rip passportbros - enter the digital homad

the ‘passportbro’ is the archetypical digital nomad. they are usually:

• from western countries

• remote working with a mac

• leveraging whiteness

we know them. we have seen them.

what i find more interesting is the ‘digital homad’: the ones who leave and return as digital workers not into a nomadic pattern but a domestic. they are returning home.

i am at the beginning of scoping out what a digital homad is exactly but this is what i see from my vantage point in south east asia. digital homads usually:

• studied abroad and continued working there

• spend weeks to months at home (first stint usually during covid)

• return to their parents home and fight with the parents and get emergency accommodation for the rest of their stay (repeat x times)

• return during european/american winter

• stretched immigration-wise - usually on a work visa or a permanent residency visa that requires periodic check ins with the western country which makes it difficult to commit to full time back at home

• spend time as caretakers for family members

just like their cursed counterparts, digital homads live in a physical and economic superposition: they are in both places until an event (usually a marriage) causes them to collapse their reality into of the the states.

digital homads may come back out of obligation to familial duties but also comfort in the things they grew up with and the friends they miss. i think this trend will increase in the future.

to be continued next week.