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Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie were on a cross country road trip. The couple posted their journey on YouTube and Instagram, but the trip became suspicious when Brian Laundrie returned home by himself. Exactly 10 days later, the Petito family filed a missing person report for Gabby. 

Where was Gabby Petito? The questions about Gabby’s disappearance affected the media’s ability to sell the news. In turn, the media encouraged public support and opinion about this strange case. Although “hundreds of thousands of people are reported missing in the United States every year,” this individual case remained in the public eye which made some wonder why people were concerned about a white woman’s disappearance when no one cared about the whereabouts of minority women.

After Brian Laundrie came home from his fateful trip alone, he went missing. Originally, the press was told he was on a family camping trip and people thought his parents helped him escape. However, the FBI’s involvement put people’s suspicions to rest.

TikTok shows one doesn’t have to be a trained criminal investigator to study the cases. Many TikTok users took matters into their own hands to spark a conversation about what could have possibly happened to Gabby, and later where Brian Laundrie could be. TikTok users had their own suspicions of where he could be hiding and were glued to the details of this story, dedicating themselves to explaining and debating the case, creating their own form of journalism. TikTok shows one doesn’t have to be a trained criminal investigator to study the cases.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/20/style/gabby-petito-case-tiktok-social-media.html