'I Just Got Rickrolled': Woman Drove to North Carolina After Being Tricked By Viral TikTok

A Florida woman made her family drive to a city in North Carolina after she watched a viral video on TikTok showing gorgeous mountain ranges and aesthetic buildings.

The video, uploaded by Zachary Keesee or @realzacharykeesee on TikTok, showed footage of him driving through a scenic snowy mountain town.

"Gastonia, North Carolina," the on-screen text said as music played in the background.

In the video, which received more than 5.8 million views and 10,500 comments since it was published on January 11, Keesee showed various clips of the snowy town and large mountainsides.

But in the comments, Keesee explained that the footage was from Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland and not actually Gastonia, a city west of Charlotte.

Yet many did not realize the video was a joke. On January 15, 26-year-old Olivia Garcia, or @itsoliviagarcia on TikTok, posted a video about how she drove there because she was tricked by Keesee's viral video.

"I just got rickrolled by TikTok," Garcia said in the caption of the video.

In the video, which received more than 329,000 views, Garcia showed footage of Gastonia. Absent were the aesthetic mountainsides and cozy buildings. Rather, Garcia filmed large parking lots, gas stations, and empty shopping plazas.

"I'm from south Florida, so the closest thing we have to mountains down here are landfills, which is why I was so excited when I saw the TikTok," Garcia told News and Observer. "I had never heard of Gastonia before, but the name sounded like something out of a Disney movie."

She said that while her family was on a trip to Charleston, South Carolina, from Jupiter, Florida, she found Keesee's TikTok and realized Gastonia was only an hour out of their way. That's when she convinced her family to take the trip.

Garcia told News and Observer that she realized something was off when they were about 20 minutes away when there were no mountains in sight. She said all they found were "run-down gas stations" and that the closest thing to a mountain was a hiking park nearby.

"I'm sure there's a nicer part of town, but we didn't stick around long enough to find out," Garcia said. "Moral of the story, don't believe anything you see on the internet."

In a follow-up video from Friday, Keesee reposted Garcia's video with the caption "we had a viewer visit Gastonia to see the lovely sights!"

Keesee told Newsweek he was surprised that people took his TikTok seriously and visited Gastonia. He said he "wasn't expecting that to have happened at all" but that he spoke to Garcia who seemed to think the situation was funny.

Keesee, who is from Durham, North Carolina, and posts videos of his solo traveling on TikTok, said although the app is a great place to research travel opportunities, people should still do their own research and not rely on it.

"It's a great spot to get travel ideas to explore," he told Newsweek. "But don't follow everything you see blindly! Research yourself!"

He said although he has never actually been to Gastonia, he plans on visiting soon to "pay homage" for his viral videos.

Newsweek reached out to Olivia Garcia but did not receive a response in time for publication.