Do You Hate To Go to Museums?
It’s impossible to please everyone. Even the finest institutions struggle to make every guest happy—just look at the reviews complaining of long lines, large crowds, and curt security guards on sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor. But the toughest customers to leave reviews seem to have missed the point of the places they’ve visited entirely.
1. “I HATE ART, I HATE TOUR GUIDES, AND I HATE THEM FOR TAKIN DOWN THE ROCKY STATUE.”
Dali. Degas. Manet. Monet. All of these artists are present at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. But the best piece of art at the museum, according to this Yelp reviewer, was the Rocky statue, which was moved from the top of the museum steps to the bottom in 2006. (Sic from here on out.) “i hate them for takin down the rocky statue,” she wrote. “I would reccommend the place if u like sober tour guides and borin naked art sculptures… trust me that all there is…”
2. “I EXPECTED SIGHTS FROM NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM.”
4. “THE STUFF HERE CAN PROBABLY BE SEEN ANYWHERE. LIKE ANY RIPLEY’S BELIEVE IT OR NOT WORTH ITS SALT.”
The original collection that makes up Philadelphia’s Mutter Museum of Medical Oddities was donated by Thomas Dent Mutter, a surgeon who pioneered plastic surgery for burn victims, to the Philadelphia College of Physicians in 1858. In addition to a number of wax figures (many collected by Mutter himself), the museum includes the conjoined livers of Chang and Eng Bunker, pieces of Einstein’s brain, and the tallest skeleton on exhibit in North America. It was all very dull to this “super, super easy to please” Yelp reviewer, who wrote that “The stuff here can probably be seen anywhere. Like any Ripley’s Believe It Or Not worth its salt.” (Probably not, actually.)
A reviewer on TripAdvisor was similarly underwhelmed, complaining that “This museum is basically two floors of skulls, more skulls, and fetuses in jars … To appreciate the things this place offers, you need to have an interest in the medical field … I thought I was going to see cool things—like a fork stuck in an esophagus and things like that.” Yes, a woman whose body became encased in soap in its grave totally pales in comparison to a fork stuck in an esophagus.
5. “THERE IS NOTHING PARTICULARLY UNIQUE OR FASCINATING AND THE ROOMS … ARE LARGELY UNIMPRESSIVE.”
There’s a lot you could say about Chateau Versailles, the palace away from palace of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. That its many opulent rooms are unimpressive probably isn’t one of them, but this TripAdvisor reviewer would beg to differ: “The building is impressive but inside less so,” the hall of mirrors being the one exception. “Would I recommend this attraction. If you have never visited a royal residence with extensive grounds or are particularly interested in French royal history then yes. But if you have been to other sites such as those in Bavaria or Britain, then Versailles has nothing to add.”
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