“New characters unlocked in the nine-month Ultimate World Cruise TikTok channel!” says an older man as pink letters fly across the screen to form an eccentric subtitle.
“Who are they?” his wife asks in an obviously rehearsed but heartbreakingly serious manner. The couple responds in unison: “It's us!”
Mike and Nancy are empty nesters and tiktok videos They look like they were edited with software from the early 2000s. But somehow, they are at the center of the culture of an app known for its young, tech-savvy user base. Welcome to the world cruise. No, we're not aboard the nine-month world voyage on Royal Caribbean, but like millions of people on the Internet, we're watching closely as the world cruise turns into an accidental online reality show.
From the beginning, this cruise was going to make a splash in the size of a ship. Cruises typically aren't that long, and lately these extended adventures haven't gone so well. A new cruise line called Life at Sea Cruises was about to depart on its three-year maiden voyage; but after cruisers rented out their homes, quit their jobs, and uprooted their lives to live on a ship until 2027, Life at Sea canceled the cruise at the last minute, stranding some early birds in Istanbul, where the cruise was supposed to begin. It turned out that Life at Sea didn't even have a ship, leading people to compare the ordeal to the infamous Fyre Fest. So when Royal Caribbean's nine-month cruise began just weeks later, the Internet was ready to pay close attention.
World cruising is an online phenomenon similar to Bama Rush: The University of Alabama's sorority culture is so cutthroat and intense that people follow it religiously. The rush of TikTokersand later, HBO even made a documentary film about. Whether it's a top-notch sorority house or a cruise that costs more than most people's annual salary, we're captivated by these unfathomable displays of wealth, especially if something goes wrong.
As the saying goes, every day there is a new main character on the Internet and your goal is to never be that main character. Typically, these figures are the subject of vitriol (such as the infamous Bean Dad Incident 2021), but now, cruises are the main protagonists. Some of them are influencers who knew what they were getting into, but there are also older people (the primary audience for these cruises) who may not be prepared for the ups and downs of social media fame.
A creator with more than a million followers on TikTok, Marc Sebastian, posted a video 10 days after the trip urging reality TV producers to “put cameras on that damn cruise.”
“We're watching the Fyre Festival, Alabama Rush, and no one is in a hurry there!” he says, exasperated. “Alternatively, put me on the cruise ship, I'll go… cause chaos, cause havoc, and record everything.”
Sebastian wasn't kidding about getting on the ship, because you can still sign up to go on the cruise only for certain legs of the trip. So Sebastian got his wish and got a sponsor to pay for his 18-day cruise trip. Soon, we will probably start to see other influencers board the ship in search of influence, generating controversy for opinions; but since Sebastian made the jump first and leans into the absurdity of it all, people love his updates.
It's been exactly a month since the world cruise set sail from Miami, and while nothing catastrophic has happened, the hype hasn't worn off. The Internet still can't look away: Imagine you're living on a boat with hundreds of strangers, but some of those strangers have suddenly become incredibly famous on social media, and your big trip has become relevant enough to the inhabitants. of the common earth as to appear in today's program.
The cruise will stop in 60 countries around the world, but the content of the trip isn't what keeps people interested: it's the characters. It's hard not to love Mike and Nancy, who have diligently kept us informed about very low risk cruise drama (The ship ran out of certain wines! They had to restock the wines in South America!). But there is also a younger cohort of cruisers, who are more of the stereotypical influencer type. These characters have aroused the jealousy and/or morbidity of many people, since it is difficult to imagine how someone in their twenties can afford to take a cruise that costs between 60,000 and 120,000 dollars.
Some characters include: Amike Oosthuizen, a South African influencer who travels with her boyfriend, and they both look like models. there is shannon and brandee, sisters who podcast together and travel with their parents. there is doctor jenny, who does not practice medicine on the cruise ship, but runs a consulting business remotely. And then this Angie Lindermanwhose parents recently died and left him enough money to travel the world.
Not even 10 days had passed since the cruise when a young cruiser, Brooklyn Schwetje, posted a video featuring the “cast” of CruiseTok. To the tune of the theme song “Full House,” each creator smiles and waves at the camera before gathering for a group photo, where they look like one big happy family on a cruise. But there has to be more drama than that, right? It feels like the first week of college, when everyone in the dorm is best friends, but by the end of the semester, you're sick of everyone.
Even people who aren't on the ship go viral for cruise-related content. A TikToker, @whimsysoul, made a bingo card for those of us watching at home. Some possible items on the bingo card include: staff dating a passenger, potty neighbor drama, massive norovirus, someone falls, a COVID outbreak, a second COVID outbreak, a pirate takeover, a pregnancy, a chaos of a lost passport and a wedding. Would you believe me if I said we were just? a massive STI outbreak away of bingo?
To be fair, the bingo boxes we've ticked haven't been all that outrageous. But it's only been a month and things are starting to get a little complicated. There is already conflict because members of Royal Caribbean's rewards program are treated differently than everyone else (…which is the whole point of rewards programs, but people are angry anyway). Then, at some point, parts of the ship flooded from bad weather. In the coming days, this could get even worse, because cruise ships travel to Antarctica through the infamous Drake Passage. So far, it seems to be extremely cold and windy.
CruiseTok's highlight so far was when an older woman named Adita posted a tour of her room, which included a pineapple sign on her door. Apparently, an upside-down pineapple is a symbol that means you're a swinger. So Adita, who innocently posts videos about organizing your medications on board, he had to clarify for internet that she and her husband are not really looking to swap partners with other couples.
“I'm sorry to disappoint you, but we are not swingers,” Adita said in the tiktok. “But we like pineapples!” Then she shows off her pineapple ring, pineapple necklace, and pineapple earrings. The New York Post wrote about the incident and criticized the publication for describing it as a “elderly passenger.” However, she has leaned into jokes and even posted a “husband reveals”TikTok, in which her husband poses in a short swimsuit dressed with a pineapple.
This week there was a meeting of content creators on the ship and Marc Sebastian recorded an interview with Adita about the onboard drama so far.
“It's so funny to me, because I didn't have TikTok until about a week ago,” Adita said. He also told Sebastian that some cruise ships have rooms that cost $765,000 and have a grand piano inside. And, as a member of Pinnacle, he has access to a secret Pellegrino stash, which is apparently hard to find anywhere else on the ship.
The cruise has remained so fascinating throughout this month because we, the viewers, are in a state of perpetual suspense. We have high hopes that the shit will hit the fan, but we still don't know if it will be in a fun way, like a surprise wedding on a cruise ship, or in a horrible but still possible way, like someone dying. Things can be very chaotic, like when the ever given ship got stuck in the Suez Canal, or they can be very chaotic, like when a billionaires' submarine exploded on their way to visit the ruins of the Titanic.
If you haven't tuned in yet, now is a good time. The waters of the Drake Passage are powerful. A new influencer is stirring the pot. The wine offer has been renewed. Get on board.
