KITSCHY DISASTER TOURISM
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 28 май 2024
- Where's the line between death interest and death disrespect?
*OPEN ME*
Patreon Link to Support this Channel: / thegooddeath
Co-Op Funeral Home in Seattle: funerals.coop/
**WHERE ELSE YOU CAN FIND ME**
Website: www.orderofthegooddeath.com
Twitter: / thegooddeath
Instagram: / thegooddeath
Facebook: ow.ly/Zz8PW
**CREDITS**
Mortician: Caitlin Doughty
Script Research: Sarah Troop
Editor: Landis Blair
*RESEARCH & LINKS*
Coney Island Attractions:
bit.ly/290nvFa
More details and photos of the attractions:
bit.ly/293fNuD
The Galveston Hurricane:
bit.ly/1gNG6UY
Dreamland Fire on Coney Island:
bit.ly/28WSdyD
Tourism to Execution Sites:
bit.ly/28XbDTh
Fall of Pompeii Bathing Pavilion:
bit.ly/28VFpHR
Great news! The East End Women's Museum, which was founded in protest of the Jack the Ripper Museum, now has a permanent space and will be opening late 2021!
That’s super cool!!
Great 😁!
I found nothing distasteful about the Jack the Ripper museum.
It focuses on the victims & the investigation.
@@Countess777 Cool story bro
I guess the difference between these and a museum/monument is the level of taste involved. People can tour Auschwitz but they don't have actors pretending to choke to death in the 'showers'.
@@elenabloksberg212 Now in 2019, I've seen pics of Neo Nazi's having "selfies" taken under the sign at Auschwitz". So, it seems that still, many ignorant racist people STILL haven't learned from the past.
You are right. There should be real choking people in the showers. To make the experience more real.
@@grimreaper3882 I vote we start with the people who take selfies at Auschwitz.
@@stormisuedonym4599 Dang, you beat me to it.
"turn people away at the gates (of Auschwitz)". lucky people.
I have been to Jack the Ripper tour in London and the guide was terrific. He told us right from the start that he wants to focus this tour on his victims, because they have been actual living humans and their life was very hard and they dont get the attention they deserve. He talked a lot about how they lived prior to murders and how they were frequently betrayed and treated badly by men in their lives. They really had no choice but to do what they were doing for money. It is strange how people get fascinated by killers but totally neglect the victim sometimes...
Loved that tour.
It’s not strange if you’re a mortician 🤔
@@cindepianist9986 You think that a mortician should be more fascinated by killers than their victims?
Personally, I'd think it'd be the other way around since their business is dead bodies.
Was kinda thinking offhand that in the horror genre the protagonist(s)/victims are often forgettable (pretty much trope-tastic) but the real backbone of horror show/series is the monster (props for interesting designs), the Freddy Kruger, Jason, Mike Meyers, etc. Which is fun in _fictional_ context...(YMMV cuz not everyone enjoys that style of horror), but the whole giving the spotlight to Jack the Ripper serial killer thing is not helpful IRL. :\
Bit of a tangent, I think it's a good idea to mention that a lot of the SWers he murdered had no other choice, but I also think we should encourage people to question why we shame SWers to begin with, regardless of their reasons. Who does it ultimately harm, why are we demonizing people that aren't hurting anyone else (this does not apply to pimps and human traffickers obviously, fuck those people. Well don't fuck them, but you get my point). If all participants are of age and enthusiastically consenting, I don't see the issue, is my point.
One that really hit me was the Anne Frank Museum in Amsterdam. It was 1973 and I was a college student on an exchange program, and visited Amsterdam during the Christmas break. Seeing the actual pictures of celebrities that Anne put on the wall, seeing the tree she looked at through the window and hearing the church bells she heard brought the reality of WW2 and the Holocaust home to me more than any words in a book ever could, even the words of her diary. I hope I never live through anything similar, but many people are in terrible circumstances now. I need reminders to keep from becoming so complacent that the suffering of others has no reality, and to make me look for ways to fight for justice. I have had other reminders but that one has stayed with me the closest.
I was there in 1987 and it was the pictures still on the wall that have stuck with me ever since.
I went to the Titanic display one year that was held in a museum. You would get a passenger's name and you would have to wait and see if you were still alive when you finished. I was still alive. They had a big chunk of ice that you could put your hand on to display how cold the waters were when the Titanic was going down. They way they displayed everything was in good taste.
Potato Toast , Yeah I went to a Titanic experience/ museum that did the same thing. It's all in Orlando.
I'm from Ohio. It was part of a traveling display. I've always had mixed feelings about artifacts from the Titanic.
Ye I been to that when it happened. I remember at the end I was kinda miffed cause you get to see if you lived or died at the end and I died.
i saw that too! however, i think the chunk of ice was actually a piece of what they suspected to be the ice berg that sunk the ship. i really liked the exhibit tho, very informative and very humanizing for the victims
Jen Brown I worked briefly at a dinner theatre attached to one of these Titanic exhibits. I portrayed one of the third class women who drowned. It was done tastefully. For a dinner theatre.
One of my uncles went to Auschwitz a few years ago, and said it was the most sobering, disturbing thing he's ever seen. He said that all the pain and death seemed to have soaked into the very walls, and that it was completely silent -- there weren't even any birds singing.
SpamWarrior3000 that's a perfect description. Our tour guide explained that she hates sunny days at work... Rain seems so much more appropriate.
Stevie Spamarama birds don’t sing they scream
No animals are near auswitz even. Not in about a 5 to 10 km radius even.
I went there twelve years ago and it shook me. Took my children to Piasnica while telling them the history of Nazist mass murders. It has to be shown, tought and remembered
I hope to go someday to pay my respects to some of my family members. Just need to curate a supportive group to join me as I bawl my eyes out
"Who's ready for some fun in the sun? Not me!" - LOL! Love it. You're brilliant.
Some of us go to places like Auchwitz because it is our ancestors’ “gravesite.” Because our families, our history, is there.
The issue is kitsch. Respect that life is lost. And that life lost lessens us.
She's not talking about your case.
Ive always was interested in Pompeii, Not for the death, but how the city was preserved.
Me too🙋♀️
I've always wanted to go. But now it is crumbling.
@@EsmereldaPea pompeii is not crumbling, I was there last year and it was an incredible experience. It really opened my eyes to how the Romans lived and died in this once magnificent city.
@@kennylogan3090
"Since they have been exposed, deterioration due to natural and human factors has been rapid, placing Pompeii’s future in jeopardy. Such factors include weathering, erosion, light exposure, water damage, inappropriate excavation and reconstruction methods, introduction of plants and animals, vandalism and theft. Violent storms caused the site’s partial collapse in 2010 and this was followed by torrential rainfall in October 2011. The work under the project should help to safeguard one of the world’s great historical treasures and a vital part of Europe’s ancient Roman heritage."
ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/en/projects/italy/restoration-of-pompeii-to-reverse-effects-of-deterioration
I've always loved reading translations of the preserved graffiti. It gives you the insight into the common lives of people of the Roman Empire they don't teach you in history class.
salem's main witch museum is really respectful, they talk about how horrible it was and how tragic it was instead of potraying the women (and the one man) as spooky. The memorial is also beautiful but i sometimes see really disrespectful tourists in the graveyard adjacent.
I need to go there!
EMS 76 Because the main event was a burning...
@@OkamiRose The victims were hanged. Same in England. Scotland and parts of Europe used to burn suspected witches.
disagree. one area of benches is not a proper memorial for what was essentially a mass murder. Especially when you have people profiting off the very thing that these people were slain for. The memorial youre speaking of isnt even the place they lost their lives. They hid the ACTUAL memorial behind a walgreens on the outskirts of town
@@OkamiRose the man event was NOT a burning. Stop spreading misinformation.
