SocraticGadfly: Hurricane Ian showing the worst of social media

October 01, 2022

Hurricane Ian showing the worst of social media

First, there's an "influencer" asking for help for her family in Fort Myers. 

I did count, if not to 10, at least to 7 before offering the following quote tweet, which I then counted to 10 before posting here, rather than just copying my original quote tweet text and pasting, because context is needed.

She responded.

I did not respond back.

Instead, I offer this two-tweet thread of:

And, by influencer, this link on her Twitter bio should say enough.  (Well, not quite. See below.)

Looking through her feed (surprisingly, she didn't block me) she tags ABC in another tweet, then four or five presumably local meteorologists in another. So, my reaction to seeing Fox tagged in particular may have been overblown, but ...

So, the second tweet:

There's plenty of others out there asking for help for their relatives, even if not "thoughts and prayers." Not all of them may be at-ting local TV stations and meteorologists in their callouts, but nonetheless. 

And, maybe her relatives in Naples ran out of time (though the warning that Ian was shifting further south came a full 24 hours or so before landfall), the lady herself had time to keep hawking earlier in the week:

Oy. 

To extend some humaste to her, her husband is in the Florida National Guard and has been called up. I hope he and the rest of your family are safe, Kelly. To ask you to extend the humaste back? Ask for help for some rando on Twitter and do so without offering to sell them something from Amazon, after Naples settles down in a month. And, next time a hurricane is going to hit Floriduh, if I see you hawking influencer shit, I'll report you.

Here's another, not an influencer, but:

Oh, she lives in Naples herself. Why didn't you have your 78-year-old mom with you, Beth? 

And, actually, if you're a CEO of two different (boutique, I presume) PR firms? And, running an Amazon store, per your website? No, you're an influencer, too.

I've never been in a hurricane, but 19 months ago, I slept in my office for two nights during Winter Storm Uri because intermittent electricity there was better than none at home.

As for the rhetorical question? On people asking for medical help, as in fundraising for bills? Seriously? If I don't know you in person, or have a strong, and personal, online connection to you (like the late Leo Lincourt as an example) I'm not giving you money. Nor (per the person I quote tweeted having 80x more followers than me and about 10x more following) am I going to want to watch someone like you  move to the front of the social media herd.

And, that second tweet of the above pair of tweets leads to:

And, that's enough.

On that one? What if one of the firefighters drops a tool in the storm surge waters? Will we get to see that? Oh, also, what's the guy or gal who's doing the live video doing? Obviously NOT helping unload the half-submerged fire truck.

And, there's the exhibitionism of people swimming in the storm surge, which I'm not even going to post. 

That said, I reported to Twitter a couple of people posting the fake shark bullshit.

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at Saturday, October 01, 2022 Posted by Gadfly

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