The fake National Park TikTok accounts are actually harming the parks they claim to love (and how they can fix it)
- Madeleine
- May 13
- 8 min read
Updated: May 16
Imagine for a moment: You’ve managed to keep your marketing job despite a ton of budget and personnel cuts to your department. You’ve worked so, so hard to establish a strong voice online and build up a reputation, proving your value. Then someone comes along and completely destroys that carefully crafted reputation. They’re trying to help you, but they’re actually ruining everything you’ve worked so hard for.
That’s what the National Park Service marketing team is feeling right now.
Let me be super clear upfront: I know I’m about to sound like a party pooper. I can already see the comments rolling in: “Madeleine, you must be so fun at parties.” And to that I say: I’m okay with being the buzzkill if it means standing up for our national parks, our public lands, and the people that work so hard to protect them.
So let’s talk about these fake National Park TikTok accounts that have been popping up like invasive weeds since early 2024. You might’ve seen them: Parody accounts pretending to be official parks like Yellowstone or Mount Rainier, posting unhinged content, thirst traps, AI art, and frat-boy sex jokes. And people love them. I get it. I really do. At first glance, you might not see a problem with these accounts.
But personally, I don't like them. And every outdoor educator and advocate that I know feels the same way. Not because we don’t like a good laugh or we're prudish, but because we genuinely believe these accounts are harming public perception of our national parks at a time when they’re already facing devastating threats.
Why I'm qualified to speak on this
If we haven’t met yet: Hi, I’m Madeleine. I’m an outdoor advocate, a content creator, and host of the podcast Outdoorsy, where we uplift marginalized voices and work toward making the outdoors more inclusive. I’ve also got a degree and background in PR and digital marketing, so I think a lot about perception, branding, and public communication.
I'm also deeply involved in advocacy for our public lands: I organized the protests at Mount Rainier National Park this year and am part of the coalition in contact with the Resistance Rangers. I've visited our capital in Washington State and spoken directly to our state representatives about protecting our public lands. I've been using my small but mighty following on social media to create a community of advocates and Leave No Trace disciples. I've been doing the work both offline and online.
So when I tell you these accounts are doing real harm, I’m not just being dramatic. This comes from experience, education, and a whole lot of time spent both online and on trail.
What these fake National Park TikTok accounts are doing
The short version: These are unaffiliated parody accounts pretending to be official National Parks. Some are more obvious jokes than others, but most aren’t doing nearly enough to clarify that they’re not affiliated with the National Park Service.
Instead, they’re:
Posting OnlyFans-style thirst traps
Making sexually explicit, low-brow jokes
Using AI-generated content (big yikes)
Rarely (if ever) sharing educational info about the threats facing our public lands or calls to action
Confusing viewers who think they’re official accounts
Why these parody National Park TikTok accounts are a problem
1. Media literacy is at an all-time low
Let’s be honest, people believe what they see on TikTok. And these parody accounts are not clearly marked as fake. Most don’t include “unofficial,” “parody,” or “joke” in the username or bio. That’s a huge problem when people take content at face value.
Go into the comment section of any of these videos, scroll on Threads, or even check out the Reddit pages discussing these accounts, and you will see SO many people believing these are REAL accounts, when they are not.
If someone sees a silly video from an account that appears to be “Mount Rainier National Park,” they assume it’s real. That damages the credibility of the National Park Service and reinforces the dangerous narrative that our public lands are wasting resources.
2. They detract from real education and advocacy
We do not need help promoting visitation to the national parks. Visitation numbers have hit record highs year over year. The real issue is education about the threats to funding, protections, and personnel. Most of these accounts aren’t talking about that. Most of these accounts are not linking to actions people can take. And most of these accounts are not highlighting budget cuts, staffing losses, or anti-environmental legislation. Sure, some of them have a video here and there that very half-heartedly mentions something along these lines, but for the most part, they're just chasing clicks.
Attention is not an infinite resource. When these accounts go viral, they’re pulling attention away from the people who are actually doing the work like park rangers, educators, and advocates who are out there teaching people how to recreate responsibly and fighting to protect these spaces.
Our National Park Service actually has an incredible digital marketing strategy. They have struck a beautiful balance between silly and educational, relatable and authoritative. I feel horrible for the internal marketing team at the NPS having to battle against this assault on their online reputation when they've already been so strapped for resources and facing so many challenges this year alone. It's heartbreaking to think about.
Here are the ONLY official National Park social media pages:
3. They are feeding dangerous narratives
A lot of the same people who oppose LGBTQ+ rights, climate change policy, and environmental protections are the exact same people who believe our parks are a waste of tax dollars. When they see what appears to be “official” park content filled with sex jokes and thirst traps, it just validates their belief that the system is broken.