The Peace Park in Hiroshima is one of the best places I've ever been to it. It was thoughtful, informing, tragic, emotional, peaceful, and hopeful.
I completely agree. Me and my friend walked the park in silence and couldn't escape the heavy feeling after going through the museum. It will always stick with me.
I wholeheartedly agree. The museum was chilling, but the city itself was a reminder of humanity's ability to heal, even after horrific things.
Chiming in here with my complete agreement with all the above statements.
The museum nearly killed me, but seeing the peace park and the cranes, the blossoms (sakura festival time), and the determination to not let anyone forget - the walls of letters from the mayors of Hiroshima to the Presidents of the United States after each and every nuclear test since the bombing.... I was beyond humbled. I still carry my peace park memorial keyring with me every single day eleven years on
In the museum I was struck by the burned tricycle. It was all that remained of a small child so the family buried the tricycle in the yard. Of all the information and displays, it was most poignant to me.
I'm from southern Poland and all 8th graders in my area went to visit Auschwitz. It was mandatory. I have never been in a place that has no birds singing or even present in the nearby woods in the middle of May. You can literally feel the heaviness of that place...
Same for me, I'm from South West Germany and we also had to visit a concentration camp - apart from the fact that in history class, starting from grade 7, we don't talk about anything else
But y'all are homophobic lol you literally learned nothing from going there
@@saragarofano6471 who's this "we"?
@@saragarofano6471 Do you think a whole country is a monolith, dear? Do you think there are no queer people here? One speaks to you right now, grow up. "lol"
Im inherently skeeved out by the fact that the 9/11 museum costs 25$ per person. The average family would fork out 90$ to get in and that strikes me as either draining genuine mourners for all they're worth or demanding more than a significant payment as performative mourning for the sake of patriotism, which is such an issue around that disaster.
It's probably helpful in keeping too many people from loitering or entering all at once, and for maintenance, although 5 or ten bucks would seem more reasonable. Or maybe some goes to charity.
Charity? Ha! This is New York City we're talking about. (I am a New Yorker- born and raised) It states right on the homepage of their website that the monies stay in the museum. $25 is a bit high but, again, this is NYC we're talking about. I live in the suburbs of Long Island, about an hour-long drive (without traffic) from Manhattan, where the average property taxes are $10,000+ a year (And that's NOT for a palatial estate, by any means.) and you can't find a studio apartment for less than $1200/month+utilities.
Large cities are always exploitative and gross. I'd rather not visit a place where ~2000(?) people died and then in return lose half a fortune for nothing and to get lung cancer.
I do know that families of the victims hold some sort of "VIP" pass (for lack of a better word) and can enter the reflection room where the unidentifiable remains of their loved ones are, free of charge. They are the only ones allowed in that area, and most of the general public has no knowledge of that place. However, yes, they too have to pay the admission price to visit the museum itself. It's a shame, and I think the Ground Zero Tour should be more transparent with what they do with their revenue created by ticket sales. I think the issue in deathstination sites lies not with the history of the area, but profiting off of disaster.
Tolls from the bridges and tunnels fund the rebuilding of the WTC site which (last time I was there) was $12 a car... 🙄 That has to be a lot of money coming in a day! And they charge to see the site!?!?
When you think of it, all destinations are deathstinations
deep
I feel like Final Destination had a missed opportunity and that they should have consulted Caitlin first. Final Deathstinaton could have been a thing!
ktkat218 How very morbid.
She said that
It's not the deathstination, it's the journey.
When I visit "deathstinations" I don't think its the deaths themselves I'm interested in. I think of it as paying respect to the lives that shouldn't have been lost
The Civil Rights Museum, located in Memphis Tennessee where MLK was assassinated, is very respectful and educational in my opinion. However, a woman named Jacqueline Smith has been sitting outside of the museum in protest for thirty years. She is an advocate of MLK and civil rights, but she protests the museum because of its role in the community's gentrification and its overall commercialization (it contains a huge gift shop). She says that the sacred location of MLK's death should be commemorated with a university or some other direct contribution to the community he committed his life to uphold. I wonder how this perspective would translate with other commemorative locations, from the educational to the kitschy.
Gwyneth K met her years ago when my band played in Memphis, we did some sight seeing, that lady’s resolve was amazing, I wonder if she is still alive.
Yes, I’ve met her too! You must speak to her if you go to Memphis. She’s always out front of the museum.
Pretty weird point of view, in my opinion, wouldn't university = more middle class people = more "gentrification"
I guess as a middle-class person directly affected positively by gentrification I've never really had an issue with it... I mean who doesn't like being able to get a nice coffee on their block?
@@paulbarnes8905 What contributes more? A school or a shitty coffee stop run by hipsters?
In Phnom Penh Cambodia, they have the Killing Fields which can be visited and a Museum which was used as a Prison.
Was there in 2015 and it was excellently done. They didn't spare any details about the genocide.
At the Killing fields, they went into sooooo much detail. Even going as far as to point out a tree that they would bash babies' heads against before tossing them into the adjacent mass grave with their dead mothers.
The clothing from the people who were buried were still poking out through shrubs and in roots of trees.
People were crying, bawling their eyes out while walking through the field. That's how intense the experience was.
The Museum floor still had blood stains on it.
Everything was left as is. Just a bunch of boards about the genocide.
It was a wild experience. It doesn't get more real than that. That experience made me realise just how watered down a lot of other museums and memorial sites are.
Ivana Davids i used to live in Cambodia and lives close to there. One of my friends loved right next to Toul Sleng the prison. It was heartbreaking to walk through and see how much these people suffered. The trees showing the babies blood was just gut wrenching.
A true warning to everyone who sees it to never let it happen again.
Ivana Davids respect through reality.
Yad Vashem, the major holocaust memorial museum in Israel, has a similar brutality. Walking through it was an immensely emotionally draining experience, but also a strangely cathartic one. I think people could learn a lot from honest memorials and museums
I have been to the traveling Titanic Exhibition and I thought it was tastefully done (minus the gift shop at the end). But when someone on a local Mom's group wanted to do a "Titanic themed" birthday party for her 8 year old, complete with "coal" and "life jacket" favors, I posted a strongly-worded reply about why I thought that was insensitive and disgusting. You're right, there is a line.
Wait, is having a Titanic themed birthday party the kitchy part or is it the party favors? I'm kinda worried since my own 8th, 9th, and 10th birthday parties were Titanic themed. However my parents didn't go as overboard [pun intended] as that.
@SJ Hackett gift shops at tragic memorial sites seem very wrong. At least take people off-site. I felt that way when I was at the MLK death site. I've heard people voice similar feelings about the 9/11 memorial
@@cedartheyeah.justyeah.3967 I think with the Titanic a complicating factor is that it’s also a really popular Hollywood movie (I mean the one with Kate and Leo).Personally, to me, it’s also how it’s done. Do you lay accent on the fictional love story or on the disaster and mass death part? Personally, I don’t think a Titanic movie kids party is bad, but the sinking ship slide or life jackets as a gift is a bit much for me. That feels a bit like treating mass death as fun. Either way, I don’t think you need to feel bad for what your parents did. You’re thinking and learning now and that’s what matters! ☺️
@@heliosfromacrossastar878 The disaster part was what I was obsessed with, I didn't really like the movie at all. I mean, I was a kid who was really curious about a lot of dark things, including the Titanic as well as older stuff like mummies. What I remember about the parties wasn't very disrespectful, though. The decorations and other party stuff were more about the art on the ship, the iceberg, and the ocean in which Titanic sank, not stuff directly related to what the people onboard had to go through and do during the sinking.
I had family on the Titanic, I went to the local museum when it had the Titanic exhibit. Um....they had a picture of my family in the museum, and I was just like laughing about it to this day
Watching this from quarantine in 2020, I wonder how this time will be remembered? How long until the movie version?
