HASHTAG VS REAL VAN LIFE
At the time of writing, there are 6,270,889 posts on Instagram with the hashtag ‘vanlife’. In the time it took me to write that last sentence, nine new #vanlife posts were added. That means I’m averaging about one word per 0.6 #vanlife posts. Let that sink in. #vanlife has become a full-blown phenomenon. But how did a movement centered around disconnecting from society and taking life to the outdoors become a digital sensation? How did #vanlife even become a thing? Are #vanlifers sellouts, or are they opening the doors for people to take their lives on the road by showing them the possibilities?
Van life stretches back to long before the advent of the hashtag. Some van-life archivists point to the year
