Congratulations, The Algorithm Now Wants You to Get Lost in the Woods
Just when you thought the digital brain rot had reached its zenith, the great and powerful algorithm decided to up its game from merely destroying our attention spans to actively trying to get us killed via hypothermia. Yes. That’s right. The latest dispatch from the front lines of societal collapse comes from the snowy peaks of Vermont, where rescue teams are getting real tired of pulling TikTok-addled adventurers out of the backcountry.
The trend is as simple as it is profoundly stupid. Influencers post clips of a supposedly “secret” and “easy” path to stunning, off-piste vistas. The problem? These paths are not easy. They are not for beginners. They are certainly not for someone whose primary outdoor gear consists of Yeezys and a profound sense of main character energy. Yet, guided by the divine light of their For You Page, these digital pilgrims are wandering into avalanche-prone territory, getting hopelessly lost, and then—shockingly!—requiring actual, non-virtual rescue from people with real skills.
PRO TIP: Before you follow a 15-second video into the unforgiving wilderness, ask yourself if the person who filmed it is also the same type of person who thinks a vibrator can cure their allergies. The answer may save your life. Or at least save you from frostbite.
This is the inevitable endpoint of a culture that has completely outsourced its critical thinking to a server farm in Virginia. We’ve seen this movie before, just with different set dressing. It’s the same impulse that fuels every idiotic viral challenge, from the Tide Pod gourmands to those aspiring criminals who decided committing a felony for views was a solid career move. The platform doesn’t care if the content is true, safe, or sane. It only cares if you watch. It only cares if you engage.
So now, a ski patrol in Vermont has to add “de-programming TikTok users” to their job description, right next to “splinting broken femurs.” They’re warning people that the app is not a reliable cartographer, which feels like something that shouldn’t need to be said. But here we are. In a world where the line between content and reality has been so thoroughly blurred, people are willing to risk their lives for a chance to replicate a video they saw between a dance clip and an ad for Temu. Darwin would be so proud. Or horrified. Probably both.
