Woman Who Left US in 2017 Discovers Unexpected Consequence of Living Abroad

Newsweek

a day ago

An American woman's TikTok video detailing the long-term cultural dislocation that comes from living abroad has gone viral on TikTok.
Rachel Warren, 30, who goes by @sheislostinikea on TikTok, lives in Copenhagen, the Danish capital. In the viral video, she reflects on the strange feeling of being culturally frozen in time when living far from home. The clip has racked up more than 120,000 views since it was posted on August 3.
"A lot of people don't really think about the consequences of living abroad," Warren says in the video. "And one of the weird ones is that your cultural context of your home country will forever be stuck in a sort of time capsule based off of the time you left...so, for me...my cultural time capsule is forever stuck around 2017."
Warren, who grew up in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., as well as northern Virginia, told Newsweek that she has been living in Copenhagen since 2019 but first arrived in the spring of 2016 for her studies and visited a few times between 2017 and 2019.
"I did live in the U.S. for 10 months before I came over permanently," she said. "But during that time, I was living with my parents and saving as much money as I could for graduate school and the move that I wasn't really experiencing the culture, which is why I say I feel a bit more stuck around 2017."
Warren's reflections on culture shock and time displacement come as more Americans are considering moving abroad.
A February 2025 survey by Talker Research found that 17 percent of Americans said they would like to move outside the U.S. in the next five years, with Canada being the top choice. Another five percent reported they were already making plans, and two percent said they had begun the process of relocating overseas. Millennials made up the largest share of interested migrants, with 25 percent expressing interest, according to the survey.
For Warren, her journey overseas was shaped by both curiosity and love. "I grew up around a lot of military kids and internationals so was always very curious about other countries," she told Newsweek. "In 2016, I studied abroad in Copenhagen and absolutely fell in love with the city and country. I also fell in love with a guy but didn't want that to be my only reason for being there, so applied for graduate school. He and I are still together."
While her partner is not Danish—he is German—Warren said that fact has actually made her long-term stay more feasible. "Being an EU [European Union] citizen actually makes it easier for me to stay because partnership visas under Danish rules are much more difficult and expensive than getting partnership visas under EU rules," she said.
Warren said the changes in the U.S. since she left, particularly following the era of President Donald Trump being in office and the COVID-19 pandemic, have been jarring when she returns to visit. "I am still in shock over the changes that came about because of Trump and COVID," she told Newsweek. "Some of the changes are good like the push towards more telehealth options and more digitalization in general. But other things are incredibly weird to me, like people ordering so many Amazon packages and DoorDash things even when they are living in a city. And overall people seem more isolated and don't seem to hang out with each other as much."
Warren also noted how public life in the U.S. has changed in ways she finds unfamiliar. "I also forget how polarized things are. There have always been people with strong opinions but now it seems like people are living in different realities," she said. "The last time I was in the U.S. was in November and I was freaked out by the fact that so many stores have their items locked up now. Also, tipping culture has changed and people tipped more and for things that weren't tippable before I left."
The distance has also impacted her sense of pricing and norms. "I don't know how much things cost. If you've ever watched Arrested Development [the television series], there's one clip that's like 'how much can a banana cost? $10?' and I feel like that," Warren said.
Her time in Denmark has also reshaped her views on work and social welfare, noting that she used to a "little suspicious" about aspects of European and Danish life. "I couldn't imagine a company being productive when all their employees have so many days off but it works," she said. "Also, I cannot believe that the U.S. does so little when it comes to maternity care. In Denmark, they also have paternity leave, which I think is brilliant."
She said: "My priorities have definitely changed. I care more about living a happy healthy life than individual achievements."
A screenshot from a viral video posted by Rachel Warren (@sheislostinikea on TikTok), an American living in Denmark, talking about the long-term consequences of living abroad.
A screenshot from a viral video posted by Rachel Warren (@sheislostinikea on TikTok), an American living in Denmark, talking about the long-term consequences of living abroad.
@sheislostinikea on TikTok
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