Opinion: Influencers and Algorithms are Changing the Point of Adventure

Sam’s PhD research has led him to many chats with social media influencers, including those who inspire us to get outdoors. But are the algorithms and a lack of responsibility putting us at risk of missing the point of adventure in the first place?

A person stands on a narrow ledge at Diamond Bay in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs, arms outstretched, the Tasman Sea crashing far below. They’re not rock climbing. They’re posing, for the perfect photo. Not far behind them, three others wait their turn. No backpacks. No ropes. Just a smartphone and a curated idea of adventure. Risk for the social media age. 

Photo by @serginho70 on Unsplash

We used to go outside to disconnect. Now, many go to perform. The outdoors has become a backdrop – not for self-discovery, but self-promotion. Was it always like this?

In the heady days before social media, where adventure was synonymous with dirt and grime rather than Lululemon and DSLRs, people went out of their way to experience a feeling and connection with the outdoors. Before the algorithm, adventure was slow, uncertain, and deeply personal. 

Great writing and great feats came from these ventures; with writers like Jon Krakauer of Into the Wild and Into Thin Air fame, painting vivid portraits of ventures in mountains and wild places, only to tell their tales in an analogue fashion much later. These stories, and the lives and limbs risked for them, were hard-earned and raw. 

It’s Easy to Take a Risk

Anyone can take risks. It doesn’t require much thinking, determination, or even courage to place yourself in a particularly risky situation. Heroism derives from taking risks that have purpose. That purpose might be to go where nobody has gone before. It might be to save a person lost in the bush from hypothermia or starvation. It probably isn’t to strike a pose and take a selfie. 

Naturally, adventure has always looked appealing. From the fancy kit that’s breaking boundaries in material science, to the transport required to get to the trailhead or deep wilderness. There’s a lot to romanticise about the visual aspects of adventure. 

Flat lay aesthetic | Photo by Ben Wells

In this regard, natural places have always formed the stage for people’s escapades, perhaps in a much more metaphorical sense, to what we see now on social media. In the past, the stage was a place to perform derring-do, but now the stage is becoming more of a backdrop for social media antics.

Social media gave rise to influencer culture, and influencer culture gave rise to a new kind of adventure seeker.

This isn’t always conducted with ill intentions, but some social media influencers go about it in all the wrong ways…

In my PhD research over the past three years, which focuses on investigating risky behaviours driven by social media, I’ve had the opportunity to talk to some of these new Aussie adventure content seekers, and I’ve found some fascinating insights into the mindset of those chasing content, rather than purpose or fulfilment, in the wild.

Speaking to Influencers

Over the past three years, many of the influencers I interviewed didn’t see themselves as having much responsibility for their adventurous content – whether risky or not. In fact, from my interviews, it seemed quite easy for them to absolve themselves of responsibility for negative outcomes. It’s understandable, social media doesn’t reward responsibility. It rewards views and other forms of engagement – it rewards the visual aspects of risk-taking.

I began to understand.

Influencers told me that marketing pressure stemming from the race for likes and shares was fundamentally what shaped their content. When I pressed further on this point, I was bluntly informed, ‘It’s all marketing, isn’t it?’.

Social media, that is. The travel and adventure influencers I spoke to quite rightly saw social media as a marketing machine. One that they could learn to navigate and use to further their own ends.

It’s not like I completely blame them. Many of the people I spoke to were travelling around Australia in vans and exploring this vast and beautiful land as they went. That kind of travel doesn’t happen for free. And who can really blame someone for wanting to fund their trip and go a little further? Others were hobbyists who’d head to the mountains on the weekend to hike their days away, and if they could get a free pair of boots out of it for creating some flashy content, even if it looked a little dangerous and didn’t tell the whole story, then why not?

The problem, I found, was that this kind of mentality was giving way to a race to the bottom, where lived experience gives way to a curated image, and is driven more by algorithmic pressure than personal connection to nature.

