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This TikTok account is trying to save our national parks by making them sexy. Literally.

Thirst traps + stunning nature footage = strange but effective way of bringing attention to a dire issue

Canva Photos

Can beefy hunks save America's national parks?

Two thousand and twenty-five has bombarded us with news. Every day, there's a new crisis. American citizens being deported, the tariff rollercoaster, the open antagonization of one of our top allies in Canada, the end of the Department of Education. It's hard to know where to look at any given time, or where to put your concern and support. And that's exactly the point.

It leaves important causes fighting and scrapping for public attention, which is fleeting even during normal times. It's just hard to get people to care about any one thing with so many things going on at once.

So, one TikTok user had an idea to break through the noise and bring attention to the crisis facing our National Parks.

Here's the idea:

Step one: Attract eyeballs with steamy thirst traps on TikTok.

Step two: Show beautiful footage of America's national parks, along with some informative facts

Step three: Save the parks!

For those not in the know, a "thirst trap" is a post on social media that's inherently designed to attract sexual interest. A normal selfie wouldn't be considered a thirst trap unless it shows some extra skin or features a provocative pose. The creator has to know that people are going to be "turned on," for lack of a better phrase, by the video or photo.

And here's the thing about the Internet: People truly can not help themselves. They can't stop themselves from clicking on breasts, abs, butts, or bulging biceps. Therein lies the beauty of this strategy.

Just see an example for yourself:


@visit.yellowstone

Within Yellowstone's 2.2 million acres, visitors have unparalleled opportunities to observe wildlife in an intact ecosystem, and explore geothermal areas @Thoren Bradley #stitch #booktok #darkromance #masktok #fantasy #momsover30 #fyp

The TikTok account is working better than anyone could have possibly imagined; already, it has over 1.1 million followers.

In fact, the @visit.yellowstone fan account often gets confused for the official Yellowstone!

Users are devouring the content. Who's to say whether it's the rippling muscles or the beautiful nature shots that are so pleasing to the algorithm? But does it really matter? Here are a few of the best comments from a recent clip:

"Babe?! I think we should honeymoon in Yellowstone!"

"Have I been to Yellowstone? No. It's it my favorite national park? Absolutely"

"The National Parks are unhinged and I'm here for it."

"This is how to market a National Park right here!!"

"It’s working bc now I want to go to Yellowstone"

The parody/activist account even got a shoutout from Stephen Colbert (starting around 1:33):

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

Following Visit.Yellowstone's lead, other users began making spicy parody accounts for other national parks and landmarks. There's now sexy Appalachian Mountain, sexy Mount Rainier, and even sexy Crater Lake.

Just a warning: These accounts can get EXTREMELY NSFW. It's not all burly lumberjacks chopping wood with their abs out. A lot of the content lays the sexual innuendo on pretty thick.

And that's exactly why people find them so entertaining. All of the accounts popping up have 50k, 100k, or more followers with top videos racking up millions of views.

@visit.yellowstone

Mammoth Hot Springs is a large complex of hot springs on a hill of travertine in Yellowstone National Park adjacent to Fort Yellowstone @Johnathon Caine #stitch #booktok #darkromance #masktok #fantasy #momsover30

National parks staff are being laid off and budgets are being slashed. But that's only the beginning.

Regulations are also being rolled back that keep private industries from drilling on or otherwise decimating protected land. History is being rewritten with the removal of landmarks and monuments that don't fit the desired narrative. Museums are closing down, costing both kids and adults crucial opportunities to learn more about our country.

The situation is dire. Will all the viral interest in Yellowstone and other national parks on TikTok equate to real world change? It's too soon to tell. But the success of the activism campaign shows that people do love the parks and aren't willing to let them go away without a fight.

In defiance of President Donald Trump's gag order preventing Environmental Protection Agency organizations from tweeting about climate change, the Badlands National Park Twitter account began doing just that.

Within hours of the bold move, those tweets disappeared. For the rest of the day, the account was eerily silent, leaving people to wonder what befell the courageous social media manager in charge of the park's account.

Thankfully, Twitter users anticipated that the tweets might not survive for long. As soon as the tweets disappeared, a slew of accounts began posting them as screengrabs, proof that they had once existed.


With the @BadlandsNPS account quiet, other Twitter accounts picked up where it left off, tweeting out other facts about climate change along with actionable ways to support government-run climate research.

One particularly noteworthy account that has doggedly continued tweeting climate facts is @AltNatParkSer.

There are a few theories as to who is behind the account: It seems most likely to be the same staff who ran the NPS Badlands account, but another common theory is it's run by a few active and/or former employees of the entire National Parks Service. Based on their tweets, they're vehemently against government censorship of a prevalent and important issue — climate change.

