It was 4.30am in La Guaira, and Gianpiero Fusco was ready.
Hard hat on. Shirt off. Shoes, also off.
He had a pickaxe, a camera and some carefully chosen melancholy music.
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What he did not appear to have was anything to do.
The rescue that came with a soundtrack
Fusco, 30, posted the video to his 980,000 followers on Saturday, filmed among the collapsed buildings of the Playa Grande area after the earthquake.
In it he walks the ruins shirtless and barefoot, carrying a heavy pickaxe and gazing wistfully at the wreckage.
He climbs into gaps. He balances along narrow edges.
He looks, throughout, deeply aware of the camera.
At no point does he do anything useful.
Known online as “El Tigre”, Fusco said the footage was shot at half four in the morning, presumably for the light.
Viewers were less interested in the cinematography.
Followers were not moved
“Who the f*ck are you going to save barefoot and shirtless?” asked one.
Another pictured the edit suite: “I can imagine myself editing this video, looking for the right music.”
A third wanted answers. “Please, can someone clarify what he actually did besides walking in front of whoever was filming the perfect short film for Instagram?”
The reviews kept arriving. “Going for a stroll among the rubble with someone holding lights to film you seems to me one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever seen,” wrote one.
Another went further: “this is not a joke or a runway for you to go and film yourself modelling among the rubble.”
One man gave up entirely. “Don’t insult him any more… I can’t like all of them.”
The raw-meat, barefoot, holistic Tiger
Fusco, from the state of Portuguesa, built his following on calisthenics and a “holistic” lifestyle he started around 2013.
He walks barefoot on principle and goes shirtless to soak up sunlight.
He also eats raw meat. His followers are “La Manada”. The Pack.
He also wandered into restricted areas without protective gear, which for a man who treats shoes as optional was never going to be the part anyone fixated on.
His reply to the pile-on was short. “Anyone who thinks it’s a show doesn’t know me, and I don’t care what they think,” he wrote.
“At least I’m here instead of wasting time judging and sinning.”
Why it matters
Disaster zones have become content, and the creator economy quietly rewards the kind of caring that films well.
Fusco’s video did the numbers it did because outrage is engagement, and engagement is the business.
Every viewer who mocked him still watched him, which is the only metric his platform actually counts.
Tragedy tourism is not new, but the wellness-influencer version is doing it with better lighting and a sadder soundtrack.
Whether La Manada follows their Tiger into the next collapsed building, or whether the barefoot raw-meat brand finally wears thin, is the thing worth watching.
