People have been doing double takes over a VisitAfton meme that draws on a seemingly endless well of “Ohio jokes” to make a Wyoming tourism pitch.
The video, created by Paige Alise for VisitAfton, is short and sweet. It shows footage of someone driving in Wyoming with the text, “If you’re ever in Ohio, we recommend seeing Afton, Wyoming, which is only 1,629 miles away.”
Then, at the bottom of the reel, there is the added subtext, “Not exactly close, but definitely worth the drive,” with a “wink-face” emoji.
Alise picked up on the idea when she noticed several TikToks from other places leaning into Ohio as, well, rather dull, and suggesting it would be worth a drive to almost anywhere else.
“I kind of hopped on the trend,” she said. “It’s a good one because it’s funny. Obviously, Ohio is nowhere near Wyoming. And people get that it’s a trend and then they think it’s funny.”
For those who don’t know the history of Ohio memes, the humor is sometimes lost. But they’re still drawn to engage with the video, trying to figure out why there would be a reel linking Ohio and Wyoming, when they’re so far away from each other.
“It’s funny because everyone knows Ohio’s nowhere near Wyoming,” Alise said. “For people who don’t understand it’s a trend, they’re like, ‘What the heck? Why are you talking about Ohio?’ It creates controversy, so there’s a lot of back and forth in the comments like, ’Stay out, stay in Ohio, or whatever.’”
From there, the debate takes off, people bring their popcorn, and Alise’s little reel goes floating out into an ever-wider social media pool.
The approach is also an algorithmic win as well, Alise said. Since her post mentions both Ohio and Wyoming, the algorithm tries to feed it to people from both states, which helped widen its impact.
So far, her Ohio-Wyoming reel has gained 83,000 views with 150 comments and more than 2,000 likes.
That makes it one of her top performers, though it’s not the biggest. Her best was a more traditional reel that says, “The person who sent you this wants to wander Wyoming with you,” set against a video of Swift Creek in Afton.
Another top performer asked people when they last drove under Afton’s famous Elkhorn arch.
“That one engages people to say like, ‘Oh I was there this morning,’ or ‘I grew up there and I haven’t been back in years, but I’d love to come back,’” she said. “The call to action is to comment under the picture. And then the more engagement you get, the more Instagram or Facebook, or whatever, the more they push it out to more people.”
Why Ohio?
Alise actually has family members who are from Ohio, so naturally her TikTok algorithm has been feeding her all sorts of Buckeye State memes.
Treating Ohio as a joke online has a long history, but one running joke that particularly stands out began in 2016. An Ohio vs. the World meme, posted by user @screenshotsofdespair, went viral on Tumblr. The meme had a digital marquee in an unknown city that read, “Ohio will be eliminated.”
At the time, there was a running social media joke that Ohio was secretly plotting to take over the world. The @screenshotsofdespair meme was a joking response to that, calling for the state to be eliminated first.
The popularity of that meme has spawned memes about the Ohio takeover memes, like “Wait, it’s all Ohio? Always has been,” which typically includes an image of two astronauts in space who are looking down on Earth.
There’s also the “Can’t even X in Ohio” and “Ohio Final Boss” memes, as well as the ever-popular “So Ohio” or “Only in Ohio…” memes. The latter are typically tied to something bizarre or random and ridiculous, implying that Ohio is where all the strange things actually happen.
It’s a tongue-in-cheek joke that plays on the fact that Ohio often makes Top 10 “Most Normal States” listicles, like this 2014 one from Business Insider.
#Ohio has 4.2M posts and counting on TikTok, while #onlyinOhio has 46.6K, showing that the “make fun of Ohio for being boring” trend is still a strong social media force.
Wyoming Has A Joke Meme Of Its Own
Wyoming has been at the center of its own running meme joke, namely the whole “Wyoming Isn’t Real” schtick. That led to various social media pages about the effect, like this WyoIsn’tReal Instagram page or this Wyoming Isn’t Real Facebook page.
The joke started in the late 2010s as part of the Reddit channel r/Wyomingdoesn’texist, which pushed the idea that Wyoming is a government conspiracy and doesn’t really exist.
Other groups took the idea and ran with their own versions of the joke. Some turned it into a rather wistful mission, convincing the world Wyoming doesn’t exist to keep people away from the state’s many great tourist attractions. Others ran with the idea that Wyoming is so cool, it’s hard to believe it exists, so people should definitely come visit — and buy some of this “Wyoming Isn’t Real” merchandise.
Similar to the Ohio meme, people are still making jokes and content around the original Wyoming doesn’t exist meme, like this video which walks people through the arguments that people use to push the idea that Wyoming doesn’t really exist.
From Florida to Forever Wyoming
Alise is originally from Florida. She landed in Wyoming when she followed an ex to the Cowboy State and ended up in Afton, where she’s been for 10 years.
She definitely knows that Wyoming is real and has no problem telling others so. Her goal is to get Afton’s charm out to the world and encourage as many visitors as possible to the small town in Star Valley on Wyoming’s western edge. The community is considered a gateway to Yellowstone, she said, and offers lots of outdoor recreation in a less crowded, slower-paced atmosphere.
Alise has been studying social media and is working toward a degree in it, with an eye toward a career in the travel/tourism industry. She’s also a real estate agent in the Afton area, which has helped her know the community inside and out.
“Our big claim to fame is the intermittent spring,” she said. “Snowmobiling is huge normally, maybe not so much this year, but we’re a big hub for that.”
What Alise personally likes to do, though, is paddleboard and snowshoe, and Afton has excellent opportunities for both.
“I just love how we’re close enough to like Teton and Yellowstone, but still far enough away that it’s a small town,” she said. “And you go to the grocery store, and you see five people you know. I also have kids and they can ride their bikes around town and I feel safe.”
Alise isn’t planning any more reels like the Ohio one, but she’s always looking for a new trend she can leverage to get eyeballs on her VisitAfton posts.
“I just want to get the word out about how amazing Afton is, because we rely a lot on tourism for our economy,” she said. “We’re kind of the gateway to the national parks, and we want people to stop and plan on staying a few days with us before they head up north.”
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
