The Blight of the Smokey Mountains

The route from Greenville to Gatlinburg was beautiful to say the least.  It is, in my opinion, more beautiful than the Rockies.  We were traveling close to dusk and the shadows etc were unbelievable.  I would love to spend time in the mountains.  We were on a mission to get to the next brew pub but found time to stop several times to enjoy the scenery.
Deb had the address of the pub in her iPhone and we (OK it was really Deb) made the decision to go past the pub before getting a room.  We passed 1 or 2 motels that appeared to have rooms a mile or so out and then -
what the hell do I say here - the shit hit the fan.
We went from entering a quaint town to pure bedlam in less than a minute.  Traffic moving at a snails pace, thousands of people, restaurants, bars and tourist crap.  It was crazy.  We finally made it to the end of town but there was no rooms available - and I wasn't going to backtrack through the hell we had gone through.  We stopped at the last inn (they didn't have a no vacancy sign out) and they informed us there wasn't a room to be had.  They suggested Pigeon Forge which was 7 miles away.  We still had to backtrack but what the hell - we had to get out.
It was already getting dark and it had been a long day so off to Pigeon Forge we went.  All I can say about Pigeon Forge is you could drop the Dells into the middle and it wouldn't make a splash.  Miles of motels, amusement parks restaurants, amusement parks and lest I forget, Dolly World.  The traffic was a nightmare - where did all these idiots come from.  Who in there right mind would go there?  We had honorable intentions - to drink craft beer - not go to freak shows and amusement parks.  Not to worry though the brew pub we  missed in Gatlinburg had another in Pigeon Hell.  We found one motel with vacancy.  They had 2 rooms left and insisted we had to take two nights.  That wasn't happening.  We got out as fast as we could and went to the interstate and got a room about 11pm.
what the hell is wrong with our society that this would be viewed as a 'fun' place to be?  It truly is a blight on an otherwise incredibly beautiful place.
I'm not opinionated or anything, am I?