I’ve been wondering that myself. We have a couple pretty shifty horror movies and comedy shows filmed quarantine style, but that doesn’t quite count.
We also got a documentary called 76 Days. It’s pretty good from what I hear.
@@SplendidCoffee0 76 days? that’s easy. what day are we on? what day is today?
Polio didn't get a movie. I don't think the 1918 flu epidemic got one either. Though they both should. The H1N1 flu then was probably as disastrous and deadly as (or more than!) Covid-19, and just like the development of the Covid vaccine was amazingly fast, so was the development of the H1N1 flu vaccine. We have precedence for "operation: warp speed" - like vaccine development.
Hopefully if they do make a movie or something about Covid it’s done respectfully and those of us who lived through this are not horrified of what some filmmaker did.
I've always thought Caitlin should put together her own 'deathtinations' guide. All the places she's visited to do videos on (that would be acceptable for random people to visit), as well as places she hasn't gone yet. With a small write-up of the historical significance of the place, why it's important etc... Plot them all out on a map, and then if you're already planning a trip somewhere, you can see if there's a location nearby to add on to your trip.
And for a small donation, you could access an audio recording of Caitlin narrating the history/significance of the place to you like a tour guide.
I've been to the Holocaust Memorial Museum in DC, and I think it's incredibly well designed. It focuses on the narrative of the Holocaust as a whole by going through events chronologically, but when you enter, they also give you a booklet that tells the individual story of a person who went through WWII and the Holocaust. It tries very hard to humanize what happened, but they are also very sensitive in allowing visitors to avoid seeing the most graphic parts if they wish. It can be a pretty intense experience.
When I was in school we had to watch videos on the Holocaust many of them. Don't think schools do that now.
I like places like that with real educational merit.
I went there on a school trip when I was in 8th grade. I didn’t expect to, but I cried so much. I still remember the room with all the shoes so vividly.
I’ve been there, it’s beautiful. The only complaint that I had is it’s really not handicapped accessible.
I went too. Seeing the shoes hit me the hardest. That was the moment it became real to me.
The Museum of Tolerance is kind of a death destination because you get an identity of a real person, walk through life like replicas of german cities then Auschwitz concentration camp, and finally find out if the identity you are holding was one of the millions killed or if "you" survived. I feel this one was done really well and definitely helps to to empathize with the victims of this. I plan to bring my cbildren there once they are old enough to understand and to appreciate the meaning of this place.
I went to the Rose Hall tour in Jamaica when my family went on Vacation. They set it up very well, recreated the scenes and even had actors playing the parts of slaves. When we asked the tour guide (and an actor later) how they felt about the tourism they said that it was their ancestors that had to endure the tragedy that they were reenacting, they wanted to keep it alive. Having an actor dripping blood running through the house would really let the tourists know what happened and really drive the message of how horrific the slaves treatment was.
I personally think it was done tastefully and I would totally recommend the tour.
May I reccomend NotYourMommasHistory channel here on youtube? She is quite educational.
I visited Hiroshima, Japan in 2016. It was an incredibly emotional day for me. Knowing what had happened there and seeing the remains of the A Bomb Dome, I am so glad that I had the experience. Although I took pictures, I did not take any selfies. The Peace Park was so green and beautiful. Personally, I believe that the park is a fitting memorial to those who died and a powerful reminder for us to not repeat history.
There are plaques and signs all over differing parts of Mexico City D.F explaining things like, " this is where 50 people were crushed under concrete or this is where 16 people were blown up " - when the city had its massive earth quake in the 80s. The refreshing thing is, that it tells you about that day, if any one was saved, names of the people who died. The rescuers that came to help. often local people who lived in the area or the fire department etc. Its a mix mash of history and a sort of this community came together here, thing.
I was in Mexico City in January 2016, and the Museum of the City downtown had an excellent exhibit on the 30th anniversary of the earthquake, with science stuff, media of the day, and so forth. It was really quite astonishing. I was 14 in 1985 and certainly remember the news, but even relatively nearby in the southern US, it wasn't really something you thought about much after the initial news cycle.
As a student of archaeology I love going to memorials and places of atrocities. One of my favorite things to do when I can is to walk through grave yards to read the head stones. I used to clean old grave stones with my grandmother and this gave me such an appreciation of who these people were. As long as the 'attraction' is done with respect and the intent of teaching and helping others then I see nothing wrong with it, but if it done in a somewhat mocking manner then no that is not okay.
I've always been somewhat interested in death, so ever since I was little, when given the option to go to a funeral, I'd always want to go, even if I didn't even remember the person (like those aunts and uncles you've seen only once, if ever, or a distant family friend, etc). My dad is very good with math, so my favorite thing to do while in the cemetery was to walk around with him reading headstones and have him do the math on how long that person lived. It was so interesting to see how long or how little people lived, and see their names, sometimes their pictures, and how their headstones look and what they say... Fascinating!
@@mariisboring I did pretty much the same thing with my mom when I was little. She didn't do math on how long they lived, we just sort of walked around. I would keep asking how everyone died and kept insisting 'natural causes' meant natural disasters, much to the confusion of my mom, who was probably already confused.
This has become an issue in the UK following the Grenfell Tower disaster. There have been notices put up on the site saying, "THIS IS NOT A TOURIST ATTRACTION".... I'm waiting for someone to write underneath, "WE THOUGHT IT WAS..."
Pearl Harbor in Hawaii seemed to be done pretty well. They have museums with the history and the Arizona Monument, which is placed over the wreck of one of the sunken ships. It provided a pretty quiet and reverent atmosphere, while teaching more about the history of the “day that will live in infamy.”
Caitlin, you and your viewers might be interested to know that shortly after the Titanic sank a board game about the disaster was created. Also actress Dorothy Gibson, who survived the sinking of the Titanic, very soon afterward starred in a movie version of the sinking and wore in the movie the same clothes she wore on the sinking Titanic.
Andrew Brendan please please please share the name of the movie because that sounds fascinating.
Kathy Carmichael I looked it up. It was called “Saved from the Titanic.” The only known prints of it were destroyed in a fire, so it is a lost film. I can’t imagine what it would have been like for her to film that, especially that soon after it happened.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saved_from_the_Titanic
I heard about this and what about Molly Brown or is this the same person
@@wyomingadventures not the same person
I still own that boardgame; it's called The Sinking of the Titanic.
It's sobering to play as an adult... because you will never save everyone on the ship. Without cheating I have never saved everyone because at a certain point you have to stop and get in a lifeboat or everyone you have managed to save will drown if you don't. Your character is worker on the boat, going to alert people in their cabins that the ship is sinking.
In Germany most schools have their sudents go on a field trip to Buchenwald (one of the biggest concentration camps in Germany). I have to admit that I really liked this trip because when you hear about it in class and learn about it from books you really can not imagine the scale of this incident at all. But when you're taken to the actual place and shown the leftover belongings of the prisoners there (there is even a room filled to the ceiling with urns) it just shows how huge and serious this was. I'd say as long as it's done tasteful I'm fully supportive of disaster tourism because otherwise we tend to just brush over those events because it's just another text in a book or another segment in the news. The selfie thing was completely out of place tho.
Also at least I personally like having a real "piece of evidence" in such "attraction places" better than just a memorial. It makes me feel closer to it and understand it better than just a rock with a note engraved in it.
I totally agree with you! I visited Buchenwald some years ago. It was a very sobering visit. It’s one thing to read about it in a book. It’s quite another to see it in person and imagine people being kept, tortured, and killed in there. For so many reasons I’m glad I went for that visit. I must admit though.... I don’t think I want to visit another concentration camp again!
Tuol sleng museum and the Killing Fields in Cambodia were somber, educational, respectfully done but haunting nonetheless… there’s a torture museum in Seoul, South Korea that has animatronic examples of the torture used under colonization that were..: nauseating. Thanks for your work in putting these videos together!
