Describe your image.
Describe your image.
Describe your image.
Youth culture,
Adrenaline,
& the influence of Social Media
feat. Ewan
date. 2017
city. Sydney
Property managers and City Councils are not the only ones who share a taste of dislike towards Urbex activities.
I have a friend called Rei. He has a genuine passion for understanding different kinds of subcultures, but when I asked about Urbexing, he described this activity as "Meaningless, unsafe and a toxic practice driven by adrenaline-fuelled young adults and social media response."
The Cost of Social Media LIKEs ❤️
In 2015, famous Instagramer Krill Oreshkin accidentally fell from the roof when taking photos, believed to be taking the Spiderman-style selfies before his death. In the same year, Conner, a 24-year-old New Yorker, slipped off from the 52-storey high roof of the Four Seasons Hotel in Manhattan.
A study from Carnegie Mellon University shows that in 2014, 15 people lost their lives when taking selfies. The number has risen to 39 people in 2015, followed by an increase of 73 people in the first 8 months of 2016. The deceased all have a common characteristic: their average age is 21 years old, with 76% of them being male; and amongst all, most of the fatalities were caused by UrbExing.
The arrest of UK’s famous urban explorer, Dr Bradley Garret - who receives world-wide fame after climbing the London landmark tower The Shard during its construction in 2012 - went on trial on charges of conspiring to commit criminal damage in regards to visiting various disused London underground tube stations for his PhD research in geography at Oxford University. Although the city of London spared him a jail sentence, Garrett’s arrest highlighted a prominent and continuing conflict between urban explorers and the state on the legality and validity of their activities.
Yet the soft penalties, lax policing, poor security and a fatalistic streak continue to heat up to this deadly craze. It seems like a matter of time before a child is seriously injured or killed as a result of this perilous trend. If the chance of getting caught or putting themselves in danger is so high, why would there be an increasing amount of people that choose to get themselves involved with this trend?
Fermentation of media-driven fame & popularity
Except for fulfilling curiosity and serving as a recreation of spare time, trespassing also represents a sense of social defiance. “It’s a kind of protest against existing social conventions, orders and governance, especially against UrbEx being treated as illegal conduct.” said Rei. Through reaching the rooftops, these UrbExers have attained a new space distinct from the existing social space.
However, the initiative or incentive has been increasingly influenced by the commercialisation and disseminative capacity of social media nowadays. On Instagram, a simple search of the term #urbex reveals over one million results from all over the world. UrbExers are often enthusiastically rewarded with millions of likes, driving a sense of celebrity and rivalry. One of the most famous female Urbexers Angela Nikolau has gained 493k followers, and the number is still increasing. Brands like Nike and magazines like GQ haven't been slow to spot this viral potential. UrbExers say they have received free clothing, accessories and pays to film themselves on top of a building, or a bridge.
Image from @angela_nikolau on Instagram
Image from @angela_nikolau on Instagram
A single photo will hit 22k+ likes
Video from @Elevation on YouTube
Construction crane climbing in HK, by Angela Nikolau
In 2015, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia implemented a Selfie Safety Policy, which issued a warning against various dangerous selfie-taking conduct, including the said act with wild animals, firearms, and when climbing telegraph pole. Unsurprisingly, Urbex is one of the discouraged behaviours. The act associated with the most fatalities is “taking selfie with running trains”. Urbexers attempt to garner attention by standing on the railway to capture a shot with an approaching train, and escape at the very last second.
Image from @6ixty4our on Instagram
The first wave of UrbExers were in fact photography enthusiasts, they climb onto these skyscrapers to film the city from an one-of-a-kind perspective. For example, for creators like @livejn, it all comes down to an expression of art and an inspiration to the world. @livejn wrote on his Instagram post caption that “I believe we are more strongly motivated by love rather than by fear. I want to inspire the rest of the world to come from that positive state of mind and that is…what I have to give to this world.”
Image from @livejn on Instagram
"Therefore, when looking at the accumulating amount of likes on social media pages, the 40-storey high construction cranes and scaffolds become not that insane or scary anymore." said Rei. Due to the commercial effect brought by the media, this extreme sport is gradually deteriorating to a mere fatal performance of recklessness, a comparison of “bravery”.
Some become entranced with the idea of being a ‘daredevil’, and the dangerous practice becomes custom for later generations of UrbExers.
Some take part in this deadly trend just to gain social media fame. The posting and popularity of these rooftop photos seem to have outweighed actual love or passion toward this activity. “There is definitely a group of people, who are completely uninterested in UrbEx, nonetheless chose to follow this mainstream social media trend for reasons like public attention and social standing.” Rei said.
He then expressed his concerns to me by making an interesting analogy between UrbExing and professional eSports gamers, claiming that the potential commercial profits behind the activities have made their participants too “utilitarian”. “Many young people now shift their focus from studying to playing computer games, seeing this growing industry of competitive video gaming as a ‘legitimate excuse’ for playing games." He said. "But the truth is, they have no idea of the enormous pressure and the short career life faced by eSports gamers."
The similar mindset applies to Urbexing. Young people want to be famous, and Urbex seems to be a relatively faster and easier way. This facilitates more people to blindly follow the trend without clear understanding of the potential risk involved; or, they will do so even with full acknowledgement of the risk, disregarding the true beauty of this activity. When one starts to measure something with material or fame gained, then it’s hard for them to truly love it anymore.
"Although everything inherently carries with it some degree of commercial effect, when this effect is combined with rivalry, peer pressure, constant comparisons or the 'keeping-up-with-the-Jones' mentality, it will cause a negative social ethos." said Rei. "And this is why even if I think Urbex is not so severe that it should be subject to punitive penalties, it is still an activity that should be controlled and monitored because of its bad influence to the mass public especially the younger generation."
Image from @6ixty4our on Instagram