Saudi Arabia’s new city of the future, Neom, isn’t looking quite so glamorous just yet.
A wave of vloggers and micro-influencers have been posting on social media about their lives in the still-developing desert city — and their posts are kind of falling flat.
The $500 billion Neom project — championed by Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as the centerpiece of his Vision 2030 plan to diversify the country’s economy — bills itself as “a land of the future where the greatest minds and best talents are empowered to embody pioneering ideas and exceed boundaries in a world inspired by imagination.”
The government hoped that Neom’s megacity “The Line” — which would be a long thin city between tall mirrored skyscrapers when completed — would draw 1.5 million residents by 2030, but that lofty goal has since been reduced to about 300,000.
And then there’s the reality of what living in Neom currently looks like.
One Noem resident and vlogger with 17,000 TikTok followers, Jessica Herman, has been posting on the platform all about her life in the developing area. In one TikTok video, Herman joyfully films what an evening in “Neom Community 1” looks like: getting her kids ready in her sleek industrial apartment, walking through what looks like empty streets and cookie-cutter housing, and heading to the mod “dining hall” for dinner with her family.
It’s not just Herman who’s been promoting her life in the city lately.
Other mom vloggers have been sharing similar experiences living in Neom in recent months, like Sara Sarasid, who has more than 24,000 TikTok followers, and Aida McPherson, who has more than 28,000 TikTok followers.
The surroundings in their videos look just as dreary, despite the vloggers’ smile-filled promotions.
This week, X users caught wind of Herman’s video and criticized how manufactured and desolate the surroundings appear, especially compared to the futuristic renderings of what the city plans to become.
One user, Joshua Hind, wrote on X in response to Herman’s video, “After all the hype and renderings, Neom is nothing more than a bland expat compound built so Westerners can work in KSA.”
A journalist for ABC News, Matt Bevan, also wrote in a post on X that has been viewed more than 770,000 times, “Oh wow this looks great I’ve always dreamed of living in an industrial estate on the surface of the sun.”
Others on the platform described the sights in Neom as being “joyless and dreary,” looking like “a Mars colony,” and having “low security prison vibes.”
It’s not clear if Herman or her husband are government employees or if Herman is being paid to film her life in the city. It’s also not clear if Community 1, where she lives, or Neom’s other “Community 2” are temporary developments put up while the city is under construction.
The city of Neom did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, nor did Herman.
Herman’s account was later deactivated.
The development of Neom has attracted a lot of hype — and it’s share of controversy.
Back in May, the BBC reported that Saudi authorities had been given permission to kill any local villagers who stood in the way of eviction orders to clear the region for development. And, according to the outlet, one villager was shot and killed after protesting.
More recently, Neom executives have been accused of racism, misogyny, and corruption, according to The Wall Street Journal last week. In one instance, an executive mocked the deaths of three construction workers, complaining in a phone call that, “A whole bunch of people die so we’ve got to have a meeting on a Sunday night,” the WSJ reported.
Neom announced on Wednesday in a statement shared with Variety that the executive has been replaced. There have also been reports of chaos and feuds, even a physical brawl, between bosses working on the project.
All the while costs for Neom keep rising, which have led Saudi authorities to consider “recalibrating” the project and have become a cause for concern within the Saudi government, according to reports.