The Village of Eyem (don't know how to spell it) has an entire museum dedicated to the plague of 1665 as well as many other locations such as the riley graves, where a woman buried her entire family after they all died of the disease, plague cottage, and the parish which contains a book with the names of all the villages plague victims.
When I was 12 (I'm 55 now) I got a copy of "A Night to Remember" , At the time I was fascinated with anything about the sinking of the titanic. after it was found and they had the exhibit I went to see it. I never gave much thought about the 1500 people who died due to the sinking.
It finally came to me in one second when after the exhibit, see you have to exit through the "Gift Shop" (Yeah I know). I picked up a snow globe with the sinking ship inside and that's when I said out loud to my daughter. "1500 people lost their lives and they make a snow globe out of it". how disrespectful. I don't know whats worse either a snow globe or a play slide for children.. And yes there are World Trade Center snow globes made after 9/11.
I once stayed in a themed hotel room. The theme? The wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. The walls were painted with dark waves, and there was a wheel where you could stand while prentending you're the captain about to witness the ship slip under the waves. The room also had a jacuzzi.
I understand visiting places to better understand some of the tragedies and how they impact us all, even in the present.
But bouncy slides...??
I'd like to note also I did not choose that hotel room and my company paid for it.
What company do you work for?!
+Ask A Mortician I shan't say, but it was a cheap hotel that happened to be closest to our survey corridor. It was out of convenience. The hotel, though...not much excuse. I believe it was a Super 8 near Duluth.
Well, take the Edmund Fitzgerald for instance. I'm guessing you used the word "wreck" because of Gordon Lightfoot? Here we have a beautiful song that reached Billboard #2 and making Lightfoot quite a lot of money, while efficiently assuring that the tragedy would be remembered for decades to come. I think it's possible to accurately and respectfully tell the story of a tragedy while making a great and entertaining piece of art and earning a lot of money.
On the other hand, a "selfie with Jack the Ripper" museum is tasteless and disgusting.
I actually went down that bouncy slide once as a kid.
In hindsight it was... yeah. Not a great idea.
A few years back I went to the Titanic museum that they had at the Pyramid in Memphis Tennessee. It was done well , very Well . What I though was so moving is that we went to one area looking at what was the ocean on one of the decks after all the lifeboats were gone . Let us feel what the other people would feel that was left on the boat . There was so much emotion so very much emotion. You just stood there quiet and as for me tears were fallen from my face .
One of the most respectful and well done attractions is that Cheong Ek genocide memorial outside of Phenom Penh. The audio tour in particular helps the listener grapple with the unimaginable atrocities that took place in the killing fields. It is a heavy visit, and I particularly appreciated the care that went into managing the emotions of the visitors, as well as providing attendees with a chance to pay respects and to grieve. The ability to listen to a Cambodian composer while walking around a memorial pool, after confronting one of the worst things that has happened in the 20th century, the chance to lay flowers outside the memorial stupa, and the invitation for people of all faiths to pay the respects in their own way, made my attendance very moving and powerful experience.
The general obsession with Jack the Ripper and other serial killers - to the point of fandom or admiration - is gross. Just gross.
Blame Johnny Depp for that one.
Definitely. People online talking about how cute Ted Bundy is or etc. Gross gross gross gross gross.
I know what you mean with the more modern day serial killers, but I think the Jack the Ripper is close to mythology now and as gruesome ask his attacks where, the time since their occurrence and the story overshadows the true horror of the events.
I mean think about how many people died as Genghis Khan expanded his empire. Estimates put the number as high as 30 million. That's more that every single person in the state of Texas, killed because of one man. But his story has overshadowed the deaths. Time removes us from the impact of death and visiting memorials like the World Trade Centre or Auschwitz help to remind us what we are capable of when we dehumanise people.
I'll admit to having played a PC adventure game about Jack the Ripper, but you played as a psychic whose good friend was brutally murdered by Jack the Ripper. So, like, you're playing as someone horrified by the attacks and trying to find and stop the guy.
+Maxx B I was about go in on this aspect of people's fascination with Jack the Ripper... but I got lazy. So... this!
I never really thought about how morbid that inflatable Titanic slide is before now. I wonder, in about 100 years will they have an inflatable slide of the WTC?
lightbeamrider I'm so glad other people think it's horrid too. I work at a Titanic exhibit and saw the slide a few months back, when I showed it to my coworkers the response was "We should get one of those for our summer events!" Like really, it took people 15 minutes to freeze to death in that water.
I don't think we have to wait that long. Would be surprised if they had something like that in China or somewhere.
Maui Caui the titanic was pretty large
I hope there will be a WTC slide!! Or maybe a roller-coaster where you travel through the twin tower! And then at the end you press down on one of those cartoon-y demolition levers to blow up building seven. That would be pretty great, quite funny too.
Dude I used to go down that slide all the time cause they had it at this breakfast place when I was a kid.
When I was in high school one of my AP classes went on a summer road trip to D.C. and NYC. One of our stops was the former site of the World Trade Center. It's a very somber and respectful place, probably because it's a very recent tragedy that was highly publicized and one that our country views as an attack on us as a whole nation. Contrast this with the way we treat Native American burial grounds and it paints a really bitter picture.
Okie girl here! When it's safe to venture out you should check out the OKC bombing Memorial. It's a place I take almost everyone that visits me. It's an amazing and beautiful memorial and the museum is jarring but also very moving. I take people because I feel like it's important to remembee what happened, why it happened, and the amazing outpouring of love and humanity in the wake of it. I think that's why a lot of people go to these places. To mourn, show respect, and to understand why.
If you ever come let me know! I'd love to walk you through it all.
Was thinking about this museum while listening to video. Also Okie and lost co-workers in the bombing. Find the museum and the memorial respectful and moving.
Also from Oklahoma City and lived there during the bombing and was thinking of the museum while watching her video. One of my college professors was killed in the bombing. I wasn’t sure how I felt about such a large memorial going up to commemorate but it was done well and offers comfort to so many
I think morbid curiosity is just as intriguing as it is necessary. When it comes to violent death and explicit gore, it seems like have the urge to know what we are vulnerable of, since we are bodies that can be hurt and that will eventually die. A couple of weeks after the Jack the Ripper murders, many wax museums in London set up attractions that recreated the corpses and, depending on which museum did it, accurately or exaggeratedly represented their wounds. As for natural disasters and big tragedies, there's a certain beauty in that kind of massive horror, a petrifying kind of awe that resembles what the romantics called "the sublime" (check out those terrifying XIX century paintings of storms and shipwrecks). We need representations of death, sometimes to satisfy curiosity, sometimes to relieve anxieties, sometimes to create them. I watched an entire RUclips video that recreates the sinking of the Titanic in real time in hopes to feel some of the fear that the real passengers must have felt. It was a crazy, very empathic experience where I pictured myself actually walking through the flooded, crowded halls, certain that I wouldn't make it. I didn't know the sinking itself lasted so long. Also, many crimes and disasters become symbolic and come to represent social issues that a certain community needs to talk about. Auschwitz poses necessary questions about race, religion, national identity and Otherness. The brutal rape and murder of Rosa Elvira Cely here in Bogotá, Colombia, on may 2012 became a symbol against misogyny and now a law that punishes feminicide bears her name. You can also think about Matthew Shepherd and Emmett Till. I think all of this is overlooked as a very tasteless form of cheap entertainment, but I do believe it has an individual and political importance.
yo this is so well written tho
Laura Rodriguez totally agree! A really beautiful reply and viewpoint! I said some similar things in my comment... about misogyny etc...and what I absolutely love about our English past is the fiercely brave and determined women who shaped our history! They didn't whine about unfairness, they smiled sweetly and battled on with grim determination behind the scenes! They are truly heroic and I'm in awe of their strengths!!!
