US woman drove an hour to find Switzerland in Gastonia. Blame a TikTok viral video
A woman in Florida got influenced by a TikTok video and visited Gastonia, North Carolina in the US, believing it to be surrounded by snow-covered mountains. The truth was nothing near to what she believed.
(First of all, thank god TikTok is banned in India.)
WHAT HAPPENED:
Zachary Keesee, a TikTok user from North Carolina posted a video with a scenic view on the platform. In the video, Keesee showed snow-covered mountains. He identified this location as Gastonia, North Carolina. The video went viral and received over 5.9 million views.
This video convinced a Florida woman quite well. Olivia Garcia was so impressed by the video that she made her family drive an hour to visit the village Keesee claimed was like Switzerland in the TikTok video.
But all she saw were a series of gas stations instead of mountains.
“I’m from south Florida, so the closest thing we have to mountains down here are landfills, which is why I was so excited when I saw the TikTok. I had never heard of Gastonia before, but the name sounded like something out of a Disney movie,” Garcia told The Charlotte Observer, a newspaper in Carolina.
Later, she posted a video on TikTok explaining her whole experience. In the video, she showed Keesee’s video first and then her experience.
APOLOGY TIME:
After the big blunder, Keesee had to apologise. And he did. He later clarified that the video was from his trip to (the actual) Switzerland (you know, the one in Europe) and not Gastonia, North Carolina. He also mentioned the actual location in the comments of his fake, viral video. He visited Switzerland in January 2020.
Point to be noted: Keesee often shares such videos with fake locations. So, the girl should have double-checked for obvious reasons.
After all, everything you see on the internet is not true.