Non-profit organizations like the Black and Missing Foundation have tried to fill the gaps in law enforcement priorities by shining a light on individual missing Black people and the statistics behind them. Black children are also more likely to remain missing. In fact, that number is probably an underestimate, because Black girls are often categorized as runaways and not as missing persons. The FBI believes that 33.6% of the Americans who go missing every year are Black, even though Black people constitute only 13.4% of the population. This is especially striking given that women of color are more likely to go missing in the US in the first place.
![gaby everyone has a story gaby everyone has a story](https://ninciclopedia.org/img/783016.jpg)
There is nothing wrong with Petito’s case getting attention, but there is the lingering question of who isn’t getting the same attention – or any attention at all. One TikTok user has provided evidence that the platform feeds people content from creators of the same race as those who created content they’ve viewed in the past, further driving any other biases that may already be in play. Dances created by Black teenagers are often scooped up and popularized by white kids who are able to amass a larger audience. This bias may even exist on an algorithmic level: Black TikTok content creators have long argued that their content is more likely to be suppressed. It is not as if media outlets conspire behind closed doors to prioritize white women, but producers, editors and news consumers have biases that influence coverage. But this does not remove racial bias from the picture. It should be said that a lot of the attention that Petito received can be ascribed to the fact that she already had a devoted online following at the time of her death, vaulting her disappearance into an instant cause célèbre on platforms like TikTok and Reddit. Media attention influences how politicians and law enforcement agencies allocate resources, and it is concerning when policy priorities are so clearly weighted toward victims of certain racial identities and social classes. According to 2019 numbers, however, there are well over a thousand other missing persons in Florida alone. The Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, declared online that he has directed all state agencies to assist with the search for Laundrie, who is on the run. The media joined in this explosion of attention, and public officials soon followed.
![gaby everyone has a story gaby everyone has a story](https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/1216339800921444354/1swOlydU_400x400.jpg)
It is concerning when policy priorities are so clearly weighted toward victims of certain racial identities and social classes Her story quickly went viral on social media outlets: a Reddit forum created to track her case has accumulated more than 119,000 members at time of writing, and TikTok videos featuring her have received over 200m views. She’d been missing for weeks after a roadtrip with her fiance, who returned from the trip without her and soon went missing himself. Her death was ruled a homicide by a Wyoming coroner on 21 September, a few days after her body was discovered. Gabby Petito deserves justice there is no doubt about that. Petito’s case is tragic, but the media attention it has attracted replicates a systemic pattern. White women, particularly conventionally attractive middle- or upper-class white women, tend to receive disproportionate media coverage when they go missing. Her story is heart-wrenching, especially after police footage has emerged of Petito and her fiance, Brian Laundrie, who is now a “person of interest” in her death, having a domestic crisis.īut the story also feels eerily familiar – so familiar, in fact, that there is a term for it: “missing white woman syndrome”.
Her YouTube presence and participation in the Instagram #vanlife subculture, which involves young people travelling around the country living aesthetically appealing lives in vans and converted buses, provided plenty of content for internet detectives on sites like TikTok and Reddit to consume.
![gaby everyone has a story gaby everyone has a story](https://n4.sdlcdn.com/imgs/d/a/n/rsz_22_11262-77bc8.jpg)
T he apparent murder of 22-year-old Gabby Petito has been a consistent part of the American news cycle since she disappeared on 11 September.