Nine million people on TikTok have now watched Rock Springs photographer Megan Pope lose her temper at a line of tourist photographers, calling them "actual idiots" last week at Mormon Row in Grand Teton National Park.
What the viral video doesn't show is how a sunrise engagement shoot turned into a mob scene where other photographers allegedly barked insults and made mooing noises at Pope, who is six months pregnant.
“I’m not going to pretend I handled every second perfectly,” Pope told Cowboy State Daily on Thursday. “I’m human, I reacted. I would have rather stayed calm, but I feel like people deserve to know what happened before the moment.”
@meggs_hehe Don’t let people walk all over you! Stand up for yourself! MP Creations LLC is my business page. Check the future results of the session ;) #greenscreenvideo #jacksonhole #tetons #kindness ♬ original sound - Meg | SAHM + Small Biz
'People Were Making Mooing Noises At Me'
For Pope, the day started before dawn at GTNP’s iconic Moulton Barn on Mormon Row. She expected a quiet sunrise photoshoot with her newly engaged clients.
Instead, she found a wall of photographers shouting at anyone who walked near their shot.
“You couldn’t tell at first if they were tourists,” Pope said. “Personally, me going there, I wouldn’t just assume. But with the way that they treated me, it definitely wasn’t a locals vibe.”
Pope said it soon became clear. As the group continued yelling at anyone who walked into, or even near, their shot, Pope said one woman loudly announced herself as “Barbara from Hawaii.”
“Barbara from Hawaii, I would say she was the leader of the whole ordeal,” Pope said. “She was the one who started the yelling and ramping people up to yell with her.”
Pope and her clients hung back, hoping the tension would fade once the sun rose.
“At first, I kind of understood because I’m a photographer and I understand waiting for that perfect moment,” Pope said. “I tried to be respectful and wait, but it just kept going.”
With her paying clients standing by, Pope eventually decided to bypass the line and head toward the barn. Then, she said, the yelling zeroed in on her specifically.
“I was called a 'dick' by some random man,” Pope said. “I was called a cow. People were literally making mooing noises at me.
"At this point I’m thinking, ‘This isn’t even a disagreement about photography etiquette anymore. You’re just personally insulting someone.’”
A witness told Cowboy State Daily he and his wife heard the crowd making mooing sounds at the pregnant photographer, who he said remained as gracious as she could.
Mortified that her clients had to endure the harassment, Pope finally snapped back, asking if the yelling tourists had rented the barn before shouting, “You guys are actually idiots!”
Caught on Camera
Pope said she shook it off, finished the shoot and the couple left happy. But she had seen enough raised phones during the argument to suspect it wouldn't stay in the field.
“I literally got back in my truck and said to my fiancee, ‘Somebody definitely has that on video,’” Pope said.
Sure enough, the argument played out behind TikToker ISA KNOWS as she filmed a selfie video, and she leaned into the camera to whisper, "It takes a lot of balls to do what she just did when 60 people are yelling at her."
Far from mocking Pope, the creator praised her courage, admitted the crowd had harassed her too and reached out to Pope privately afterward.
Still, Pope took to her own TikTok to tell her side of the story.
“I didn’t want people to get the idea that I was a disrespectful photographer,” Pope said. “From that point on, it took off.”
#WyomingIsClosed
The original video has more than 2 million views and Pope’s response has since been viewed almost 8 million times. As her notifications began blowing up, Pope realized the comments section was largely on her side.
"Local vs tourists … easy choice. #wyomingsclosed," one wrote. Another said, "i live in jackson hole and the tourists r so annoying and act like they own the place." A third asked, "Can you really be a Wyomingite if you don’t frequently get pissed off by tourists?”
One of the people who responded on social media was Stefani Pitt Osborn, a lifelong Lander resident.
Pitt Osborn told Cowboy State Daily in a Facebook message that Jackson used to be a “good old fashioned cowboy town.” Now, she said she avoids it completely because of the pushy tourists, who she believes have changed the town for good.
“They will walk right in front of vehicles and yell at whoever is driving even though the person driving was following the rules,” Pitt Osborn said. “They figure the pedestrian has the right of way.”
It’s not necessarily all tourists, Pitt Osborn said, but the locals there don’t get a break from crowds of newcomers. In the summer they come for the national park and in the winter they come to ski.
“Some people are very nice, but it kind of has this feel now of ‘We are here because we are rich and can do whatever we want,’” Pitt Osborn said. “Jackson is absolutely stunning but it’s sad what it’s become.”
‘Our Home’
To the internet, Pope's confrontation at Mormon Row became a story about the people who live here against the people who visit. For Pope, who already had to set the record straight once, it felt like the video had lost the plot again.
“It’s not a Wyoming locals vs. tourists thing,” she said. “I don’t want people to think Wyoming hates tourism. We run on it, a lot of places in Wyoming depend on it.”
As a small business owner herself, Pope said that many of her clients are tourists who specifically want their keepsake photos with the backdrop of beautiful Wyoming scenery.
She doesn't want the influx of Wyoming tourism to turn locals hostile, but she thinks that respect has to run both ways.
“If anything positive comes from this ridiculously viral video, I hope the conversation is, ‘Come to Wyoming, we want you here,’” Pope said. “Just remember that Wyoming might be your vacation destination, but it’s also our home.”
For Pope's own business, the message is already getting through.
“I’ve gotten an incredible amount of business from this,” Pope said. “I’ve gotten about seven sessions booked with tourists and loads of inquiries. I kind of have to divvy my time because I’m about to have a baby.”
Her calendar is already filling up for next summer, she said, with many of those clients out-of-staters planning Wyoming vacations.
Pope never expected millions of strangers to watch her lose her cool. But, judging by her inbox, a good number of them liked what they saw anyway.
“I was raised to say what I have to say,” Pope said. “What I really hope people take away is: don’t be a dirt ball. Don’t be a mean person because you think you’re entitled.”
Emma Jane Jackson can be reached at emma@cowboystatedaily.com.
