltered, offered me a look at what was otherwise inaccessible. They underscore just how game-changing this new wave of vlogging is for the way we understand the world.

Gone are the days when you needed a charismatic host, an entire film crew, and a huge budget to document travel experiences. Now, any solo traveler with a decent phone can produce vlogs, capturing unfiltered experiences as they happen.

With this level of accessibility, vlogs might go on to eclipse films in their cultural impact.

No matter where you are from, and what language you speak, there probably is a vlogger who is just like you, and who is capturing a land far away from you, a land that you did not understand, yet!