I absolutely and completely agree.
My parents both fought in WW2. My dad was in The Royal Navy doing The Atlantic Convoys. He saw atrocities such as German sub's torpeding ships with women and not being permitted to stop for surviver's. My mum in The Women's ATS stationed in Wales ?(both my parents were and lived all their lives in Scotland) she was responsible for lining up guns to shoot enemy aircraft. I was the last of 4 children born many years after the war, but my dad rightly felt we should understand the 'horror's' of war.
Many many years later I was in Munich in Germany and discovered that Dauchau Concentration Camp wasn't far( for anyone interested it was the very first concentration camp and the English version of the slogan above Auchwitz gates "work makes you free" comes from Dauchau along the the very same camp commander).
I went to visit and was horrified by the things I'd seen there, but strongly feel we should educate our children by taking them as teenagers to see these places. In order for man's inhumanity to man should NEVER happen again.
The soldiers and prisoners are the ones who suffer and die, NOT the politicians who decide to take us into a war.
In case anyone reading my comments thinks I'm Jewish (there seems to be many anti- Jewish people out there) or something, well I'm not and not religious. I'm a believer in humanity and do my part towards it as an anaesthetic nurse and follow theeveryone should be treated as an equal in my working life and personal.
Lin Joy strongly agree with your point about educating children/teenagers to prevent future horrific incidents
Lin Joy I also thoroughly agree with this sentiment. My grandfather was in the US Army and was tasked with going to at least one concentration camp and helping the people imprisoned there. I can't remember specifics because he died when I was 4, so most of what I've been told is secondhand from my father. I feel compelled to visit sites of tragedy (when my presence won't be a burden) as a way to acknowledge that something happened there that needs to be remembered, and will continue to be remembered. When I visit Salem, MA every year, it's not to go to the kitschy fake "museums", it's to clear the moss and dirt off of the memorial stones that have the names of the dead on them.
...And then, admittedly, to have some fantastic fudge and visit my favorite hole-in-the-wall pagan shop. Judge me if you will, but there are some genuinely wonderful little businesses there and I want them to take my money.
I agree. I visited Dachau many years ago. It was interesting and gave me plenty to think about. Some may argue over what sort of camp it was forgetting that one group of people subjected another group to terrible and inhumane suffering of the most evil kind (I would question those people's reasoning to put it politely). It was well worth taking the time to visit but I would not regard it as a "highlight" of my holiday or "enjoyable" but as I say, absolutely worth a day of reflection.
I disagree that they should be taken as teenagers.
As a teacher in Cambodia, I took a group of teens to "the Killing Fields" outside Phnom Penh. They laughed and played while stepping on the bones of people that could have been their grandparents. I told them about where we were going and why; they were all very somber on the bus but then they just started acting like themselves once we got on site. As I described how children were tied to a tree and beaten to death, they laughed and joked with each other.
They were so bad that a tour guide walked up to me afterwards and berated their behaviour. I agreed but it is their people and their heritage so I am not going to yell at them on the spot as an outsider, instead I talked to them politely afterwards, which was much more effective. It has happened every time with older teenagers. If they are 11-13 years old, it is much more moving and they are much more respectful but older teens will do things like joke about how skinny the dead bodies looked and all manner of other outrages.
I went to the Oklahoma City bombing memorial. It was SO well done - so respectful to the victims and it educates the visitor as they move through the museum. The docents were -- at the time -- (still are? this was in early 2001) were largely individuals who were working in the building at the time or involved with the rescue/recovery in some way. I think if you are going to erect a respectful memorial that also teaches those who come later (and didn't experience the event) then this is a blueprint for how to do it correctly.
Listening to her pronounce Galveston as Gavelston is driving me nuts 😂😂😂
Hahaha! Native Houstonian here and YES I laughed out loud. I was like she can’t mean... Gal-vest-an? 😂
Same here! 🥴
Right?!?! I commented that it should be Gal-vestun lol
Texan here, it’s really funny to me
Just to be clear, ONLY makes me ADORE her even more! I’m a lil deathling STAN! 🥺💖
I have been known to walk through cemeteries to look at the stones and mausoleums and occasional wildlife.
I do this as well. Creeps my bf out lol
ditto. Remarkably beautiful serene places. Is that wrong?
We used to look for the most interesting and/or oldest headstone to do a rubbing from and make up stories as a family about what that persons life was like.
+CaptMortifyd That's such a cool and creative idea!
we've gone on several Cemetery crawls. where they have actors dressed as the deceased might have dressed and shared their story. pretty cool and historical...not creepy. ;)
I've been to a concentration camp before, I feel like it was very informative and really humbling. You don't really understand how terrible those places were until you can come face to face with it
I recently went to Pearl Harbor with my family as well as the Iolani Palace. I think as you mentioned in the video, both destinations did a wonderful job of memorializing and educating on the deaths or struggles that occurred in the area. They weren't kitchy and fake, they did a wonderful job giving a chance to ponder the situation, remember those who were lost and learn about the events that took place. I think it's natural to have a curiosity about history and death, and it allows us to channel empathy to the situation and hopefully learn from it to move forward as a society with the knowledge. I think done right, museums and memorials and tourist destinations can be a wonderful opportunity to visit and I personally found the opportunities to visit some of Hawaii's museums an amazing chance to learn about the history and truly appreciate the culture. I wish more places acknowledged morbid or dark periods with the same level of respect (looking at you Salem...)
The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum was simply heartbreaking and well-executed. I recommend the audio tour to anyone who plans on going there, the stories it tells of those lost and the survivors makes it much more touching than with the displays alone
In on May 31, 1889, the dam in Johnstown, PA broke due to torrential rail and lack of upkeep. The dam was used to keep up a small lake area for the rich of the town to vacation on. The dams ports, where the water was normally allowed to flow free, had been closed by the owner of the dam to keep the river at a higher level. The only over spill area was covered by a mesh gate to keep stocked fish from escaping. Unfortunately, as it rained, branches were knocked down off trees and into the river, only to flow to the over spill area, blocking it off. The dam broke, tearing through the the barbed wire factory and into the town below. It destroyed the once booming industrial town. It was only stopped at the stone arch way, where victims were caught in barbed wire. Then the fire started. Some of the flammable debris managed to catch fire, so victims were being simultaneously burned drowned, and flayed by the barbed wire. Many of the survivors attempted to get financial compensation from the dam owners, whose greed had allowed the dam to fall into disrepair. They suffered defeat. There are two museums my family visited on the sight. One has many artifacts and a purely historical account of the disaster. The other has a terrifying movie the depicts a man walking through a graveyard where the victims are buried as it is raining and hearing their cries of pain. It is morbid and plain disrespectful. On a visit there later during an unconnected trip, I was in a group tasked with weeding around the gravestones of some of those who had died in the flood (they had been moved to a memorial park after there recovery after yet another flood). The many gravestones of children furthered my disgust on how the museum treated this largely unknown, yet horrible disaster in American history
Brooke Gormley I heard somewhere that was the worst disaster in us history until 9/11
I have been to many battlefields and war memorials, DC is full of them. We visited Ford's Theatre and you can go across the street and see the bedroom where Lincoln died. I felt like that was sort of intrusive. His murder and death is historically significant but seeing the room he was taken to die, which would otherwise have no significance is a bit TMI. I also visited the Holocaust museum with a Holocaust survivor and it was a very small detail of a single display made him very emotional. It has got to be hard to thoughtfully design or manage a death memorial.
I hope that the man healed and had a good, full life after the event 😔
The Anne Frank house is a particularly good and interesting example of this done well in my opinion. It’s claustrophobic and empty save for a few placards and pictures of what it would have looked like. It’s dark and unpleasant and it’s hard to be a “voyeur” in this space. It feels about as awful as it is.
