For many of us, social media has become an integral part of how we process big life events. After all, if you didn't post about it on the 'gram, did it really happen? The problem comes when this social media posting becomes performative, with grand gestures being meticulously planned and executed with the goal of impressing your followers.
This has become especially true of marriage proposals and engagements, with supposedly intimate moments becoming objects for public consumption. After all, according to The Knot, over 90% of couples announce their engagement on social media.
In turn, engagement photoshoots have become more commonplace, but for TikToker Emmy, enough was enough.
Leftover trash from an engagement shoot
In a TikTok that has now amassed 148,400 views, the creator filmed herself at a beach picking up nylon rose petals.
"It's been like a couple of weeks, and this is still here," she pointed out. "You could have used actual rose petals to avoid this, but it's like ankle deep. And I see manatees here and stuff. We need to, like, make a public outcry over this. Like, you need to be embarrassed to, like, post these photos by realizing how horrible this was."
She went on to explain how a man lived on the edge of this beach, and that his backyard was shared with the public. "And, like, they just trashed it and left," Emmy added. "And it's been weeks of it still being here, and just keeps getting worse."
According to Emmy, the mess was "never-ending": people had been clubbing together to clean up the beach for "weeks."
"I think we need to, like, publicly shame these people," she concluded. "And I think, like that's what we should do because like this is absolutely unacceptable."
Commenters were outraged
In the comments, users agreed that this was unacceptable. "Find the photographer too," one wrote. "It was probably their idea."
"They could have used local flowers and scattered them," a second added. "That would have been WAY cooler anyway."
While a third echoed that "not using actual rose petals is diabolical." A fourth stated, "I would say no to someone if they proposed to me this way. 😒"
Others weighed in on similar events happening locally and the need to call it out. One shared: "Say it louder! Also, thank you for taking care of our current home."
"Someone did this on my local beach hut, I think it was for a gender reveal bc it was all pink," another added. "I spent well over an hour trying to pick it all up, and definitely didn’t get it all. Made me soooo mad, people have no respect."
Another commenter said she was doing the same thing in her local area: "Girl, I’ve been picking up old silk rose petals in the same spot on the beach for over a year. 😭😭"
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