Gigi Wu, a 36-year-old hiker and social media personality, recently died of hypothermia while trekking in Yushan national park in Taiwan. Wu fell down a ravine and alerted friends to her situation with her satellite phone, informing them she was badly injured. Emergency services tried to rescue her, but didn’t get there in time.
There is nothing funny about someone dying in pain and alone. However, from the way much of the media covered the story you would be forgiven for thinking Wu’s death was a hilarious parable about the dangers of selfie culture.
Wu, you see, was known by fans of her Facebook page as the “Bikini Hiker” because she used to change into a bikini at the top of a mountain and take a selfie. Let me emphasise that again: she only posed in a bikini briefly at the summit. She was an experienced hiker who would always trek in proper gear. When she died, she was fully clothed; bikinis had absolutely nothing to do with her death. However, always eager to shame a woman’s clothing, a slew of misleading headlines gave the impression she had died because she was inappropriately dressed and desperate for online attention. Newsweek, for example, announced: “‘Bikini hiker’ who posed on top of mountains in swimwear freezes to death.” The Daily Mail used seven photos of Wu in bikinis to illustrate its story, along with condescending captions about the “clear risks of climbing in inappropriate gear”. Coverage like this spurred a stream of judgmental comments on social media.
Wu was a young woman who had a horrible accident and died. As if that wasn’t enough, she was turned into clickbait and shamed. She deserved so much better.
