A sad account that reinforces an old lesson, while also highlighting an unexpected risk of social media.  Vice reports that two Brazilian Instagram “influencers” drowned in a boating accident off the coast of São Paulo after opting not to wear life jackets, believing the safety gear would ruin their tans. One of the two victims reportedly did not know how to swim.

Aline Tamara Moreira de Amorim, 37, and Beatriz Tavares da Silva Faria, 27, were part of a group returning from a yacht party when their speedboat capsized in the area known as Garganta do Diabo – or the Devil’s Throat – which is filled with rapids and waterfalls. Both were repeatedly told by the boat’s captain to wear their life preservers since the vessel would be overcrowded and navigating rough waters.

According to the captain, the women declined their life jackets because they thought the potentially life-saving flotation devices would interfere with their tanning. “Some didn’t want to put them on because they were taking selfies,” said Sao Vincente Police Commissioner Marcos Alexandra Alfino after speaking with the captain. “They said that they get in the way of their tanning.”

The speedboat captain said he’d been pressured into taking six people back from the yacht party, when his boat could only accommodate five. Hit by rough waves, the boat overturned and the passengers were tossed into the water. One, Vanessa Audrey da Silva, who managed to get her life jacket on, managed to cling onto a rock until she was rescued. “There was a moment in the water when no one could see anyone,” she said. “I was fighting for my life.”

Police said Faria’s body drifted out to sea and was recovered by Brazil’s Maritime Firefighters, while Amorium’s body washed up on the coast of Itaquitanduva Beach nearly a week later. Amorim’s brother says his sister didn’t know how to swim.

The importance of wearing life jackets is well established. According to the US Coast Guard 2022 Recreational Boating Statistics report, among the 636 boating deaths in the US in 2022 where the cause of death was known, 75% of the victims drowned. Where life jacket use or nonuse was known, 85% of those drowning victims were reported as not wearing a life jacket. These percentages have stayed grimly comparable for the last several decades.

The fact that the two women chose not to wear life jackets because they were taking selfies and the flotation devices would interfere with their tanning, points out a new set of social media risks.

Slate reports that according to a 2022 study published in the Journal of Travel Medicine, there were 379 selfie-related deaths worldwide between 2008 and 2021. That’s more than 4 times the number of people who died by shark bite in the same period. And still that figure is likely an underestimate, because the numbers are pulled mostly from media reports, which don’t cover all deaths and can be hard for researchers to find.

Many of the selfie-related deaths were related to falling off cliffs. The recent tragedy in Brazil is the first we are aware of related to tanning.

Thanks to Alaric Bond for contributing to this post.