The Case Against Public Shaming
By: Jim Burch
Tags: Sustainability, Social Media, Hiking, Outdoors, Environment

Our public lands are facing a crisis. The number of people exploring the outdoors increases each year (that’s good), but more people are also causing a negative ecological impact by ignoring the rules.

What are the rules? Our public lands are governed by seven principles known as Leave No Trace. They include common-sense rules like travel and camp on durable surfaces, minimize campfire impacts, and respect wildlife. The Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics elaborates on each of these but if you follow the basics of all seven, consider yourself a friend to the outdoors.

The problem is that many people do not follow these rules and, either by ignorance or blatant disregard, cause harm to our protected natural beauties by breaking them. The most well-known and recent example is the absolute trampling of the California Super Bloom.

2019 saw a record-breaking bloom of wildflowers in California; so vibrant that the natural occurrence could be seen from space. This attracted tourists from all over the world, including Instagram influencers who capitalized on the super bloom for a boost in likes and follows. Despite clearly marked signs along Fresno Blossom Trail, many of these influencers walked right into the bloom, killing large patches of wildflowers under their feet.

The resulting pictures have millions of likes on social media, but not everyone is double tapping.

Public Lands Hate You

Influencers pushing social and ethical boundaries for the sake of follows isn’t new, but doing so at the expense of public lands has sparked the ire of those on a mission to call them out — most notably the anonymously-run Instagram account @PublicLandsHateYou.

The premise is straightforward and direct — an influencer or brand posts a picture breaking the rules and @PublicLandsHateYou calls them out, publicly. It’s a serious problem that needs addressing, and it’s not just influencers trampling California wildflowers. Growing tourism overall is creating a challenge in the wild.

More than 318 million people visited our National Parks in 2018, with millions more exploring national forests, state parks, BLM, and recreational areas. Unfortunately, the number of tourists damaging those lands is becoming too much for park rangers and volunteers to manage.

Dozens of tourists hiking off-trail through the California Super Bloom

Advocates of Leave No Trace and ambassadors for outdoor wellness are on board with the increased accountability, and so am I. Some of the damage done to the wilderness is virtually irreversible and creating awareness and accountability for everyone, from influencers to the general public, is the only way to fix this problem.

So why does looking through accounts like @PublicLandsHateYou give me such a bad feeling?

Consequences of Public Shaming

Nothing lives in a bubble in 2019. Our actions, and their reactions, are put under the microscope online. That’s good for serious issues like #MeToo and sexual assault that may not otherwise see justice pre-social media, but it also has unintended consequences for some who receive punishments ill-fitting of their crimes. This is explained wonderfully by Last Week Tonight host John Oliver and his interview with Monica Lewinsky—possibly one of the most recognizable names in America.

I don’t need to summarize every detail of the segment, but obviously sitting on wildflowers does not equate to an affair with the President of the United States. Social media influencers with thousands or even millions of followers are public figures, but that doesn’t make them exempt to a disproportionate amount of public shaming or even violent threats.

Learning from Our Mistakes

I take no self-righteous approach to Leave No Trace because, like everyone else, I didn’t always know the rules.

My personal Instagram is private now, but that’s a video of me feeding a wild elk.

That’s me in 2014, hand-feeding trail mix to a wild elk at a campground in northern Arizona. Of course, this is not cool. I know that now but I didn’t know it then. My thought was, “We’re in a park full of people and this friendly animal is roaming around for food. Heck, I’m doing her a favor!”

There’s many reasons why that’s bad, but here’s the thing — no one else around me knew either, or at least they didn’t speak up. Our campsite neighbors smiled and watched the elk take food from my hand. The few comments on this video are all positive (and beard related, thank you). I’m sure a ranger would have stopped me immediately had he or she seen, but didn’t.

If this happened in 2019, and there were a few extra zeroes attached to my follower count, I could be the target of someone like @PublicLandsHateYou. Would I deserve it? Probably. But is there a better way to educate someone on their mistakes? It sure feels that way.

