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We cannot be surprised by it. After all, these so-called “influencers” can now make money, even a living, by lying, cheating, and acting for their phone camera. Feeding off someone’s misery to satisfy their own ego and pocketbook is, as we used to say, “in” these days.

“We’re off to help the Hurricane Helene victims in North Carolina,” said the young woman standing with a friend next to a pickup truck with a few items in the back. Never mind that the federal government, with trained disaster relief workers, was already getting funds, supplies, and housing for the victims.

This TikToker looked as though she had just come from a spa. The hair, nails, and makeup were runway worthy. At the end, she hit the cash register buttons with her PayPal and Venmo links. It was easy to see that it was really more about her bank account and vanity than about helping people.

Legitimate efforts to help are being trampled by these outliers, some of whom want to spread misinformation, also known as lies, aimed at either sensationalizing for entertainment reasons or to denigrate FEMA.

So pervasive have been the hucksters, liars and attention seekers that the sheriff of Henderson County publicly called them out a few days ago. His area was hit hard by the storm.

Performers like a group calling itself the West Virginia Coal Miners also come to mind. The videos of a group of armed men posing atop a boulder with their bulldozers and excavators surrounding them began circulating on the internet. They and their growing group of online supporters claimed to have built a new road between Bat Cave and Chimney Rock after Helene washed it out.

Jumping on their bandwagon, folks began claiming that the coal miners had come into Western North Carolina and done what neither the federal nor the state government had been able to do.

People began saying, “Wow. Look at all the good they are doing for us. Where’s the government’s help?”

Only after these modern day “cowboys” left did we learn that they didn’t actually build a road. They cut a path. They also bulldozed the path right through locals’ personal property. The N.C. Department of Transportation said afterward the path was unsafe.

Naturally, the coal miners were accompanied by their own videographer.

Most of the folks in Bat Cave, Chimney Rock and Green River Cove are disgusted with having people using the shield of “helping” look at them and the destruction. Call them whatever you would like: gawkers, rubberneckers, peepers, snoopers.

Folks have to filter out and call out the opportunists, but let’s celebrate the true helpers, most of whom are local people and businesses.  

Larry McDermott is a local retired farmer/journalist.