Or, as their bio states, they are "the Unofficial 'Resistance' team of U.S. National Park Service. Not taxpayer subsidised! Come for rugged scenery, fossil beds, 89 million acres of landscape."

Just one day after the account started tweeting, it accumulated over 450,000 followers. On the second day, it had reached 985,000. Obviously the mission to keep science facts alive is significant to the world, at least on Twitter.

Freedom of speech is part of the First Amendment of our Constitution. Even though that is currently being threatened by the government, thanks to the power of the social media and groups like this, the gag rule will not stand.

Here are 14 tweets showing how it all went down:

1. First, @AltNatParkSer replicated the tweets that had been removed from the official Badlands National Park account.

2. Then it got honest about what likely happened to Badland's social media manager.

3. Next, it quoted a president who actually understood the threat climate change poses to humanity.

4. Then, knowing the power of a strong visual, it posted a scary photo.

5. Then it tried sending out a not-so-subtle theory as to why the Trump administration — and Trump in particular — doesn't want government organizations tweeting about climate change.

6. It also directed people toward other organizations fighting the good and true science fight.

7. And it retweeted this tweet — a dark joke from the original Badlands Twitter account.

8. Those behind @AltNatParkSer also responded truthfully to people who were curious about just what the heck they were hoping the account would do.

9. It also broke the tension with a bit of humor.

10. And it clearly explained what's at stake for the national parks.

11. As such, it needs your help to preserve vital scientific information.

12. And it empathized with the overwhelming frustration over reinvigorated pipeline projects.

13. It even created fun chants for upcoming science marches.

14. And finally, it's helping its environmentalist friends who are also running rogue accounts and fearlessly keeping science facts alive.  

It's scary to watch in real time as something as innocent as a handful of scientifically accurate tweets about climate change are deleted, seemingly censored by an administration that refuses to acknowledge the danger it poses to us all.

As more and more government groups find that what they can or cannot say to the public is restricted (the Sunlight Foundation is keeping track of them here), it's up to everyday concerned citizens to help keep the truth alive.

You can easily help @AltNatParkSer by following them on Twitter and doing all the things they've suggested above. Call your representative and demand the gag rule lifted and EPA grant funding unfrozen. March for science in the Scientists' March on Washington. Donate, if you can, to the science research organizations at risk of losing their federal support.

This is not a battle that's going to be won with several rogue tweets. It's going to take time, dedication, and considerable efforts on behalf of civilians. But this a fight we can't afford to lose. For the sake of the planet and everyone you know, if you believe in science, don't stay silent.

This post was updated 5/4/2017.

Yosemite National Park is home to the sprawling, beautiful Ahwahnee Hotel, a historic lodging site, built in 1927 and declared a national landmark in 1987.

The Ahwahnee Hotel's interior was used as reference for Stanley Kubrick's classic film "The Shining." I'm guessing Kubrick liked how the hallways were just wide enough for two creepy twin girls, and how the doors failed to deflect axes. Photo via Joeyp3413/Wikimedia Commons.


But before you start packing your suitcase and pull up "Ahwahnee Hotel" on your travel-deal-website-of-choice to book reservations, there's something you should know:

After 90 years, the Ahwahnee Hotel has a new name — and it's disappointingly generic.

The Ahwahnee Hotel is now The Majestic Yosemite Hotel — and it's not the only Yosemite site to have recently undergone an underwhelming renaming.

Curry Village, a small lodging town in the valley near the famous Half Dome rock formation, is now known as Half Dome Village.

The Wawona Hotel, which was built in 1876, is now known as Big Trees Lodge.

Basically, the original and historic names of many locations in Yosemite have been changed to reflect the jumble of keywords you'd enter in Google if you forgot their real names.

"You know ... that lodge with the big trees. The big trees lodge?" Photo via Rennett Stowe/Wikimedia Commons.

So why all the sudden boring name changes?

If you've ever eaten at a national park (that is, eaten something besides the squished sandwich and granola bar in your backpack), you may have noticed that much of the food is provided by private companies, not the government.

Which, in theory, is pretty cool.

It allows the parks to make money by selling retail and dining space, and park visitors get to come back from their hikes to enjoy perfectly seared, bone-in rib eyes.

Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images.

Everyone wins.

Right?

Wrong. It turns out that when a company takes over selling food and providing lodging at a national park, sometimes they also get ownership of the historic names of those locations.

Until recently, concession sites at Yosemite were handled by a company called Delaware North, a multibillion-dollar organization that claims to be "one of the largest hospitality management companies serving national and state parks."

The dining hall at Ahwahnee — I mean, The Majestic Yosemite Hotel. Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images.

