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moonvoiceWithin like two weeks of visiting this place, an article was released that talked about how families and people trying to get selfies etc. were literally ruining huge sections of Hadrian's Wall (followed by a picture of a partially collapsed wall). This caused one of the people on my friend's list over at Facebook (who is demonstrably older) to complain about the 'instagram generation' and how everything is always their fault and they don't respect a thing and they're ruining every site ever.
What they sort of fail to mention is that Hadrian's Wall is super long, a lot of sections are unsupervised, and that it's often *large families* who try and stand on the wall for a photo, and it's sometimes the parents and grandparents (and categorically NOT the instagram generation) who are creating these scenarios.
Anyway, honestly, there's a fine line between 'attracting tourists to get the funding to maintain the site' and 'attracting too many tourists that the site gets degraded.' There's no perfect way to maintain that line, and many of these places are underfunded, semi-owned or completely owned by rich folk, or not even protected at all. The sweet spot is impossible to perfectly keep, because you never know if it's going to be that class of schoolchildren that rambled everywhere all over the site, or if it was that couple, or that one family that will be the breaking point.
But short of fencing it off completely, like Stonehenge (which I don't think is the answer, honestly), these sites will degrade. They're historical artefacts. They can't not. That's what time does. Like, sure, it sucks that people are walking all over them, and maybe there needs to be more signage telling people how to respect the sites (there's zero signage of this nature, anywhere that we could see), and maybe you need to fence some of them off, I don't know.
But it isn't only the Instagram generation that's a problem. It never has been. Since there have been cameras, there have been people willing to be rude with those cameras. (And plenty who are rude without).
Oh look, some seating! Rogue seating! (There was a decent amount near the actual museum, which was cool, I sat on one bench for aaaaages and met two cats).
I was in love with the clouds, as is usual for me.
Next, the museum, with SO MANY PAGAN ALTARS YOU GUYS. SO MANY.
What they sort of fail to mention is that Hadrian's Wall is super long, a lot of sections are unsupervised, and that it's often *large families* who try and stand on the wall for a photo, and it's sometimes the parents and grandparents (and categorically NOT the instagram generation) who are creating these scenarios.
Anyway, honestly, there's a fine line between 'attracting tourists to get the funding to maintain the site' and 'attracting too many tourists that the site gets degraded.' There's no perfect way to maintain that line, and many of these places are underfunded, semi-owned or completely owned by rich folk, or not even protected at all. The sweet spot is impossible to perfectly keep, because you never know if it's going to be that class of schoolchildren that rambled everywhere all over the site, or if it was that couple, or that one family that will be the breaking point.
But short of fencing it off completely, like Stonehenge (which I don't think is the answer, honestly), these sites will degrade. They're historical artefacts. They can't not. That's what time does. Like, sure, it sucks that people are walking all over them, and maybe there needs to be more signage telling people how to respect the sites (there's zero signage of this nature, anywhere that we could see), and maybe you need to fence some of them off, I don't know.
But it isn't only the Instagram generation that's a problem. It never has been. Since there have been cameras, there have been people willing to be rude with those cameras. (And plenty who are rude without).
Oh look, some seating! Rogue seating! (There was a decent amount near the actual museum, which was cool, I sat on one bench for aaaaages and met two cats).
I was in love with the clouds, as is usual for me.
Next, the museum, with SO MANY PAGAN ALTARS YOU GUYS. SO MANY.
no subject
Date: 2019-06-24 02:55 pm (UTC)It's a long time since I last walked the wall!
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Date: 2019-06-25 01:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-06-25 06:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-06-26 01:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-06-28 01:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-06-28 04:20 am (UTC)I like to think that there are also a whole new generation of tourists who are also learning how to be respectful, thanks to greater circulation of articles about animal behaviour etc. For every gif of a dog that is clearly terrified captioned with 'naw look how guilty he is', there are thankfully articles and pictures and images talking about how to read and respect animals, and Youtube videos on how to interact better with cats etc.
It's all a very mixed bag indeed.