I had a similar experience at the Holocaust museum. Throughout most of it I was rightfully disturbed and horrified, but the feelings were manageable. I could keep going through the exhibit without many problems. And then, after seeing so many terrible things, it was one video playing on a small screen near the end that broke me (it was about... “cleanup” in the camps, post liberation, by the various occupying ally armies). I was so overcome with grief and disgust that I thought I would actually vomit right then and there. Again, it was odd because I’d been seeing truly terrible things for the last hour, and hadn’t had that reaction. But it’s clear certain things just stick with us.
Off topic but I'm from DC, too!
2:32 Oh my god we used to have that slide at our county fair
The Imperial War Museum in London has a lot of great exhibits, each one has an array of eye witness and survivor testimony that sets the scene very well and gives you a sense of empathy with the people of the day, and some of the background to the events, technology etc. Definitely interesting.
I was in Dachau in Germany visiting the concentration camp there. Iv studied a lot of the history of the war and a lot about the concentration camps. So I knew Dachaus history before I went there. I was on a tour where every time I asked the guide anything about the numbers who died there I was fobbed off with "not many, it was mainly political prisoners housed here". Now I knew this to be untrue, I had seen the pictures. So I tried to explain this and she pretended she couldn't understand me. So I asked her in German (I speak German well so there was no way she could pretend not to understand me), she told me I was a liar. I was left with a feeling of that "Denial" of the atrocities that we hear about. which is infuriating because people like her, particularly who work at these historic sites give a bad name to most Germans who are very respectful about the war. Most Germans I spoke to were understandably uncomfortable taking about the atrocities that happened but did not deny them.
I guess what I was most shocked about is there I was in a place where we remember the dead and I was left feeling like it was being hushed up. Iv been to other concentration camps and they were very open about what had happened there and very respectful about it.
Umm sweetie, people in Dachau died of typhus, not atrocities. Maybe you should brush up on your history again. It seems like your tour guide is right, and it did host political prisoners, as did many other labour camps.
@@SenorMeinKrafter "Sweetie"? How more condescending can you get? YOU need to brush up on YOUR history - or stop reading stuff by Holocaust deniers.
Yes, many in Dachau died of disease. Many others died of malnutrition, others of being worked to death. There were thousands who were executed - usually shot. Even if there had been no outright executions, the fact that these people were there in the first place is an atrocity - therefore any deaths arising from their time there is as a result of that first atrocity
So I have also visited Dachau, and what I remember from the tour was not so much "do dee doo, nothing serious happened here," so much as, "when you compare this work camp, which had a lot of political prisoners, to the camps that were built for extermination, it really changes the effect of the horrors that totally did occur here." Mind you, I was a teenager when I went, but my sense was one of, "this is a small piece of the Holocaust," not, "what happened here was not a big deal." That _could_ have been what the tour guide was trying to get across, I of course don't know. As for the broader idea of disaster tourism, I remember being uncomfortable w myself upon realizing that I was a little disappointed that Dachau didn't have the horrific numbers of dead you'd find somewhere like say , Auschwitz. That's kind of a horrible reaction isn't it? It wasn't my _only_ reaction, but I did feel that way for a second. I think that in addition to having been a teenager, there is something oddly human about being drawn to scenes of mass death, some perverted instinct for some reason. It makes the broader idea of disaster tourism more complicated I think, makes it inevitable, but doesn't justify bad taste.
@@EsmereldaPea Wow, that triggered statement only confirms your understanding that in the context of the Holocaust Dachau was a work camp (or reeducation camp by some sources) and not an extermination camp the way the late war Polish camps were for clearing the ghettos. Just because it doesn't meet your pre-conceived holocaust ideas does not mean it was not a horrible place that deserves to be monumented if for no other reason than an example of how the process of the Holocaust was a 'progressive' one over time from early 'social reform camps' to late war 'exterminate all these Jews' camp and not some grand elaborate plan from the early 1930s...it was a gradual horror of small steps...based on inhumane science and politics.
@@fortusvictus8297 - wow do you misread things. Have no idea how you got THAT from my reply.
I'll be visiting the Paris Catacombs next week and I'm really excited to go! It seems to be tastefully done. So many people visit that the queue is often 2+ hours long...people love death.
I loved them, they are really cool
If you get a chance , do the catacombs in Rome too, theres several and they are a bit smaller but you get in with no wait(if its not the middle of Summer,eg tourist season)
I had the opportunity to go to Gettysburg in 8th grade on my trip to Washington DC. To me the sight was actually quite beautiful. It shows that even after a horrific event of mass death, those that lost their lives are now honored and respected in nature. Visiting Gettysburg was actually what got me into death research and the idea of going to mortuary school, which I have the opportunity to do this year, as a real life option for a career.
This is making me think of a titanic museum Ive been to.. I can't decide if it was done well or not. The entire place has a quiet, lowlit, somber vibe so that feels right. There's so many stories of the crew/passengers lives. They help you imagine how terrible it was to develop more empathy by putting you in a freezing cold dark room, they have a chunk of ice to hold your hands on with time limits to show how horrible it was for people to endure. BUT. there's this one part... The tour guide gives you a little card with an actual person's name, you adopt it as yourself and at the end are told whether or not you died. So close yet so far.
That reminds me, how long do you have to wait until grave robbing becomes historical excavation?
Being a practicing Witch, I would love to visit Salem one day, but in addition to being interesting, it would also be sad.
I actually went to Beth Shalom Holocaust Museum in Nottingham when I was 14! It was really sad to see what these people had to go through, and we met a survivor and had a chat with him. They were very respectful of the people who went through it, and I now have a new perspective of life.
I live in the town where Patsy Cline's plane crashed. There is a small respectful memorial set up at the site. My grandmother took me to it when I was about 10. Mostly because my great grandfather and great uncle were the ones who found the crash.
I've never thought about it that way. Thank you for opening up my eyes to the disrespectful habits humans have developed. "How would the victims feel about this?" never crossed my mind until now. Thank you.
Little late for comments, but just found this video. I took my son to Gettysburg when he was in middle school. It was the most educational, reverent, area we ever visited. Everyone (visitors) were so quiet, most crying, yet not depressing. The guides were exceptionally informed. Great way to truly understand the sacrifices so many made.
Last year we took our 14 year old daughter and her friend to Halifax, Nova Scotia and (among other things) visited the cemetery that had the most victims of the Titanic buried there. It was actually quite moving for all of us, reading their tombstones, and of course even sadder seeing all of the unmarked graves. That I did consider to be historical and educational.
I've been to a few ww2 locations in Germany, including a working camp, as well as the site/museum for the Nagasaki bombing. Both where informative and very somber experiences. Especially the Nagasaki museum, which had recorded stories from children living in the city, was touching to the point that I almost cried.
Never really been to a mass disaster site, but I definitely like to visit places I know people have been killed. Regular people... traffic accidents, murders, famous deaths in LA and whatnot.
Not like in a psychic way, but I feel like energy leaves an imprint on places. Like... in the room you're in, someone has touched every single square inch of your wall- plastering it, painting it, whatever.
Imagine if you could look out at the world and see every person, all at one time, through the entire past, that has been at that location.
Doesn't make the most sense, but that's some stuff I think about.
I think the same when I'm on walks or just in general. Sometimes I even look down where I'm standing and think that someone thousands of years ago stood and maybe thought the same thing. Or even dinosaurs standing where I am. The world has always been touched with everything and anything; we're just a part of it.
I do that in museums. I love to look at artifacts, and ponder that this was made by human hands, just like mine, and used by people, just like us, thousands of years ago. Feeling the weight of deep time in that way is a wonderful meditation.
