Posing and promoting was his job. This was a young influencer's downfall: during a daring action, he lost his footing and fell to his death.
Roghudi Vecchio – It was supposed to be the perfect pose for a promotional video and ended in death: Giorgi Janelidze made his money from social media. The fitness influencer has now had an accident while filming such a video in Italy. He was only 23 years old. His sad fate is by no means an isolated case.
In a fantastic setting: fitness influencer poses for the camera and falls to his death
His Instagram account shows numerous photos and clips in which Janelidze sometimes shows himself working out and sometimes promotes fitness products. In many posts he poses in nature. Such a staging for his social media platform has now become the 23-year-old influencer's downfall.
According to the Greek media company Ethnos, Janelidze was in Roghudi Vecchio, an abandoned mountain village in the Italian region of Calabria. While filming, he fell into a deep ravine after climbing onto a balcony of a ruin without a railing. It is said that he slipped. A similar fate befell a young woman in Kassel's Bergpark at the beginning of the year.
A companion of the young man, who was born in Georgia and lives in Greece, confirmed the accident. Rescue workers, who had to deploy with a helicopter due to the depth of the gorge, were unable to revive her. The ancient mountain village lies at an altitude of 527 meters above sea level. After several floods in the 1970s, the last residents left the settlement, and since then it has degenerated into a lost place popular with tourists.
Tragedy during a social media shoot: the fate of the influencer is not an isolated case
In recent years, incidents like that of the fitness influencer have increased. In 2018, a tourist from Germany (35) had an accident in Sri Lanka - she also wanted to capture the perfect moment on a cliff edge and fell. Another prominent example dates back to the beginning of this year: on a hiking tour through a national park in the USA, a visitor stopped to take a selfie of herself and her husband. The 39-year-old lost her footing and also fell to her death.
Carelessness for the clicks? Study shows selfies more deadly than shark attacks
It seems that a snapshot is no longer enough - numerous photos that are going viral on the Internet paint a picture of spectacular, daring actions. Be it on the side of a cliff, on bridges or high-rise buildings. According to
a study by the Indian journal
Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care,
at least 259 people worldwide died while posing for selfies between October 2011 and November 2017. There is currently no more recent survey.
This means that the selfie poses a greater risk of death than a shark attack: in 2023, ten people worldwide died from such an attack, compared to 69 in total last year. In the comparable period from 2011 to 2017, 50 people died from shark attacks, five times fewer than from selfie shots, as the online travel magazine
Travelbook
writes.
Almost half of the accident victims recorded in the study came from India. Far behind, with 16 deaths of people from Russia and 14 Americans recorded. The most common cause of death for selfie victims: falling into the depths. In some cases, especially in the USA, a fatal shot was fired while posing with a weapon. (rku)