Delaware North took over concessions at Yosemite in 1993, and when it did, according to company spokeswoman Lisa Cesaro, it also had to purchase "the assets of the previous concessionaire, including its intellectual property at a cost of $115 million in today’s dollars."

In plain-speak, that means that the rights to names like "Ahwahnee" and "Wawona" were part of the package Delaware North purchased.

In 2015, Delaware North lost a $2 billion bid to renew its contract with Yosemite — and this is where things got sticky for the names of Yosemite's iconic landmarks.

Delaware North had to hand concession rights over to another company called Aramark. Delaware North also demanded to be paid back for the names it bought, asking for $51 million. The government thought that price was a "gross exaggeration" and valued the names at $3.5 million.

That conflict is still settling. But Delaware North has essentially said that while it still wants the $51 million, the National Park Service can keep the names the same ... for now.

The National Park Service then, for some reason (presumably to minimize damages), went ahead and changed all the names in Yosemite anyway.

The NPS even spent an estimated $1.7 million on temporary new signs in the process:

Photo by Rory Appleton/The Fresno Bee via AP, File.

The National Park Service may ultimately win the names back. But for now, staying at the Ahwahnee Hotel or Curry Village is a thing of the past.

To make things even more complicated, Delaware North has also made a trademark claim on the name "Yosemite National Park" itself — any time it appears on park merchandise.

In fact, T-shirts bearing the name "Yosemite National Park" have already been removed from some of the park's gift shops.

This is a huge deal! Half the reason to go to a national park is to get a hoodie with the name of the park on it. That way you can tell your awesome hiking story every time someone asks about it.

Plus ... gorgeous postcards like this one?

Photo via Bev Sykes/Flickr.

Those would be removed from stores as well. If Delaware North's trademark claim is upheld, you wouldn't even be able to mail-brag about your sweet hiking trip to your friends back home in Nebraska.

Worse yet, the National Park Service might have to start selling postcards at national park locations featuring their new, way-too-on-the-nose, generic park names — like There Are Waterfalls Here National Park or The Big One in California National Park.

In fact, if companies keep trying to hustle the National Park System out of naming rights, soon we may all be getting postcards from parks with slightly different names:

Like this one in Arizona.

Formerly known as The Grand Canyon. Image (altered) via iStock.

Or this one, from South Dakota.

Formerly known as Mount Rushmore. Image (altered) via iStock.

Or from this famous park in Wyoming.

Formerly known as Yellowstone's Old Faithful. Image (altered) via iStock.

So what's the big deal? They're just names, right?

Besides being lodged into the memories of millions of families who've passed through the park in the past 90 years, the names of Yosemite's historic sites have significant cultural value.

Yosemite Valley circa 1870. Photo by Carleton E. Watkins/Hulton Archive/Getty Images.

"Ahwahnee," which means "big mouth," is the Native American name for Yosemite's central valley. "Wawona" is thought to be an onomatopoeia for the sound of the great horned owl — believed to be a guardian spirit of the area.

Changing the names of these places erases their history; those names have been around way longer than the National Park System.

Most of all, though, this is outrageous because the national parks shouldn't belong to companies. They belong to the people.

The very act that created the National Park Service stipulates that the care and conservation of the parks and wildlife therein is for the enjoyment of people and future generations.

We visit national parks with our families. We create memories there and share pictures on Instagram to get the most Likes. We pay for the upkeep and survival of the parks with our tax dollars. We make laws to protect them and protest when they're in danger. They're ours.

They should belong to all of us.

Yosemite National Park. Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images.

Filmmaker Ken Burns once called the National Park System "America's best idea," which is saying a lot ... after all, this is the country that invented the space shuttle, the cheeseburger, and christened the sacred marriage of Dunkin' Donuts and Baskin Robbins in stores across the country.

But Great Ideas are what America does.

It's definitely not a Great Idea™ to have the names of our historic and beautiful national parks wrapped up in a petty intellectual property battle.

That's not what our national parks are here for.

They're for loving, cherishing, and gazing up at views like this:

Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. Photo by Karen Bleier/AFP/Getty Images.

The names of the places we visit are a key factor in the lifelong memories we create there. No company should be able to take that away.

Nature is awesome, right?

Fresh air, picturesque sights, local flora and fauna — it's all pretty great, but we don't give nearly enough credit to the people who keep it that way. Pardon the pun, but nature just doesn't come, uh, naturally.

100 years ago, the U.S. National Park Service was formed and tasked with conserving "America the Beautiful." They've been doing a pretty bang-up job of it ever since.


Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images.

In honor of the agency's 100th anniversary, here's a list of 15 national parks (and a national seashore) you'll want to add to your bucket list.

1. Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park

Warm weather? Check (it's Hawaii, after all). Beaches? Check. THE AWESOMENESS THAT IS TWO ACTIVE VOLCANOES? Check.

Image by jshyun/Flickr.

2. Glacier National Park

Here's one you may want to check out sooner rather than later. Why? Well, the park used to be home to somewhere around 150 glaciers! Now? There are just 25. In the future, there may be none. To paraphrase "Total Recall," get your ass to Montana.

Image by Andrew Kalat/Flickr.

3. Channel Islands National Park

This park is made up of five of the eight Channel Islands off the California coast. Why just five of eight? Well, you know how in high school, there'd be kids who were like, "You can't sit with us!" at lunch and then you'd silently cry in the bathroom and eat your lunch alone in the auditorium? (OK, those last few parts are probably just me...) It's my guess that it's something like that, but I'm probably wrong. But in addition to that, there are beautiful beaches, stunning rock formations, and warm weather.

Image by David Wan/Flickr.

4. Everglades National Park

If you're ever in the mood to see an alligator up close (but hopefully not too close), Everglades National Park is a great place to do it. The swampy Florida ecosystem is unique, and not exactly what you'd find in Nebraska, Iowa, Indiana, or wherever it is you, dear reader, are from.

Image by Diana Robinson/Flickr.

5. Zion National Park

Combining forests with epic rock formations, Zion National Park is a must-see stop should you be traveling through southern Utah.

Image by Zion National Park/Flickr.

6. Cape Cod National Seashore

What makes this eastern Massachusetts seascape so special? Well, it happens to be home to Marconi Station (if you happened to read that as "macaroni station," you are not alone), the site of the first two-way transatlantic radio transmission, and that's just way cool. It's known for its bike trails along with its views of Cape Cod Bay and the Atlantic Ocean.

Image by Jasperdo/Flickr.

7. North Cascades National Park

I'm going to be honest: I put this on the list simply because it's home to the Picket mountain range. What's so interesting about that, you ask? The names of the mountains within: Mount Fury, Mount Challenger, Poltergeist Pinnacle, Mount Terror, Ghost Peak, and Phantom Peak! POLTERGEIST FREAKIN' PINNACLE? That sounds like a badass roller coaster, and now I want to ride.

Image by Rachel Samanyi/Flickr.

8. Denali National Park and Preserve

Denali National Park in Alaska is home to Denali (obviously), the highest mountain in North America. It's also home to a little bit of everything else: forests, glaciers, rock formations, mountains. Plus, it's absolutely gorgeous.

Image by Denali National Park/Flickr.

9. Grand Canyon National Park

It's the Grand freakin' Canyon. NEXT!

Image by Grand Canyon National Park/Flickr.

10. Arches National Park

As its name would suggest, Arches National Park is home to a number of arch-shaped rock formations. The coolest thing, though, is probably Balanced Rock, a formation that includes an upper portion "balancing" on the lower. If you visit, please do not throw rocks at Balanced Rock in hopes of toppling it. Resist the urge!

Image by Arches National Park/Flickr (cropped).

11. Yosemite National Park

If you're a fan of giant sequoia trees, this is the park for you. In addition to some glorious rock formations, there are three groves of ancient sequoia trees in Yosemite. With its high granite cliffs, the park provides some of the most amazing views you'll see anywhere on Earth.

Image by Matt Savener/Upworthy.

12. Yellowstone National Park

This is the O.G. of national parks, going way back to 1872. It's home to some kickass geysers (what up, Old Faithful), hot springs, incredible wildlife, and so much more. You've heard of it ... now get with it and visit!

Image by Yellowstone National Park/Flickr.

13. Acadia National Park

Here's one very special reason to visit Acadia: the sunrise. Cadillac Mountain is located within the Maine park, and it's the first place in the United States where you can see the sun rise each morning. How awesome is that?

Image by TravelUSA/Flickr.

14. Pinnacles National Park

Pinnacles is a newbie to the National Park System (it was added in 2013), but it still brings the heat when it comes to dishing out that national park goodness. Mountains? Got 'em. Trees? Yep. What makes it special, though? Well, it's home to the success story of the almost-extinct but slowly recovering California condors. Victory!

Image by Stanislav Sedov/Flickr.

15. Joshua Tree National Park

This desert national park is found in Southern California. Named after the Joshua tree (no, not the U2 album), it's a pretty cool change of pace from your usual national park experience.

Photo by David McNew/Getty Images.

So happy birthday, National Park Service! You're looking good for a centenarian! Here's to your continued success!

Interested in visiting a nearby national park? Check out the list of free days at parks around the country.