In this era of highlight reels, people on social media talk of having ‘done’ the world, in a spirit of one-upmanship, rather than of being immersed in it.

Uluru? ‘I’ve done that.’
Ningaloo? ‘Done it.’

There are apps to tick off where you’ve been and peel-off maps that let you subtract entire countries after stepping foot in a single city. Influencers promote this logic, or illogic.

You surely don’t ‘do’ the world, do you? Perhaps on social media, you do.

@jackson.groves

Curated Risk-Taking

The influencers I interviewed aimed to display a curated and manicured experience of travel on social media, using language that emphasises accessibility, desirability, and the ability to ‘do’ a destination. They see themselves as ‘entertainers’ rather than educators – sort of like hype men for the outdoors, but relinquishing responsibility for the outcome of their spruiking.

Read more: How Do We Tackle the Paradox of Accessibility in the Outdoors?

Generally, this type of content promotes a good time, the ability to check off experiences in quick succession and the prioritisation of Instagrammable scenes. Carefully explaining the nuances of outdoor adventure wasn’t the focus for a lot of the influencers I spoke to – they were more concerned with marketing. As one interviewee told me about their risk-taking content:

‘It just performs better, to be honest… from an analytics standpoint.’

Some do attempt to tread lightly. A few told me they deliberately avoid tagging risky locations or include tips if the hike is especially difficult. But this is often framed not as responsibility, but as audience management or trying to play (or keep up with) the algorithm.

One influencer told me, ‘There are specific rocks that I’m like, “If people take photos of that, people will try and get there, but they probably shouldn’t try and get there, because it’s quite dangerous”.’

There are, of course, creators trying to do it right, who flag risks, who tread lightly. But they’re not always the ones the algorithm rewards. To be fair to them, the online environment they’re operating in doesn’t make it easy. Social media posts often exist in isolation and don’t necessarily have the whole context they could have, which might be found in another post.

Such portrayals have real-world consequences for destinations, the people who live there and, in some cases, for travellers themselves. For instance, some influencers indirectly encourage risky behaviours for the sake of content. A desire to capture the perfect, envy-inducing shot can lead to dangerous actions – from venturing too close to cliffs, to navigating precarious paths, or encroaching on sacred cultural sites.

Photo by @clayton_cardinalli on Unsplash

But maybe more importantly, this content pushes an image and sense of adventure that surely misses the point. It’s adventure for point seeking and kudos rather than the quiet sense of contented satisfaction that comes from topping out on a crag and not breathing a word of it to anyone but your mate who’s right there with you.

Exploration > Exhibitionism

The cultural shift that social media has precipitated – where exploration has morphed into exhibitionism – doesn’t really do anyone any good. Everyone loses. The people glued to their screens get a dopamine hit and a creeping sense of dissatisfaction.

They scroll through highlight reels and feel like they’re missing out, even when the content they’re watching is staged, branded, or borderline reckless. And the ones out there chasing that content? They lose, too. They’re out in wild places, but not really in them. They’re just ‘doing’ them.

The funniest thing about all of this is that, personally, most ‘adventure’ content on social media doesn’t stay with me. I scroll past like it’s any other ad. But there are exceptions. Some creators, like many featured by WAE, do offer some genuine insights and content that gets me to stop scrolling. That’s when you know it’s not just more fluff. Still, unfortunately, these are outliers in an online world filled with aesthetically pleasing spectacles lacking in substance.

Can we go back?

Maybe there’s a way back. Not to some romanticised golden age of adventure, but to something more grounded. Something slower. A mindset that values experience over exposure. That means sometimes not getting the shot, not tagging the location, not treating the outdoors like it owes a viral moment.

You don’t need to quit social media. But you could unfollow the noise. Especially the creators who treat nature like a stage set or a brand collab. There’s no real adventure in that – just marketing, as they tell me themselves.

And maybe the most adventurous thing you can do these days is turn your phone off, and tuck it away in your pocket, safe in the knowledge it’ll be there only when you need it.

Feature photo by Remi Chauvin