Originally published at: It's not love, it's littering: NPS asks tourists to stop with the locks | Boing Boing
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It’s refreshing to see someone attempting to discourage the sort of love that actually is a crime against nature, for once.
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Cue the outrage from the maga crowd.
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Objects are thrown from the rim every day.
It’s too bad metal detectors are forbidden in many state parks. I’d totally help out if I could bring one on vacation.
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Prague based YouTubers Honest Guide have been speaking out against love locks on their channel:
First time I encountered them I thought they were kind of a cute sentiment. I’m a fan of street art and the first few I saw were nicely decorated. Soon I started seeing them everywhere when I traveled and began to see them as just a more wasteful form of tagging. Learning it’s also impacting wildlife makes it abundantly clear that it’s not cool to do.
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People think putting a lock on fencing at viewpoints is a great way to show love for another person. It’s not.
But I need to make my visit to a national park all about me! How can I do that if I don’t get to do some performative, meaningless horseshit??
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This “love lock” thing is just out of control. I remember when it was a novelty with a couple European bridges, which was bad enough, and now, what - every single fence is considered fair game for locks? That’s bad enough (someone has to cut them down or the weight causes fences to collapse, people get snagged on them, plus they’re just unsightly), but they’re littering, too? I just don’t get people. It’s so self-centered, to the point where it seems like there’s a level of solipsism involved too. It seems like a common mindset with tourists - every tourist sees themselves as the center of a narrative that’s all about them, and it’s not a big deal if they do X, because it’s only one person doing it. (But then, if there’s undeniable evidence other people have done it, that also becomes proof it’s acceptable behavior.)
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Humans, as a species, are superstitious and irrational and for the most part, can’t see beyond their own noses to the impacts they have on others, to society or to the planet. It’s the reason climate change is such an intractable problem even though the solutions are so damn simple.
I’m reminded of the passenger throwing coins into the plane’s engine for “luck”.
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IIRC love locks are a nice little earner for souvenir shops that sell padlocks at inflated prices to tourists.
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I’m wondering what the recycle value is for a box full of locks?
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i’m sure that makes them feel “authorized” and normalized by the majority of people who don’t really think two seconds about the possible consequences. since they can buy them it must be fine, i’m sure the thinking goes.
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ok, i 100% get it, but calling them “graffiti” is a bit over the top.
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Vandalism is a more appropriate term.
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I haven’t followed all the links in this thread, so forgive me if this was covered, but I seem to recall that in some of the more popular places in Europe, the souvenir shops sell locks that are all keyed the same. Then at night, they reclaim their locks from the bridge and sell them again the next day.
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Wouldn’t surprise me. In any case, most of these locks are so cheap that you don’t need a key. A comb pick and a twist of the wrist will likely remove most of them.
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That wouldn’t work if people have written messages on the locks.
The uniform keying would help municipal workers who have to remove the locks, though. They wouldn’t need to use bolt cutters.
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A designated love lock fence with a deposit spot for the key seems like a great idea for a bunch of these places where they locked are commonly placed. And then of course is the extra revenue from selling the locks at absurd mark up.
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Yeah, graffiti is, or at least can be, a wonderful art form. One of the things I loved about Kansas City is that it embraced and celebrated its graffiti.
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