How close is clean aviation?

Should the mods add (Advertisement) to the posting title, then?

International flights are a high-prestige, moral expensive to a certain social-media-happy subset of the population, i.e. elite-educated, otherwise anti-consumerist young liberals.

Spending a similar amount of money on something like electronics reeks of consumerism and financially irresponsible behavior. You'll do it, but you'll feel a vaguely ashamed, and you probably won't brag about it. International travel is definitely something you want to do and be seen doing.

People who would be disgusted to hear about how awesome your new car is will go on for hours (and hundreds of social media photos) about how their perspective was expanded by their equally-expensive three months backpacking across Europe instead of working.

Add the much simpler Fear of Missing Out onto the photos where your friends are all having a great time together in Paris, and Facebook sells a lot of plane tickets.

I don't know that it creates more need. I would say it creates more opportunity. It fosters relationships developing from a distance, giving people more reason to go in person to some new place because they have a reason to go, because they know someone who can help them get oriented, etc.

Sounds like Jevon's paradox