that one fixed place that they
would link to being home for
them and ‘home’ could be a
multitude of places.
Most often, what I find when
I speak to other TCKs or people
that are featured on my page,
they always talk about home
being more a place where
their friends and family are.
Wherever their friends and
family are, that’s where they
would call home. They will
tie all of their memories and
experiences to these more
abstract things, which maybe
helps them to shape their
identity a bit more. But that’s
how I would differentiate it.MPC: You mentioned that
you have a page there, can you
expand on that a bit? What do
you do in regards to the TCK
movement?Kelly: I have an Instagram
community (@_thirdculture)
and I always like to say it’s
basically a ‘Humans of New
York-style’ page. I compile the
stories of people from all over
the world and of all different
ages as well. You know, it could
be like multicultural families,
or it could be third-culture
kids growing up in various
countries across the globe,
and I share their stories.
I curate posts, so I’ll design,
some text posts too, as well
as pictorial posts. Those text
posts will either be quotes
that people can relate to, or
they might be quotes that have
been taken from stickers and
stories, for example. I do a lot
of polls and ‘ask the audience’
on my stories and it will be
things like: “how would you
deal with homesickness?”,
“what’s some advice that you
would give to your younger
self?”, or “what’s some advice
that you give to fellow youngkids who are going through the
transition of moving between
countries?” I try and make it as
relatable as possible.
It’s a great hub for TCKs,
but it’s also intended to be sort
of an educational platform
as well, a page for those who
maybe don’t know about
the concept. I found that,
especially during the pandemic
and like the last few years,
there have been a lot of ups
and downs, political unrest,
and stuff like that, especially in
terms of cultures mixing and
how people view each other in
their society.
So for me, the Instagram
community has been a great
tool to teach people about the
benefits of mixing cultures and
how important it is to be open
and to just be curious and want
to learn about different people
in different places.MPC: What prompted you to
start your TCK page, to begin
with? How did you get it going?Kelly: I’ve always toyed with
the idea of talking about third-
culture kids and educating
people in such a way, I just
never knew what avenue
that would take. Basically, I
was always on social media
anyway, I mean, I love flicking
through Instagram. You know,
I feel like when you’re starting
off anything, it has to be a
place that you are naturally
gravitated to anyway.
So whatever platform that
you want to kind of establish
yourself on, if it’s a blog or a
podcast, you need to make
sure that you understand the
way that platform works. If you
naturally use it anyway, then
it makes your life a lot easier,
rather than having to do that
extra step of login and kind of
learn about it.So, it was
initially a project between
my friend and me, because
we were on the executive
committee of the Third Culture
Society at Warwick University,
which was a really fun society,
and that was the first time I’d
learned about the term.
I was vice-president at
the time, so I was doing the
marketing and I found it really
interesting like, how do you
market a concept that’s so
niche and there are so many
people that could fall under
that bracket, but maybe they
haven’t had the right exposure
to it or they didn’t know about
the term before? And how
do you remain inclusive to
everybody at the same time?
For me, it was like: ‘OK,
this is a project that we want
to start, so let’s find the right
platform for it, and let’s try and
optimize our SEO and find the
community that’s out there’.
I found that Instagram
was the best place for it, so
I started making content,
sourcing stories from friends
and family who had these
similar experiences to me
growing up in International
School and even back at
university. Then I started
working on quotes because I
like to design stuff as well, so
that was where it all began.
And then, yeah, it just took
off because, luckily, I kind of
fell into it at the right time
when there were only a fewTCK accounts out there.
Personally, I found that they
were a little bit, not quite
negative, but sort of mixed.
I wanted to present a more
positive, vibrant feed and I
wanted people to engage with
the content in a different way
and be inspired, rather than be
looking at the negative or the
less rosy aspects. So, for me,
it was a good way of cracking
into that space.MPC: What kind of feedback
have you been getting from the
community? Obviously, it’s still
a growing platform, so how
have people responded?Kelly: They’ve been amazing.
I found that when you start to
create a community, you get
loyal followers that engage
with your posts and they want
to help you as well. So there
has been a buzz around things
like they want to create a
dating app, or they want to take
it further than just this one
page and I think that’s great.
Initially, I had a bit of
pushback because there were
a couple of followers, and I
don’t know if people find this
as well, but sometimes your
most loyal followers are also
the harshest in terms of the
way they give you feedback.
But it’s something that you
should take on board because
they’re obviously engaging
with it as they’re giving you
their opinion. Some of the
feedback I got initially was
like that. That it was too
rosy, or too perfect, like that
there wasn’t enough of that
well-rounded, all experiences
kind of thing. Because when
you’re a TCK, there are good
and bad aspects, so you could
say: “oh yeah, it’s great. We’re
mixing cultures, we can fit in(^) © everywhere. We can blend
IN
ST
AG
RA
M
The TCK community
on http://www.instagram.
com/_thirdculture/