BUT THEIR CONTENT DIDN’T GO VIRAL UNTIL ONE OF THEM WENT MISSING
WHEN A YOUNG COUPLE STARTED DOCUMENTING THEIR CROSS-COUNTRY ROAD TRIP ON SOCIAL MEDIA, THEY WANTED TO ATTRACT AN AUDIENCE.
It’s been well established that social media can be pretty bad for you. A constant diet of curated, idealised snapshots of other people’s lives can distort and corrupt our perspectives of our own lives and selves, leading to a wide range of mental, and sometimes even physical, health issues.
It can be fun and refreshing to see the reality behind the personal brands on social media. In fact, ‘Instagram vs reality’ posts have become a popular trend on Instagram itself. Among the 400,000+ posts with the hashtag #instagramvsreality, most are created by users themselves to show how their skin, teeth and body shapes aren’t as perfect as they might seem in the carefully crafted images they post the rest of the time.
But sometimes the contrast between social media and reality isn’t such a light-hearted matter. In rare cases, the all-too-perfect images and videos posted online are hiding a dark, sinister, sometimes criminal reality. The story of Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie is one such case.
While Brian Laundrie’s Instagram page is no longer available, Gabby Petito’s (@gabspetito) is. As is their shared YouTube channel, Nomadic Statik. If you disregard the dates and comments on these feeds, they’re just like those of many other social media influencers, particularly ‘van-lifers’ who travel around, living in converted vans, posting images and vlogs of their travels, and using the #vanlife hashtag (more than 16 million posts on Instagram at the time of writing).
Some van life influencers acknowledge the hard work, expense and difficulties that van life can entail, but others opt to simply present the good stuff – the freedom, the scenery, the clever ways (#vanlifehack) they customise and decorate their vans. Brian and Gabby fell very much into the latter camp. The most downbeat their content ever got was when it rained for a whole afternoon, or when a box of chocolate crispies melted in the sun. Other than that, this appeared to be a young, attractive, free-spirited couple who were very much in love with each other and with their lifestyle.
In reality though, Gabby and Brian’s van life was a stressful and fractious one. And as they made their way through some of America’s most breathtaking landscapes, their relationship was spiralling further and further out of control with every mile.
PRIMARY AGGRESSOR
When they embarked upon their van life journey in 2021, Gabby and Brian wer
