THE NARRATIVE ARC
JD Vance and Me — Unlikely Parallels in the Blogging Era
Hillbilly Elegy and Silk Road Stories
Cast your mind back to the early 2000s, when Mark Zuckerberg was an unknown college student, TikTok was a noise made by clocks, and everyone seemed to have a blog. As an aspiring travel writer, I was among them, reporting daily on my six-month overland journey from Beijing to Istanbul in 2005 on the now-defunct TravelPod platform.
Writing on the road presented challenges. It was hard to write while precariously balancing my laptop on a crowded bus full of roaming chickens or sitting in a remote yurt being studiously watched by my curious host family. Despite the conditions, I diligently chronicled my adventures for an eager audience. Well, an audience consisting of my mother and, occasionally, a few bored friends filling in time at work.
My mother, ever supportive, printed and collated these posts into a folder she presented to me upon my return. Recently, during a cold winter weekend, I rediscovered this treasure trove. While the writing was raw and many jokes outdated, I could see the genesis of the writer and storyteller I am today.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, another aspiring writer was embarking on his own blogging journey. JD Vance…