Me too! I was in the Special Collections section of a university library once (well, more than once) and we got to handle some medieval documents. It was amazing, holding something that someone lettered by hand, 600, 800 years ago. It had a vibe that I can't really explain.
How many of your own atoms were once another person? Did molecules of water from your last beverage run the gauntlet of a murdered human's loop of henle? Do you get a feeeeling when you drink what was once entrails from the greatest massacre of humankind?
dethofariel that is so interesting and very deep! I like the way you think
Not sure if this counts as kitschy, but certainly it's a form of death tourism: I was a massive Marilyn Monroe fan as a teen. For my first trip to LA my dad surprised me by taking me to Marilyn Monroe's grave as soon as we arrived. Literally. We got off the plan, got a rental car and drove straight to her grave, only stopping by to pick up flowers for her. Once we got there, there were a good handful of other MM fans there too. I noticed that many fans kissed her plaque, leaving lipstick marks. They also left bouquets of flowers. And yes, I had my photo taken by her grave, but no I didn't kiss the plaque (germs!). After that I walked around the cemetery and saw a bunch of other actors and paid my respects. There was nothing strange about it.
L.A
LA is state code for Louisiana
The Oklahoma bombing museum and memorial is done extremely well. The museum starts by telling you the news of the day, current events and statistics, putting you into the year and day of the bombing. Then you walk into an office, the door closes, and the genuine audio from a recorded meeting from across the street begins to play, it starts normal and then you hear the bombing happen “live”. The room goes dark. Another door opens and from there it takes you to the bombing and every moment after.
If you happen to visit Pennsylvania, the Flight 93 Memorial is really beautifully done and very respectful. There's a room full of phones where you can listen to the final words of the people on the flight, there are presentations talking about the heroic acts of the passengers, and the place where the flight path has a line of stones with the names of everyone on board. The Gettysburg Museums/Battlefields are a little more tourist-y and less respectful, but I think that's because the tragedies that happened there were much longer ago, so there's no one around anymore who was personally affected by it.
I went to the Jack the Ripper museum last year (by myself because I was the only person in the group who wanted to go... wonder why...) and I don't know if it was recent additions due to backlash or what but it wasn't as bad as things I've read would make it seem. There were rooms that told the stories of the victims and what it would have been like to be a woman of the time and the whole thing was weird but didn't strike me as too terrible.
I also live about an hour away from Gettysburg and just go out there sometimes for fun, it's a pretty nice place to relax when it's not the middle of Summer. The tourist season is surprisingly booming.
I visit "sights of mass death" out of respect. And it isn't just memorials and big things. I'll go to the local cemetery and put flowers on lonely graves. For me, it not only provides an outlet for paying respects to those who've passed, but it-...it makes it personal, I guess. It helps me combat western desensitization. It makes the atrocities and people feel real where a textbook and lecturing teacher can't.
I was on a mission trip and was taken to the Chernobyl museum. It was so sad, creepy, and beautiful all at the same time
I, myself, was stationed in Iwakani, Japan when I was in the Marines and it was only about 30 mins drive to Hiroshima. I have been to Peace Park Museum at ground zero as well as seeing the A Dome there at Hiroshima. That was one of the best museums I have ever been to because of how respectful but knowledgeable it was.
There is a poem in the museum about the black ashes being like rain and it has always stayed with me. Such a wealth of information and stories in that place.
I felt so odd and self conscious being there as someone from the country that caused the disaster. Lots of school kids looked closely at me that day.
As someone whose mother took them to the Holocaust Museum in DC as a child I have to say the why I find it incredibly disturbing and morbid and yet I find it very smart to have these museums and these places still around today. These places are representations and living proof that evil does exist. To not visit them and to destroy them and basically have them be non-existent is horrifying. We need these things as reminders to always go for good and to be remiders that evil again does exist as these locations and museums show these things true and if we destroy them we may be doomed to repeat them.
Now I feel bad about Escape From Pompeii...kinda bad but it's still a fun ride. I'm a weird individual.
That is very important - PROOF. Many people, even with photos, video and ACTUAL preserved SITES still don't believe the Holocaust happened. I think the few people who take things to a weird and uncomfortable place in our view are a tiny issue of differences in taste and shouldn't be used as a reason to stop people learning about these things, even up close in death tourism.
I am not the kind of person who is really into "dethdanations", but I have to admit the catacombs under Paris was one of the most fascinating experiences. Maybe I just love the darkness and cool temperature, but touring this while in Paris was much more interesting than the typical tourist traps. The entrance fee was reasonable for my backpack budget, and you treck down deep corridors to the official entrance, where thousands of bones from overflowing cemeteries are piled and line the walls for literally miles. Only small section is explorable, you are warned not to go off the path or you may become lost and a part of the attraction. There are many memorial plaques that are probably pretty interesting if you can read French, and many of the bones are arranged into artistic sculptures. Also, they check your bags on the way out, as a few morbid folks have attempted to take souvenir skulls. It is so surreal that you almost tend to forget that these were the remains of real, live breathing humans from the far French past.
Hi, Grenfell Tower, London is near me. It gets so much disaster tourism. The fire that took so many lives was horrific. So, so tragic. Lots of people take selfies there. It’s all still so raw for us Londoners.
The only thing close to this that I have experienced was when I lived in Germany as a teen. We went on a trip to Dachau with my parents. I will never forget the horror I experienced.
I took a class on this in university, where it was called Dark Tourism. My final research paper was on the Chernobyl tours.
Chernobyl has tours? Do they have to wear Hazmat suits? From what I've heard, the whole area won't be habitable [to humans] for another 20,000 years or so.
Re the Titanic. In 2004 or 2005 the Maryland Science Center in Baltimore had a traveling exhibit about the Titanic, and it was amazing. They had huge sheets of ice that you put your hands on so you could see how impossible it would be to hold on, and it was done really respectfully. They even had signs in the exhibit about respecting the dead, etc.
And then you exited into a gift shop where one of the items for sale was a pen that had a miniature Titanic inside and when you pressed the plunger, it would tip up and sink. Very, very respectful, no?
I have been to places of disasters although it wasn’t my actual motivation. We went to both Pompeii and Herculaneum. There comes a point when you are definitely confronted with the shapes of actual humans who died during the eruption of Vesuv...
The one that really touched me though was Beirut, shortly after the civil war had ended. We walked through a former main street which was all quiet but you could see the many bullet holes in the walls. It brought war closer to me than anything I had ever watched on TV.
I grew up here in Michigan so there was no shortage in the "Disaster Tourism" category. We have the famous Edmund Fitzgerald sinking which I seen you have covered in another video which was awesome btw! I also grew up not very far from Bath Michigan which is famous for the school bombing that took place back in 1927 (Bath School Disaster) which left 38 students and 6 adults dead and over 50 others injured. The cupola from the school survives to this day and is set up on the site as a memorial. We also have Hell Michigan, nothing disastrous happened there but, they do have an annual event where people drive their hearse's there and gather for like a car show type event. Another local tragedy near me here in Michigan was a circus train accident in 1903 near Durand MI that killed 23 people, two camels and one elephant. The animals were buried near the tracks according to stories passed down over the years while a local cemetery has a memorial in place for the people killed. Then there is the site of the former Kerns Hotel in Lansing MI that killed 34 people, that site is now a park which also includes a memorial installed for the 9/11 victims, memorial includes a twisted piece of steel from the Trade Centers so not only does the site memorialize the deaths of those lost in the hotel fire, it also memorializes all those who died in the NYC disaster. I also cannot forget the Italian Hall disaster (Massacre) in Hancock MI back in 1913 which killed 73 men, women and children on Christmas Eve when someone yelled "Fire" and caused a stampede and people were stuck and crushed to death in a stairwell.
An amazing "deathstination" memorial is the Hiroshima Peace Park. It is beautiful and filled with art, as well as records of the destruction that Hiroshima faced and one of the few remaining original buildings.
