On scrolling through the moody images on Tiffany Mitchell’s Instagram, complete with a caption that reads like folk song lyrics, you’d be forgiven for thinking the Nashville-based influencer’s latest viral post was a behind the scenes glimpse on the set of a music video.
It was nothing of the sort. The images in question, as published on Buzzfeed News, instead document a motorbike accident she was recently in.
Describing the road accident as a “magical series of events”, which ended with a night of joy and new friends, the series of professional-grade images see her sprawled across the road, clinging to the leg of a friend tending to her wounds, her perfectly manicured hand clutching her flowing blonde hair.
As the lengthy caption details, a friend who had joined Tiffany for the ride had pulled out her camera to take photos of her before the ambulance came.
Since the photos were made public three weeks ago, it has attracted a barrage of criticism from followers.
WATCH: An influencer pretended she went to Coachella. Post continues after video.
Many have called her out for turning her accident into an impromptu photoshoot, while some have suggested it was entirely staged. Worse yet, it's been speculated that it was actually a sponsored post, with a bottle of Smartwater placed next to her, clearly in frame raising suspicion.
While the original feed post has since been deleted, screenshots obtained by Buzzfeed News show the caption in full in which she describes how she misjudged a turn and fell from her bike as it slid across the grass and hit the pavement.
“I was in absolute shock laying on the side of the road,” she continued.
“Scroll through the pics to see how much of it Lindsey captured! Unreal!” was the sentence that followed.
She also wrote that she lost a partner to a motorcycle accident three years ago, so the accident especially affected her, before adding that the night ended with her inviting the strangers who came to her aid back to her house.
“We all drove back to my house with a green light from angels that cleaned me up in the ambulance, sat with our new friends listening to music and laughing until I fell asleep,” she wrote.
“I’m resting and healing up my arm, and @ianwhitetattoos may need to touch up my wildflowers, but I am feeling so much better,” she concluded the long caption.
While a handful of the comments were well-wishes for a speedy recovery, many followers were quick to express confusion at the act of taking, and then sharing, professional-grade photos of an actual accident.
“This must have been super scary and I’m glad you’re okay, but... if my friend continued to take photos while I was lying semi-unconscious in the road, I’d be furious. I love your photos but it’s a little weird to include those,” one wrote.
“How are people commenting on this like it’s normal?” another wrote.
The post has since been shared on a Reddit thread, where one user wrote, “Genuinely I am perplexed by the idea of a friend snapping angles right next to your head post-motorcycle crash. What the f*ck?!”
Whether the bottle of Smartwater was intentionally placed has also been widely discussed. “Paid in partnership with Smartwater...” one commenter said.
Tiffany, who has 211,000 followers on Instagram, told BuzzFeed News she “would never turn a very important personal story like this into a brand campaign".
“I’m sad that some people are taking it that way,” she added.
Smartwater later confirmed to BuzzFeed News that they do not have a partnership with her.
Tiffany's since made her own statement via another Instagram post, in which she says she's disappointed by the negative attention the post has attracted.
“I won’t get into that post here (see my Moto Accident story highlight for all the details),” she says, before claiming Buzzfeed "made a mockery" of her.
“Accusing someone of faking or exploiting an accident is extremely serious—because what if you’re wrong? It really happened to me, and I was scared. I really was injured and had to recover,” she assured followers.
“I was in shock laying on the side of the road, having flashbacks to when I lost someone very important to me. Friends were by my side, strangers called an ambulance, waited while I was checked out and then gave me a ride home. When I found out my professional photographer friend who I’d been shooting with earlier took photos of everything, I was completely moved,” she added.
Top Comments
Surely the age of internet influencers must be at an end by now? How much more stupid and self-absorbed can they get?
If we listen closely, we might hear a series of little pops from all over the world as they finally disappear up their own arses.
From your mouth to God's ears.
Look, I hate to pull the technical card here.
Popping is the sound made by exiting. Schlooping is the sound made by entering - does anyone here even own a dictionary?
I mean, they probably schloop as they enter their own bums, then pop as they vanish out of existence. Perhaps we should call a scientist. Professor Brian Cox would have a theory, I reckon.
I really have to get online and do some shopping - my last BS Metre went off the charts and activated it's self destruct launch code creating a new impromptu skylight, which is nice I guess