This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

If photographing oneself committing a crime once is dumb, what is it called when someone shoots video of multiple instances of alleged criminal activity?

Two weeks ago in this space, I made sport of poor Vanessa Hudgens. The "High School Musical" star got caught defacing a federally protected rock formation near Sedona, Ariz., over Valentine's Day. Actually, she caught herself, since she photographed the vandalism — a heart in which she inscribed her and her boyfriend's names — and posted it on her Instagram account. Hudgens agreed to pay a $1,000 fine for what she did.

That incident appears minor compared with what has been alleged against four Canadians on a cross-country road trip — which included incidents that have earned the attention of a U.S. Attorney in Wyoming and officials of the Bureau of Land Management in Utah.

At Yellowstone National Park on May 14, according to news reports, they took photos and video of themselves going off the boardwalk at Grand Prismatic Spring. They were seen stepping on color spots that are beloved by tourists and that harbor communities of heat-loving organisms called thermophiles — which are prized by scientists.

Their Yellowstone photos were posted on the dudes' social media but later removed — but, because nothing on the internet ever goes away forever, their photos were archived by others. Also, other tourists captured video of the foursome and reported their actions to Yellowstone park rangers.

The four — they're all 27 or 28 years old, so "boys" is inaccurate, but "men" is better than they deserve — call themselves High on Life SundayFundayz, and they make a living in two ways: posting videos of their exploits on YouTube and selling a line of clothing (tank tops and the like) on their website.

To be strictly accurate, they don't sell the clothing on their website right now. That page is currently disabled. So is their "partnership" page, showing the corporate brands they have done business with — all of whom are targets of an online petition against the lads. (According to CTV, four past sponsors, including Bud Light and Red Bull, said they were not involved with the group's Yellowstone trip and will not do further business with them.)

The petition, which has more than 21,000 signatures, is the mildest thing being written about the guys on the internet. The comments on the High on Life Facebook page and YouTube channel include many people wishing them bodily injury.

Thanks to the U.S. Attorney in Wyoming, the four have been charged with violating Yellowstone regulations — specifically, walking off the designated trails and creating or maintaining "a hazardous or physically offensive condition." Arrest warrants have been issued, and the men could face up to a $5,000 fine and 6 months in jail.

An apology was posted on the High on Life website three days after the incident, with a promise to donate $5,000 to Yellowstone.

"We got over zealous in our enthusiasm for this wonderful place," the apology reads in part. "When standing at the face of such natural wonder, we were drawn to it. In an attempt to get the perfect shot, we acted in a way that doesn't reflect our respect for the environment we were trying to capture."

One wonders about the respect for the environment the High on Life bros showed a few weeks earlier, on March 31, when they posted another video of their exploits on their YouTube channel.

This one showed them driving their baby-blue RV on the rain-soaked Bonneville Salt Flats, with some of the dudes wakeboarding and water-skiing behind the vehicle, holding out their selfie sticks for the best angles of their dudeness. (Unlike the Yellowstone images, the Salt Flats video had not yet been removed from the High on Life YouTube channel as of Thursday morning.)

The BLM is looking into whether the High on Life guys violated any laws or policies with their stunt. One of those policies is for vehicles to stay on the road when the flats are wet, so the fragile salt crust can rebuild itself. There's also a question as to whether the Canadians filed for a filming permit, which commercial productions are required to have.

Legal issues aside, the actions of the High on Life crew are the unfortunate product of a bros-will-be-bros culture of entitlement.

The group's motto, printed on its website and the front of that ridiculous RV, is "If you can you should" — a gimme-gimme attitude that puts the personal pursuit of their desires above all. It's a philosophy that tells young guys they can do whatever the hell they want, regardless of who or what suffers. The awesome power of being them, acting on their selfish whims, triumphs over the well-being of other humans or the planet on which we live.

That's not how people who respect the environment act. People who respect the environment show it first by not acting like jackasses when they're out in it.

Sean P. Means writes The Cricket in daily blog form at http://www.sltrib.com/blogs/moviecricket. Follow him on Twitter @moviecricket. Email him at spmeans@sltrib.com.