Source
r/couchsurfing•
TrueObservations

[Rant] CS today is mostly 3 things. Thirsty dudes, freeloaders, and creepy hosts.

I've been on CS since the early days (warning, grandpa's gonna rant). Back when it started, it was marketed a lot within the nomad community and thus its userbase was largely people who were heavily into the wanderlust lifestyle. This gave the community, I believe, a true orientation towards travel. The p2p hangouts, hosting/surfing experiences and events/meetups were really centered on travel experiences and lifestyle. The toxic things about Couchsurfing that exist now, existed back then too, but there was MUCH less of it.

Fast forward to now. Couchsurfing turned into a corporation and on-boarded a more generally focused user-base, and three horrible, horrible trends have emerged.

  • People who are just looking to save a buck say "cool, I can just stay for free", but don't really care about the cultural or interpersonal exchange. You can glimpse this through the "a guest used my space like a hotel" threads here and in the reviews on the app/website.
  • Dudes with fucked up ideas about consent know about Couchsurfing and the say "hell yeah, I'm going to host pretty [boys/girls] all summer, and probably fuck them". Any young man or woman who has used the app to a moderate degree has experienced a deluge of creepy host requests.
  • Similar dudes to the consent violators say "oh cool, a platform where I can go to events and meet girls, and wow look at these chicks on hangouts" and any woman who enters any town gets her inbox flooded with hangout requests or mobbed by dudes at any CS event. So a traveler walks into a CS event trying to find connections in a new place and they see a thirsty-dude-trying-to-hookup-shitshow. *Facepalm*.

There are still people who truly want to have cultural exchange and travel adventures, but in my opinion, the toxic behaviors that have creeped onto the platform have made it much, MUCH harder for people to have good experiences.

What are your thoughts about the state of CS 2019?

Posted Apr 13, 2019, 2:45 PM UTC

717
-paranomad-•

I have house rules like "no alcohol" and "please only use your phone if it's important" and I mention feminism, so the people you're referring to never message me (unless they didn't read 20 lines into my profile to find the code word). Works.

10
GadflyOfBmore•

You sound like a riot.

6
CSquestion1344•

Yeah, you also forgot women who come to your town purely to Instagram famous landmarks and has no concept of what couchsurfing is about. And she ends up blasting Tinder and you have all sorts of guys coming over to your house or odd questions like "Is it safe to meet somebody at Bar X".

​

Can you believe straight up escorts (I would bet she was a prostitute) are using it to travel from city to city and meet potential "clients"? Yes....somebody got the word out that if you are tricking (Oops..."erotic photo modeling") around cities, CS gives you a free place to stay and- if your John/Jane follows you- you have somebody to protect you. Yes...it's been happening.

​

Yes, CS blows now. Yes, you do get the occasional real traveler/adventurer

10
TrueObservationsOP•

Yeah, the women who abuse CS do so in some specific ways.

3
sukieniko•

Is this view not commonly accepted already? I tend to have this conversation with everyone I end up meeting at events or on hangouts. If they haven't noticed this already, they are usually one of the culprits.

5
TrueObservationsOP•

It is amongst anyone who's used the platform for more than a year :/

2
hotgarbagecomics•

This is the case with any social exchange based community that expands over the years. There's a critical mass where a community can self-regulate, but once it grows beyond that, all the shitty things start coming in and it's hard to control it.

I'm on a ton of social groups like CS, internations, and many other FB groups. The complaints are about the same. Freeloaders, thirsty folks, and creeps. In my opinion, the best way to have a positive cultural experience and exchange nowadays is to focus on smaller groups. Couchsurfing FB groups are a lot more active than the actual site in a lot of places, and people focus on meetups and activities there, being smaller and more focused.

Corporation or not, Couchsurfing has simply become too big a community, and there are always going to be creeps and freeloaders in the woodwork.

4
stevenmbe•

The toxic things about Couchsurfing that exist now, existed back then too, but there was MUCH less of it.

Yeah but isn't it like 5,000 or even 50,000 times bigger now, so isn't everything amplified

And which country are you in that you observe this ... it really depends which country you are in ... it's a good rant, don't get me wrong, but not every country suffers from all this stuff you rant about

3
apemanhop•

I guess the problem with these 3 things is the whole concept of taking advantage of someone,

whether it's a backpacker girl needing a place to sleep or of a generous host, offering free space..

So how do you screen past these 3 things?

3
TrueObservationsOP•

Excellent question. What are your thoughts on it?

2
apemanhop•

1/ Not be a freeloader, sleazy guy/girl yourself 2/ only host, or stay if you feel like you know what sort of person they are from their profile and feedback itself.
3/ use CS within moderation so it's not a compulsion

3
ScandalchrisHost & Surfer : 125+ references•

I think it depends entirely on the location. The bigger places (Paris, LA, Barcelona, etc) I see this a lot, but the more off the beaten path, the more genuine folks seem to be on CS

2
BearMaple•

This makes since, I had a hard time finding hosts in Sweden (even male hosts)

The first person to accept my request in Sweden after like 30 of them was a woman from Persia with a boyfriend, they were in a small town a few hours from Stockholm. They were so chill and made awesome food!

1
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
[deleted]•

[removed]

1
TrueObservationsOP•

You want some salsa for all those chips on your shoulder?

1
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
diboy2•

I would try joining groups of more than 3 people.

1
always_wear_pyjamasIS, Reykjavík. +100 ref, +150 hosted, since '11•

Definitely. I'm very selective nowadays with whom I host, often exchanging a few messages first before offering to host them. It's also important to just be clear and enforce boundaries.

1
BearMaple•

I remember when I first found our about Couchsurfing about 6 years ago, I was staying at a friend's co-op house and they hosted surfers. All seemed pretty adventurous.

Going to Paris in a few weeks, hopefully find some bad ass hosts/CS events

1