Caitlin no! It's Galveston, not Gavelston!
Those words sound exactly the same coming out of my mouth.
Me too.
Nukeyoolar.
+John Dennis
That nookyular is one of my pet peeves, along with mischievous being pronounced miss-chee-vee-us! There are NOT four syllables in mischievous! I hear it all the time, from newsreaders to the average Joe/Jo-Ette. Also athlete pronounced as ath-a-lete, and height pronounced as heighth. Anyone else?
lol I was born in Galveston
I studied Medieval History toooooo!!! I feel like I've found a fellow unicorn!!! I was literally one of maybe 5 people in my program and I don't think I actually met any of them? You truly inspire me, Caitlin.
Some of my favorite disaster/mass-casualty related tourist destinations that I've been to are :
1. Oklahoma City National Memorial Museum in Oklahoma City, OK
2. Titanic Museum in Branson, MO
3. USS Arizona Memorial in Honolulu, HI
4. Dallas Holocaust Museum in Dallas, TX
5. Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, TX
I was just in Paris and visited the catacombs. If you go get the audio guide, it's wonderfully narrated. The corridors of skulls and femurs is amazing, both in the sheer volume and how artfully they're put together.
A....selfie with Jack the Ripper? Ugggggh.
Also, how? They still aren’t sure who he was. Were people so desperate to hang out with Jack that they invented their own mascot?
Caitlin: expert pronunciation of ancient names and foreign practices
Also Caitlin: Gavelston
As someone who's great grandparents escaped the Polish concentration camps, I went. I left with a sad heart, seeing what they endured.
Does planning a trip to the UK this week count as disaster tourism?
Oof. Savage.
I'm escaping from the UK to Iceland in the hopes that when I wake up it will all of been a horrible dream
+manukenkun It won't, but at least you'll be in a nation of winners.
+manukenkun 48% of UK wish they were going with you...
We're touring Iceland later this summer. I can't wait!
"who's ready for some fun in the sun? NOT ME" literally me every summer
When I was at a German language school in Berlin, myself and several of my classmates went to the Wannsee Conference Building where the holocaust's operations were planned. It's now a Holocaust history museum and memorial. I was quite a bit older than my classmates, and I had studied the history of World War II, but apparently they had not. They were shocked at what they saw and heard, and most became emotionally overwhelmed. I was not as affected, simply because I already knew many of the details. It was really striking to see people discovering many of these horrendous details for the first time.
with memorials, especially for war and genocide, there is always the aspect of "never forget". in the case of the holocaust, which some horrible people even denying it ever happened, that is super important. also, it helps with grief. with some places, there is probably some fascination involved. i guess that's human. especially when one feels rather detached from what happened there. keeping it respectful for me is defined by considering how people who are not detached from what happened feel about the presentation. that jack the ripper thing is a great example of doing that wrong.
thank you soooo much caitlin, i love your videos! :)
I know I'd love to go to the Mütter medical museum in I believe Philadelphia or Pittsburgh I can never remember which one, I would also like to see the museum of funerary history which I think is in Texas.
Philly. It's a little cramped, but otherwise AMAZING.
If you go, go during the X-mas season. The tree they put up is AMAZING. Decorated in skeletons and 2-headed monsters.
The Mutter also periodically does lock-in overnights. I was there for the first one. It's something everyone who loves that place should do.
So... is the place allegedly haunted?
lzeph Nope! But people in the are tend to include it on a lot of ghost tours since the specimens are tangentially related.
I mean, I dunno. Maybe the staff has some stories, but if there were ghost sightings, it's not a thing they publicize since the Mütter, unlike a lot of other museums, sort of views its tourism business as a bit of an afterthought.
The Mutter Museum is definitely on my morbid go-to list!
The 9/11 museum is an interesting subject for me. I grew up and live on long island. So I had family in the city when it happened, i was alive and remember it. While the museum itself as a whole is done well. I think the fact that it is set up as a museum and not a memorial bothers some people. You have tourists from other places taking selfies alongside 30 year olds looking at pictures of there departed family members. There is also one specific section that genuinely got to me. There is a peice of debris 10 foot cubed. And on the placard it says that this 10 stories of the trade center that was compressed in the heat. To me its wrong to put that there knowing that there could very well be remains of someone's loved ones it that cube. Especially with the amount of people and remains still unaccounted for. Personally I think they should have waited to open it. I know in a lot of schools around me they only just started teaching about 9/11 in depth in history classes, due to all the kids who could possibly have had parents who passed away having graduated.
I was six years old when it happened. I barely remember it, other than getting picked up by my mom early from school. As I got older, though, I learned more about it. Still breaks my heart 😔
I think this is a case of “too soon,” as Caitlin mentioned. There are many people still alive who lost loved ones. Many people were there and escaped with their lives, and to go there brings back traumatic memories. Even someone like myself, who was at some remove-being in midtown, not downtown-Ive never been able to bring myself to visit. The memories are too visceral. Once all of us are gone, it will become a place to simply learn about that day, without any fraught associations, but it will be many years before that happens.
I totally agree-- and also from Long Island! I actually just wrote a post about this before I read yours. I was a the memorial pools this summer and it was all I could do to control my tears in front of my young son. The laughing, festive, selfie-takers were appalling to me. Why do New Yorkers put up with this? It made me so sad.
@@carolinebilliot2298 I was also 6 around the time, and I have this bizarre powerpuff girls diary where I in broken 6 year old english talk about my day on 911, basically " I went home because something bad happened" and also a page about "Saddam Hussein" a name i must have heard on the news and blamed even tho i had no idea what was going on. I look it every so often and just remember how weird it is to see that era from a 6 year old's perspective..
In the early 1980's I worked as a park ranger at Andersonville NHP in Georgia, site of the infamous Civil War prison. I guess you could classify it as a strange tourist destination (albeit an important part of history) that had no end of many folks anxious to see and learn all about it. A wonderful place to see even today and now also home to the National POW Museum as well. NOTE: The commandant of the camp "Henry Wirz" was tried and convicted for "War Crimes" after the war.
Unlike any of the union commanders of "'hellmira" , Camp Rathbun at Elmira, N.Y
@@ryann8680 Or Camp Douglas in Chicago. That was a war crime too. The North could have easily fed their prisoners unlike the blockaded South.
When we went to DC in eighth grade, we went to the Holocaust museum. It was such a sobering experience and one I’ll never forget. Everyone talks about the room with the shoes and hair (which are incredibly important of course) but I’ve never seen anyone talk about what I call the “Picture Room.” It’s a cylinder-shaped room that stretches from the bottom level of the museum all the way up to the ceiling, and the walls have thousands of framed photos of the victims, some with little descriptions of who they were and what became of them. I just remember stopping and standing there for a long time. Everyone was quiet when we got back on the bus, and I don’t think I’ll every forget it.
"Looking at you, Thomas Cook"
Not any more, duckie, not any more... o.o
I live in Salem MA so in a sense you could say I'm surrounded by death tourism (the witch trials and hangings). Overall I'd say things are pretty respectful here. There's a memorial downtown that people often leave flowers at and the city has held remembrance services there. But obviously at the end of the day this is a city making money off the fact that people died. That's why people come here and how the city got famous. But if you go to the right places there's a lot of education to be had too, both on Salem's history and on what modern day witchcraft is so I think it's a good thing and it really helps the city's economy.
I went to Pearl Habor when I was 12 and listened to a survivor talk. It was moving and emotional. I went to Westminster Abbey at 16 and it was historically fascinating. These things are not based on drawing people to it by the horror of what was done to the victims. Somethings are okay, but others are just tacky.
I've been to Little Bighorn, where there was a live presentation on the context behind the battle, a museum and memorials placed where the combatants died, native American and US cavalry.