This study examines how the controversial glass elevator project at Kelingking Beach, Nusa Penida, is constructed and contested in both digital and local arenas. Drawing on sustainable tourism, overtourism, and digital public sphere perspectives, the research combines a qualitative-dominant TikTok netnography with Naive Bayes–based sentiment classification and visual photo-elicitation interviews with local stakeholders. TikTok comments were crawled from one international and one national news account, cleaned, coded into pro-, contra-, and neutral/ambiguous stances, and transformed into TF–IDF features for Multinomial Naive Bayes classification. In parallel, five purposively selected stakeholders were invited to “read” a photograph of the partially built elevator and reflect on its implications. The findings show a strong dominance of contra stances online, with netizens framing the elevator as a symbol of environmental destruction, overtourism, weak governance, and unequal economic benefits, while a smaller group emphasises accessibility, safety, and modernity. Photo-elicitation results largely converge with these concerns, but also reveal nuanced local debates over legal certainty, investment climate, and misplaced infrastructure priorities. Together, the digital and visual narratives indicate that the elevator is perceived less as a neutral access solution and more as a focal point of competing visions for a sustainable and just tourism future in Nusa Penida.