That kind of narrative leads to support for budget cuts and layoffs. And in 2025, we’ve already seen thousands of park employees lose their jobs under this administration.
It's just a matter of time before FOX News picks up these accounts and starts pointing to them as an example of how "wasteful" our National Parks are.
“But they’re raising awareness!”
I’ve heard this argument a lot. Awareness of what, exactly? That the parks exist? We know. Everyone knows. That's why we saw record visitation. If they claim to be raising awareness about the threats to our public lands and how people can help, their strategy would look much different.
Most of these accounts:
Don’t link to any resources
Don’t include a single call to action
Post maybe one educational video every 50 silly ones
Have the reach and visibility to make a real impact—and choose not to
There is nothing inherently wrong with parody. But when it claims to be advocacy without actually doing the work, it becomes dangerous.
My advice for the creators of the fake National Park TikToks
If you run one of these accounts and you truly want to help our parks, there are some easy wins here. Seriously low-hanging fruit.
Clarify your status. Add “parody” or “unofficial” to your username or bio. Be explicit.
Link to real resources. Add a Linktree or external site with ways to take action and learn more. You only need 1,000 followers to do this.
Post weekly educational content about the threats facing our public lands. Once a week. That’s it. Tell your audience what’s happening with public lands. Encourage action.
Cut the over-sexualized jokes. You’re smarter than that. And it’s alienating potential allies.
Stop using AI art. If you care about real places, use real images.
Use your monetization wisely. Most of these accounts aren't making any money off of these videos, which is fine. But most of them have over 10,000 followers, which means they can monetize if they want. This is a HUGE opportunity for them to raise funds for organizations actually doing the work. I encourage these pages to start making some 1-minute videos that can be monetized and donate those proceeds to orgs doing actual conservation and advocacy work. There are even clever ways to make this a content format (e.g., “Watch this 60-second waterfall loop and help us raise money for [org].”).
None of these changes require you to delete your account. They don't even require much effort. They just require integrity and care.
Intent does not negate impact
One of the original creators of these accounts reached out to me after my video went live talking about this, and they explained the intention of these accounts was originally to lighten the mood post-election, and they never meant for them to snowball out of control like they have. While I feel for this person (it must suck to see something originally so innocuous totally spiral into something dangerous), it doesn't change anything.
These accounts may claim they're trying to help our National Parks. I want to give them the benefit of the doubt and believe them when they say they have good intentions. But their actions tell a completely different story.
I actually already posted about all of this on YouTube, TikTok, and Threads. The response I got from the people behind these accounts was absolutely astonishing. Instead of using this as an opportunity to make the most of their accounts by making small changes and learning how to maximize their impact, they instead jumped straight into defensive mode. Immediately, they started hurling insults at me.
Now, I'm no stranger to this kind of response. I've seen it many times in my advocacy work. When you call people out and they know they're in the wrong, they immediately stoop to this level.
The Joshua Tree account even made a whole 5-minute-long video cherry-picking moments from my YouTube video and eliminating important contextual information to further their narrative that they've "done nothing wrong." They then went on to sexually harass people in my comments and engage with a bunch of sexual harassment directed toward me in their own comment section. It's textbook, it's predictable, it speaks volumes, and the people who have actually been involved in advocacy work see right through it.
Here's the thing: Being held accountable for your actions can feel like an attack when you lack the maturity to learn, grow, and change. The creators of these accounts claim to want to help our public lands, but when push comes to shove, their actions prove otherwise. It would have been so easy for them to take the advice given here, make those changes, and not even say anything. Hell, they could have just kept me blocked as long as they took my advice. They would have looked like heroes!
Now, they just look like petulant children throwing a tantrum. And every outdoor educator and advocate that I know is cringing so hard watching them crash out. Actions speak louder than words. And these actions speak volumes to the quality of their character and their motivations behind these accounts.
UPDATE: May 19, 2025
Many of these fake TikTok accounts have made changes in the last 48 hours or so per the recommendations above. Specifically, many of them have updated their bios to include "parody" or "unofficial" and have added links to additional resources. While there is still room for improvement and they have the potential to increase their impact tremendously, this is great progress.
At this point, we'll take any progress we can get!
The bigger picture
Right now, in 2025, our national parks and public lands are under greater threat than ever before. We’re seeing attacks on the Endangered Species Act, cuts to climate science funding, and increased access for private industry (logging, mining, oil) on protected lands. This is not the time for satire that blurs the line. This is the time for clarity, education, and action.
We don’t need help getting people to visit the parks. We need help protecting them.
Comments