At least five people have been killed and more than 13,000 homes damaged or destroyed after Hurricane Dorian—one of the two most powerful landfalling hurricanes ever recorded in the Atlantic—stalled out over the Bahamas. It’s the kind of huge disaster that inspires as much sadness as awe and celebs have been moved to make note of it.
But some celebs—like Modern Family‘s Sofia Vergara—and a handful of Instagram influencers are under fire because fans and critics may not agree with the ways they’ve chosen to shout-out storm-besieged Bahamians.
Case in point is Brazilian bikini model Tatiele Polyana, who posted the image above with a caption that translated to the following:
My heart is [broken] a few weeks ago I had the opportunity to see this immensity of clear water, truly a PARADISE, how sad my God to see the desperation of the people in the videos, so many houses, cars, hospitals and places all being devastated by this damn hurricane! Let’s pray for #Bahamas 😰🙏🏻💙
The words are fine! And by itself, the image is fine. Taken together, however, they left a very sour taste in some commenter’s mouths. A handful of examples from Polyana’s post:
- “Should pick another time to show off your body 🥵 how about share a picture of some damage? Maybe something relevant?”
- “Also, the vaguely relative caption doesn’t seem genuine. Sounds like you just whipped something together to leech off the traffic kn the geo tag, and hashtag.”
- “Probably not the best choice of platforms to post that pic, but you do have a killer bod”
Yikes.
Still, though she has a half-million followers, chances are you haven’t heard of Tatiele Polyana. But just about everyone has heard of Sofia Vergara, and she published the following Insta on her account.
“Waiting for Dorian,” she wrote in Spanish.
The negative comments were immediate:
- “I am a fan. But the waiting for Dorian comment was not funny.”
- “This is a perfect example of the idiocy of celebrity. So self absorbed and entitled you lose your humanity.”
- “Oh oh….That caption sounds insensitive….people are not gonna like it.”
Yeah, they did not.
The model and the actress certainly had defenders as well. A commenter going by “sbatcave” was a good example, commenting on Sofia Vergara’s post that “People need to get a grip. She’s living as she chooses. She didn’t tell anyone to not be prepared. Stop being so offended by everything.”
Worth noting, too, that the actress’s post was apparently published well before the true extent of the hurricane’s power and destruction was revealed.
Kim Kardashian West also shared some photos that were reportedly from her own recent trip to the Bahamas, but she had the wisdom to simply post them with a “waves” emoji and nothing more, leaving her intent open to interpretation.
Truth is, there are much more important things going on and the time anyone took to ream an actress or a model on social media for not hitting the right note could’ve also been spent googling appropriate charities—like the ones listed and ranked here.
