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I agree that it's a bit inappropriate to be playing at somber museums and memorials but I place the blame on the developers who allowed Pokemon to "appear" in those locations.
Even without Pokemon Go people are frequently smiling, laughing, and taking happy selfies, group and individually, in front of the 9/11 Memorial so really...
JerseyGirl, I live in CA but went to the 9/11 Memorial in 2014. I left disgusted. I talked to one of the security guards who had to keep telling people to get their a**es off the names memorial. I also saw people smiling and taking selfies and laughing like they were at Disneyland. Mostly younger people.
Perhaps when this country gets whacked again, it won't be so nonchalant to them.
I see it differently. Going to a museum like the Holocaust Museum may be a once in a life time activity. I'd prefer my children look around and learn something. Sometimes you get that one kid who is sick of it all and doesn't want to participate. The Pokemon game could get them to go and not be a fuss bucket for the rest of the family. I know when we took a vacation to the Washington DC area, we had to take a day off to refocus and reenergize so drove over to the Beach in Delaware instead. My kids had been good all week.
As far as taking selfies in front of memorials. I'm not sure I see a problem with it. I'm neutral. Most of us are going to take a picture as a souvenir. I don't think you have to take a 'sad face' photo. It may be a 'solemn place', but some of these places are set up to bring a picnic and hang out a little while. Usually you do that with family or friends so it's not going to be quiet.
How do you feel about people plopping their rear ends on the names of those who died? I find it disgusting.
How about just going and not taking selfies? Walk around, look at the names, say a prayer if you're inclined to do so, and show some respect?
Quote:
Originally Posted by JerseyGirl415
I guess maybe you haven't been to the 9/11 Memorial then and seen the blatant disrespect and apparent lack of understanding of the gravity of the site that some display. It's literally a gravesite for nearly 3000 people. So many people were never found, not even a single bone fragment. I know people whose husbands and dads were never found. Went to work and disappeared. Disintegrated.
I don't necessarily have an issue with pictures even selfies, but it's the behavior some exhibit while they're doing it. As if they're in a park, so carefree and clueless and happy. I'm fine with documenting the moment but there's a way to do it. I'm not saying you should walk around the Memorial crying the whole time, but I wouldn't be laughing in a group of fellow tourists and taking upbeat group photos with the reflecting pool as my backdrop, as if I was at the beach with friends, posing and giving my friends bunny ears. I don't know, I guess for me being where I'm from with New York being my city I just find it exceptionally disrespectful. Some people just don't get it, and never will. Maybe they never can.
The 9/11 Memorial and others and other somber museums for terrible events isn't the Statue of Liberty or Central Park. There's a time and a place for the happy go lucky touristy behavior. Put the camera down for a second and really reflect on what happened there. Save the happy selfies and endless laughing in your own little bubble for another site. I worked near the Memorial for almost a year and walked by it every time on my way in. And "by it" means on the sidewalk right next to it, so I was basically right there, on the West Side Highway/West Street for anyone who knows the area at all, at Liberty Street. So I always, I mean always, saw blatant disrespect and overly happy idiot tourists who clearly just didn't get it. There's a way to act at a place like that.
It would be like me taking happy selfies and laughing with my friends at Auschwitz. I don't have any personal connection to the Holocaust or the site, so why not? Except I'm not like that. I understand what happened there and I respect it, I walk around quietly and reflectively and I am somber because I know what I'm walking on and why I am there. I'm not playing Pokemon Go like some idiot who hasn't a clue of the gravity of the site. I guess I just take this stuff kind of seriously.
That's exactly what I saw. And I even made the comment to someone, I guess these same people would behave this way if they toured a former concentration camp.
The lack of respect and civility today is very disturbing.
Just because one calls it a "fad" & doesn't "get it"....that's not my problem at all. And you think people are completely ignoring everything else that's going on around them? The people at Disney, for example, you don't think they were going on rides & snapping pics with Mickey & Minnie instead of Charizard?
I am tired. My legs are sore. Why? Because my little brother & sister and I walked/ran like crazy at the local park catching Pokèmon. That's exercise we wouldn't have gotten otherwise. And we went on TUESDAY, not yesterday!
well I'm almost 90 and I say Bupkis! why can't everyone find a more simple past time like we did when we were young like chasing after a rolling hoop or poking sticks through the fence at an angry dog or playing with match sticks out behind the shed.
I totally disapprove of this new fangled thing! by the way...what is it?
Oh, for goodness sake, the kids are out having fun! We had a brief conversation about appropriate sites for the game and safety, and then we set them off. My husband and daughter spent a couple of hours last night at the very large park down the street playing the game, and they met a lot of neighbors, young and old, doing the same thing. They had a ball! Let it go already.
Playing is okay. Playing at a Holocaust Memorial site is NOT okay.
I'm not saying I wasn't affected. I'm saying I wasn't affected in the same way you were. That doesn't mean I don't have an emotion there. I have a different perspective because even as an American I was somewhat of an outsider looking in. What you find disrespectful isn't necessarily the same for me.
This is understandable.
But I think you won't know just quite what I mean until you go there. And I strongly recommend you do, if you can. You will see some people doing things that will probably make you do a double take and wonder what the hell is wrong with them. Trust me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by seain dublin
JerseyGirl, I live in CA but went to the 9/11 Memorial in 2014. I left disgusted. I talked to one of the security guards who had to keep telling people to get their a**es off the names memorial. I also saw people smiling and taking selfies and laughing like they were at Disneyland. Mostly younger people.
Perhaps when this country gets whacked again, it won't be so nonchalant to them.
Sadly, nothing surprises me anymore.
Quote:
Originally Posted by seain dublin
How do you feel about people plopping their rear ends on the names of those who died? I find it disgusting.
How about just going and not taking selfies? Walk around, look at the names, say a prayer if you're inclined to do so, and show some respect?
That's exactly what I saw. And I even made the comment to someone, I guess these same people would behave this way if they toured a former concentration camp.
The lack of respect and civility today is very disturbing.
Very well said Jersey Girl.
You got it right, thank you. Some people can be astonishingly disrespectful, and I think many people can agree that sitting on the names (when there are benches everywhere, mind you) on the pools and being just overly giddy and LOLing and taking happy group selfies as if they're posing in front of the Grand Canyon are definitely disrespectful behaviors.
I wish that they'd put one of those things at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington so we could see videos of dimwits getting set straight by the guard.
Or maybe at John Paul Jones' crypt at the Naval Academy.
How do you feel about people plopping their rear ends on the names of those who died? I find it disgusting.
How about just going and not taking selfies? Walk around, look at the names, say a prayer if you're inclined to do so, and show some respect?
That's exactly what I saw. And I even made the comment to someone, I guess these same people would behave this way if they toured a former concentration camp.
This reminds me of something I heard at one of the world's largest Holocaust memorials: the Yad VaShem Museum in Jerusalem, Israel.
The museum employee was talking in a very passionate, almost aggressive voice. She said something like: "Don't think of Yad VaShem as a museum. It's not a collection of photos and artifacts. You're inside a resting place. It's as close to a cemetery as six million people will ever have! We gave them something Nazis tried to take away from them: a marker and a name!"
(Side note: Giving a proper burial is one of the topmost requirements in Judaism. Also, the museum's name translates into English as "a marker and a name".)
Her words made a big impression on me. There wasn't a dry eye in my tour group. Also, that was in 2006, long before the word "selfie" ever entered our vocabulary. So anyone who wouldn't play Pokemon Go on cemetery grounds shouldn't be doing so on Holocaust or 9/11 memorials.
It's actually quite boring of a game and buggy. Nintendo has good ideas but always weak on execution.
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