Another Oregon Coast Misunderstanding Goes Viral on Facebook

Published 07/21/2012

(Netarts, Oregon) - Oh, the Internet rumors about the Oregon coast. Last week, a huge misunderstanding on Facebook led many officials to believe a second tsunami dock was about to hit Tillamook County, and over the last two years one very misguided individual has created a variety of hoaxes regarding UFO's and non-existent tsunami alerts on these beaches.

This weekend saw another such misunderstanding – again thanks to Facebook.

The latest incident was actually much more on the light side and relatively harmless, though it did get numerous individuals into serious research mode - including Oregon Coast Beach Connection reporters.

Sometime on Friday, Netarts Grocery posted a particularly wacky photo of an RV stuck in the surf to its Facebook page. It looked to everyone that this was indeed taken on the Oregon coast, especially given the context of a business in Tillamook County posting this, apparently a hastily-shot photo from what seemed an amateur's camera.

With nothing other than a simple “bummer” for a headline and/or description of the photo, the assumption seemed sealed.

So the photo took off – into the stratosphere, in social media terms. By mid-afternoon Saturday, it was probably the most talked about photo on Oregon coast social media. About 5 p.m., Netarts Grocery's Kristina Zak – who also runs its Facebook page – was laughing heartily about it, noting the photo had reached almost 200 shares this day alone.

That's not counting who else re-shared it from the Facebook pages of others. Oregon Coast Beach Connection's page has the photo shared by almost 80 other people by 6 p.m. Saturday.

It could well be that. altogether, several thousand people are talking about this photograph – which is definitely not from the Oregon coast, it turns out. To say it went viral would be an understatement.

“I had no clue it would be this huge,” Zak said, laughing almost hysterically.

Zak was quite taken back by the response, but admits she simply found it somewhere else on the net and thought it would be amusing to share. She has no clue where she found it in retrespect, and no idea where the photo was taken.

Oregon Coast Beach Connection made several calls around Tillamook County, including the Nestucca Fire District in Pacific City, but couldn't reach anyone who knew anything about it. Tillamook County has a couple areas where cars can drive on the beach, but only the Tierra Del Mar access would've even vaguely allowed such a rig onto the beach.

The reactions were, of course, comical. It was unfathomable to most Oregonians that someone could be so dimwitted as to try and take such a large rig onto the beach.

Among some of the funniest responses:

“That is definitely ocean front with a view.”

“Daddy, is this how we get to meet Spongebob Squarepants?”

“Drive-In Car Wash?!?”

So, what's the moral of the story?

It goes back to “don't believe everything you see/read on the Internet.” In fact, with Facebook, that goes doubly true, perhaps even triple. Luckily, Oregon Coast Beach Connection didn't publish anything in any official journalistic capacity, and wouldn't have done so unless we got confirmation from some rescue official who was actually there.

Still, we feel a little guilty for passing on the photo on Facebook, even though technically we did come right out and say it was unclear where the photo came from. Yes, it was all in good fun, right up there with kooky pictures of pets supposedly saying bold things, which people pass around all the time on FB. But from now on, on FB, we'll be sure to also note how unclear the origin of something is and take greater pains to be much more catious on this sometimes throw-away medium of social media.

More photos of Netarts - actually from Netarts:

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