Often, men envy and despise their peers to aspire to break away from stereotypes and become more than the status quo.

Crabs in a Barrel - the Zoom to Thailand Saga

Hello folks. My name is Angelo and I am a passport brother who brought his fiancé from Vietnam to live with him in the United States. We got married last year. We've been married for about a year now, and she's got a green card, and we're trying to settle in to get our life together here in the United States.

I wanna talk to you about a few things today. One of the biggest things is that recently  I reached the level of 500 subscribers to my YouTube channel. So thank you very much to everyone who has subscribed to watch the comedy, commented, or anything of that sort. I appreciate it, and, hopefully, it'll be a lot quicker to get to the next 500 so that we can monetize my channel and start taking this show on the retirement road!

But, until then, I will continue making videos, talking about immigration and the k1 visa process, and just the overall dating culture for men like me, of my age who are in the second stage of life, after divorce. 

One of the things that I have been watching recently on YouTube is the issue that just came about with this guy Richie Mac, he has a YouTube channel called Zoom to Thailand. And I started watching Richie a while back when I think, he was still under a thousand users.

Richie moved to Thailand to live after a moderately successful career as an actor in Thailand. He wanted to move someplace where his money went further and he could put more of it to work for himself.

When I first started watching Richie,  he was interesting to me because obviously, I was traveling back and forth to Southeast Asia because I was going there once, maybe twice a year to visit my fiancé, Nghïa in Vietnam. I was really interested to hear his take on the US dating culture, divorce (he was divorced too) passport bros movement, and the whole thing, as it pertained to Thailand, instead of Vietnam.

Then I saw a video about Richie Mac in the news because he ended up having a fight -- like a physical fight altercation -- with another, YouTuber. This guy is kind of like the antithesis of Richie. He talks about all the bad things that happen to American living or vacationing in Thailand. And often he challenges what Richie Mac promotes in his videos by saying, "That's a lie."  Basically, he is trying to expose all of the bad things that can happen in Pattaya, Thailand.

Basically, the format for his YouTube channel is very negative, snarky, sarcastic, and calls "bullshit" on a lot of travel vloggers in Thailand. Basically, he's a bully. 

The Bully set his crosshairs on Richie and his show, Zoom to Thailand. Why, because Z2T is doing very well as a YT show and as a business.  Richie Mac made comments and some on-camera gestures and some, you know, some grand movements that kind of set the two of them off. The result was a physical altercation on the streets of Pattaya.

I'm not so much interested in the fight, because, you know, bullies will be bullies and thugs will be thugs. And, you know, I grew up with that mess back in Queens, New York. And I always made a point of, getting away from that. You know, there's this whole story about, what they call it crabs in a barrel.

Crabs in the barrel where one, crab tries to get out and the others pull him back in. And that's kind of what, Richie Mac is facing, because his YouTube channel was blowing up and doing really well. He's turned it into a business. And from what I understand, it is thriving. He's got a fine-looking, mature, feminine Thai woman at his side who is his mate and partner, in this.

Richie is doing well so it's kind of natural that someone would come and challenge him. Why? Envy. Jealously. Crabs in a barrel thinking.

The thing is, I saw this coming. I knew this was coming because the way that Richie articulates and showcases the lifestyle is going to affect a certain type of person in a certain type of way. Especially when the individual has a bully mindset and wants what he imagines you have, i.e.: success. 

The Bully made accusations about why Richie only showcases the good things of Thailand, not the bad. To that, I say, "Why is that a bad thing? He's entitled to run his show the way he sees fit. He does not have to conform to anyone else's view or perception of life in Thailand.

It's Richie's prerogative. It's Richie's show! And if only the good stuff is his personal experience, who the hell are you to tell him otherwise? 

But, I, like I said, I knew that this was going to happen. I sensed it months prior. Particularly when I started to see the the dynamic change of some of Richie's, videos, and this sort of focusing on, you know, the, the women and the, well, it just to me, it just became less about relationships, and then more about, you know, trying to live that high life, you know, and, obviously that, like I said, affects to a certain type of envious person.

What's ironic is that when I watch Richie interact his girlfriend, that's what draws me to his show. That relationship seems familiar and ideal because it's very similar to my relationship with Nghia, and that, you know, she takes care of me, and she supports me.

When I have to go out in the world and do whatever it is I need to do and come back home and try to get grounded again. She's there to help and support me. That's kind of why I tuned into Zoom to Thailand. And I don't really care for the flashy stuff or the pedestalizing of Thai women or advocating a hook-up culture for men flying to Thailand for women, not relationships.  That's never been my thing. But I know that there's a lot of people who like that kind of stuff

And that leads to success, and then there are a lot of people that are jealous that his show skyrocketed to success. And, the show has a lot of momentum behind it and this movement of American men going abroad to seek more traditional women in other countries is big.

Zoom to Thailand just gets bigger every day. And so, you know, I wish him the best. I'm going to continue watching the show. You know, I'm glad the fight did not turn out as bad as I thought it was.