In March of 2020 the world shut down for what we thought would only be a few weeks,

but extended well into the next year. Forced to stay in our homes in order to protect one another
from the dangerous Covid-19 virus, people were left with a lot of time on their hands and little
knowledge on what to do with it. Spending more time on social media people discovered new
hobbies to indulge in and for the extra adventurous Van-Life became an alluring idea.

Stuck inside for a majority of the day many people were looking for ways to connect to
one another and once again view the outside world, for those who were especially restless in
their homes RV’s became a topic of interest. According to gorving.com 430,412 RV units were
sold in 2020, a 6% increase from the previous year despite the pandemic and 600,240 units were
sold in 2021 further surpassing the already impressive previous year by 19%. The main reason I
believe this increase during the pandemic occurred is due to social media and the demographics
of people who largely consume online content. During the pandemic when people were stuck
inside they took to social media, according to a frontiers article in 2020 when the pandemic
began there was a 50 - 70% increase in internet usage and 50% of that usage went towards social
media. Two of the main social media sites which gained further popularity during the pandemic
were youtube and tiktok. According to a cnbc survey youtube had an increase in its adult
audience from 73% in 2019 to 81% in 2021, with 95% of adults between the ages of 18 - 29
surveyed saying they partook in youtube's services. Tiktok. According to statistica, it saw a
180% growth among 15 - 25 year olds during the pandemic.

On tiktok there are currently videos under the hashtag “vanlife” which add up to a total of
9.8 billion views not including more specific hashtags such as “vanlifetips” which has a total of
56.5 million views and others which also amount to millions of views. It is clear that videos on
the platform have bolstered van life to a variety of young fans. Creators such as “Salah” on tiktok
who has 5.9 million followers dedicate their pages to showing their young audiences the freedom
that vanlife brings them and alternative ways to provide for themselves. Throughout the
pandemic the feeling of restlessness grew and the young 18-29 year old audiences who were
already disillusioned to the idea of working a 9-5 were introduced to the alternative lifestyle of
vanlife through the increased use of social media, this leading to the increased purchases of RV’s
during the pandemic. According to tricitiesbusinessnews about one in five RV owners were
under the age of the 35, this further cementing the idea that the demographic for RV owners
changed during the pandemic due to the use of social media and therefore the news younger
generation of millennials and gen z people heavily contributed to the increase in RV purchases
during the pandemic.