This op-ed explores the wide-spread attention to Gabby Petito's death, missing white woman syndrome, and how social media may have added to the national interest in the case ⤵️
of the van . The cause of death was ruled a homicide, pending a final autopsy. While it’s true that Gabby's case has turned into a prime example of missing white woman syndrome, there's also a modern element that may add to the intrigue: Her desire to be an influencer.
Cable news and the mammoth of true crime podcasts have in many ways turned cases like Gabby’s into cheap entertainment, a distraction from our own complicated lives, but the fact that so many felt deeply invested, and continue to feel that way, about Gabby’s story speaks to the dark reality of social media — just because you’re passively consuming images and stories of a stranger’s life in unprecedented detail doesn’t mean you’re friends, or that you know what's really happening at all.
It’s tempting to think that if we’d just been looking for the right signs — a hand signal or a distressed facial expression — that one of Gabby’s followers could have prevented her from suffering a horrible death. But for those aspiring to monetize their online lives, social media isn’t used to convey distress, it’s to mask it.
The majestic rocks of Zion and Arches National Parks weren’t the only aspect of Gabby’s life captured on camera: In the wake of her disappearance, police body cam footage from mid-August was releasedGabby and Brian pulled over in Moab, Utah after someone called 911 on them to report an alleged domestic dispute.
It’s difficult to watch without concluding that something was terribly wrong between them, with Gabby visibly very upset and somehow being framed as the aggressor. In the video, she even describes her effort to build her blog and YouTube channel. A transcript of the 911 calllast week reveals the caller saying the “gentleman was slapping the girl,” putting the confrontation with police in a whole different light. But this information didn't appear to make it to the officers in time.
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