[rant]Have observed in the last week several chasers whose chase day strategy includes studying social media (particularly a few fairly well known chasers who always post their target city), reading forums like this one, watching chaser icons, or recklessly speeding towards any warned storm to know where to go. At least half of the people out seem to be following other chaser dots and SPC forecasting and these same types have no head for how to behave when out. I see time and time again people recklessly hurtling toward some dying outflow dominant storm. People just can't turn down either their adrenaline or sense of entitlement and all perspective is lost. Storm chasing is an identity for so many people doing it, perhaps they have nothing else. I would not judge that at all on it's own but it is contributing to the attitude and problem out on the roads near storms.
Once stuck in a line, people are in a hurry to go nowhere and refuse to space out or allow traffic back into the road (as intelligent people do in any traffic jam) for fear of missing something. No attention is given to road conditions like dirt and have seen lots of aggressive passing and honking a couple times. The fact that I've seen multiple wrecks each chase this year, and none in years past is ancedotal evidence something is very wrong.
Some of the tour groups, pseudo researchers, and even real researchers are the worst examples in these lines- a real sense that they are more important than everyone else when they are in fact- on public roads and should behave as such. Saw LEO cursing a tour van that parked half in the lane of a 55 MPH road and the people were actually arguing with LEO that they were somehow allowed to do this. Real researchers arguably should be given some priority, but I've seen a few times the last week the group from CU and others holding up traffic at stop signs, blocking intersections while they figure out what to do, etc. There is no reason to have six to eight vehicles out and badly coordinate or cause a public safety issue.
The massive obsession with social media and getting attention is in my opinion destroying large swaths of the fabric of society. Combined with population increase it is a real recipe for disaster and storm chasing is just the most recent victim. National Parks, State Parks, etc. are all ruined or well on the way to ruin in just the last couple of years primarily due to instagram exposure. Certain cities have become trendy and everyone flocks there looking for a thing they destroyed by flocking, and no longer even exists.
I was talking with a former editor of Outdoor Photographer the other day who was telling me about the days just prior to social media when they had long staff debates about whether to mention locations. He said that once a tiny trickle of locations was leaked, those places were mobbed gradually and then social media turned it into a wildfire. Nowadays, it is default that people post the location of everything, brag and talk up their experiences, and post wherever they can get maximum likes, posting multiple times and places the same material. Tour groups and photographers are happy to exploit all that because they make their living on it. So a few people are actually doing arguably the worst damage. In my opinion there may be no saving what chasing once was, as with the outdoors, but a start would be for people to dial down the adrenaline, stop posting locations, turn off your icon, talk long and loud about the right way to behave when out there and openly be willing to shame those who don't. Personally I'd like to see chasercon and the scene mentality leave chasing as well, or be a better steward for the activity.[/rant]