Changing Course of Action

When I started this article a few weeks ago, @PublicLandsHateYou uploaded a post with several screenshots of conversations between the person who runs the account and influencers with posts like the California Super Bloom above.

The words exchanged were…not kind. The accusations from @PublicLandsHateYou ranged from passive aggressive to downright mean and the responses from those influencers were no better. The whole thing was just vile.

@PublicLandsHateYou has since deleted that post and uploaded a response to the public shaming, bullying, and even threats these influencers received as a direct result of that post. They continue to express a change in how @PublicLandsHateYou will handing addressing Leave No Trace violations in the future. Some commenters were on board, but others are not so convinced:

There are so many outdoor advocates that help people learn better ways to recreate outdoors in an LNT fashion without spewing hate. Unfortunately, one of the people that inspired me to love and protect public lands was sent death threats and has deleted her account for her safety because of this you. Thank you for trying to make things better, but the damage is done, too many people have been attacked because of this profile, and I can’t see past the hate. Unfollowing. Just a thought, but how about a name change? Discharge as — Saving our public lands, protecting our public lands, Public lands- our legacy to the future. Public lands hates you may spark the feeling of hate and anger right off the bat. Not that that is an excuse for vile behavior, but they may think it is. I wish I believed you. But your name literally has the word hate in it, so how can you now claim to be anti-hate speech? You gained a ton of attention by stirring the pot, building drama, and spreading fear and hate. You claim you’ll contact people via DM first, but have you ever publicly shared how abrasive, assuming and hateful your own DMs are? Because I’ve been on receiving end of them, and you definitely don’t intend to “educate.” You intend to catch people making mistakes, then message and corner them to get a rise out of them, and then post their messages and mistakes for all to see. It worked for you, it got you really far, built you a huge platform of people that loved the drama, and then it went south and ended up making you look bad, and now you’re back-peddling claiming to care about people’s feelings…so no, I don’t buy it. And I know you’ll probably delete this comment. And I know I might be your next victim because I’m not sucking up to you like others are (and I’m not perfect — I’ve certainly caused harm to public lands in my life, every person has), but screw this. You don’t care. You just want to bring drama and tear others down. I’m baffled by the tactics you guys use on this page. You create more of a divide and defense from who you call out instead of opening a conversation and being kind.

Saying “the world isn’t all rosey” isn’t an excuse to be an asshole.

The people like Brianna who you call out actually have good intentions. They care more for the land than your average Joe, or even your average outdoorsman. Your name “publiclandshateyou” itself is disrespectful.

Disappointing to see 50k people chose to follow this page who disguises it bully tactics as “awareness”

A Necessary Evil?

Photo by Mike Ostrovsky on Unsplash

I was going to reach out to some of these influencers as part of this article, but the post above confirmed what I already suspected: that these people were receiving hateful messages and threats as a result of public shaming.

Maybe I’m naive and just don’t want to know how the sausage is made. I hate to see the snark and the negativity, but the damage to our public lands is a problem that can’t be ignored. So, how do we handle it?

There’s a saying about sustainability:

“We don’t need a few people doing sustainability perfectly. We need a lot of people doing it imperfectly.”

I think that quote is perfect for this challenge we face. We could go all-in on a few influencers who step on flowers or take illegal drone shots over wildlife, or we could encourage and educate everyone — from influencers to regular hikers (like me). Some of that does happen on @PublicLandsHateYou, but it’s the public shaming that still grabs attention and headlines.

Maybe I’m idealistic and it’s a necessary evil. Just the other day the account convinced Adobe to remove an Instagram post depicting a photographer standing in the middle of the California Super Bloom, so this method does get results. We just have to decide, as the ambassadors of outdoor wellness, what kind of representatives we want to be.

What do you think? Is shaming influencers and brands a last resort we can’t avoid or is there a better way? Let’s talk about it in the comments.