Calling people "expat" or "nomad" is just as irrelevant as calling internet users "netizens"

Ruchika Tulshyan argues in WSJ how we still lack the right word to describe people traveling and working in different places:

The word “expat” is under fire. A term initially coined to describe people living outside of their country of origin temporarily or permanently, has recently been criticized by some as racist or hierarchical. (..)

So what are other alternatives to “expat”? Dr. Matanle suggests using “international migrant” instead. For me, “global nomad” works. Ms. Patel Thompson says she prefers “global citizen.” Ultimately, anything beats “alien,” the default equal opportunity offender imposed by U.S. immigration.

The group of people traveling and working used to be a tiny subset of the population. But in the next 5 years it’ll become a reality for hundreds of millions of people and it’ll be pretty normal for them to live and work in at least a few different countries in a year.

Do we still call people who use the internet “netizens”? Or “cybernauts”? Like we did in 1994? No, because everyone uses internet now. You don’t really need a definition for something once everyone is doing it.

Same for nomads.