it's a top story on the homepage of every major news outlet, basically second behind the potential regional war in the middle east

A lot of that person's hostility is misplaced. When a catastrophe hits California or New York, there's news coverage yes, but also lots of snide remarks about how they are rich people who deserve it. And then red state politicians say they shouldn't even get help. So the awfulness goes both ways.

also having grown up outside an asheville-sized city not far from asheville: eric adams is more important than roanoke's mayor, whose name i do not know

If they're not seeing it, it's because they're not looking. Lots of folks treat their personal social media feeds & ecosystem as "The Media" when they could hardly be further than the actual mainstream

Something distinct about the age of social media is that you see a generalized expectation from people that they will always be fed all information (and marketing) rather than doing some of the knowledge work themselves. So if they haven’t seen it on their feed IT DOES NOT EXIST

Threads-ass take

Asheville has 5% of the population of Manhattan. Not NYC in total, not the greater area, just the island below the Bronx. Little Italy probably has more residents.